150 Twenty Tips and Tricks to Winning on Microstocks
If you follow Tip 10, then it will already be obvious that people
shots feature heavily among the most popular images, so if you can
enlist the help of those you know as models, then you are off to a
fl ying start in your microstock career. Make sure you submit a site
model release for every recognizable face in your shots. See Chapter
11 and Appendix 2 for further information.Tip 12: Upload New Work Regularly but in Small Batches
It may be better to upload small numbers of images at regular intervals
than to upload a large batch all at once. This seems to be particularly
true of subscription-based sites like Shutterstock, where buyers want
to download new material up to their daily download limit. Certainly
there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that this is the case—I have seen
the effect myself. So it is not just about quality and quantity, but fre-
quency too.
Another factor that works in favor of a “few-but-often” approach is
the risk that you may see more rejections if you upload a large batch
of images. Again, the hard evidence is thin on this, but there may be
something in it. In one sense it must be true: if a batch of your images
has a common fault—too much noise, for example—it might be better
to fi nd that out from the rejection of a small batch, when you can
catch the problem and correct it, than from a mass rejection of all your
images.
My grandfather would say that “a little of what you fancy does you
good”; maybe we should adapt that for the microstock library age to
read “a little of what they fancy will do you good”!Tip 13: Set Key Words Accurately
It truly is pointless to take fabulous stock shots if no one can fi nd
them. Good key words are essential to making sure your work can be
found. To ensure your photograph can be found among the myriad of
similar photos from other photographers, you need to make sure you
include accurate, relevant key words. These can be literal, conceptual,
general, and specifi c.
Take, for example, a photograph of a beach. Relevant literal key
words might be “beach, sand, ocean, rocks, seascape, shore, shore-
line,” etc. More conceptual keywords might include “peaceful, para-
dise, vacation.” A photo of a businessperson might include literal
words such as “businesswoman, worker, manager” and also concep-
tual keywords such as “happy, winner, successful, dominant.” You
need to include both, within reason.