Why I hate referrals or how to kill a photo stocker career with cats and flowers

Hello, I'm a stoker and I love money! Yes exactly. Anyone who is involved in attracting referrals to photo stocks loves money. Believe me, no one wants to share knowledge, experience, and even more so to produce competitors for free. I'm not an exception.

I really enjoy writing about how you can make money selling photos or illustrations. I love the reviews where people say that my articles and tips help them understand the business better (photo stocks are a business! get used to it) or simply inspire new photo stockers to be creative. It's really nice. I am not sorry to reveal the secrets of stocks and share my own observations and experiments. But it is doubly pleasant to receive from this not only pluses in karma, but also in the wallet.

But seriously, the scheme is simple: a photographer or illustrator who registers on a photo stock using my links becomes my referral. If a referral sells a picture or a photo, the photostock pays not only to him, but also to me. At the same time, the referral does not lose anything - a penny falls to me from the drain pocket. It’s a penny, referral payments from one sale are about $ 0.02 - $ 0.04 - big money, in short.

So today I want to express my indignation at how novice stockers ruin their careers from the very first steps.

Hi I'm a stoker and I'm a bad teacher

So, I always strongly recommend my referrals to read these two articles:

How to pass the exam. It is not difficult for a novice photo stocker to pass the exam today - many stocks have reduced the requirements so much over the past year that it becomes scary. And here beginners manage to make the first mistake - to pass the exam and ... that's it. And do nothing more. Seriously? Do you feel sorry for the time spent on registration, reading articles and instructions, selecting papers for the exam? What was all this for?

If you want to register to “see what it is”, then it’s better to pass by right away - don’t waste your time. Without effort on stocks, you will not earn a cent. And that means I won't make any money either. Do not forget that I am a mercantile person, thirsting for a luxurious life.

What to shoot for stock? And now we come to the main reason for my indignation. If you google something like “what is in demand on photo stocks”, “what to shoot on photo stocks”, then all the articles say no, they just yell in red fat capslock DO NOT POST YOUR CATS, FLOWERS AND NATURE! It would seem that there is something incomprehensible, but no - 99% of my referrals start with this.

A dozen identical photos of a cat and a dog, twice as many pictures with your favorite flower, and for complete happiness, all this is seasoned with about a hundred photos of grass, trees and the sky. I beg you: don't.

Here, of course, the question is for the moderators - why miss this, because everyone knows that 1 sale per month is the maximum for such a portfolio. But let's take this as a rhetorical question.

Yes, I adequately understand that most stocks are visited by amateurs and beginners in photography, and not by professionals who can immediately provide a high-quality and selling portfolio and they tend to make typical mistakes of photo stockers. But is it really impossible to make at least a minimum of effort to come up with something more original than kittens and twigs or watch a few photo retouching tutorials?

You don't seem to have photoshop

There are often very good shots, but they will never bring income because of their dullness, fading and lack of color. The client simply will not notice them against the backdrop of bright and saturated photographs. CTRL + U and Brightness / Contrast in Photoshop to help you! This is at least, of course.

For clarity, I wanted to attach links to some of my referrals, but the remnants of adequacy and common sense do not allow me to do this. So here are random photos of newbies (not my referrals) that clearly demonstrate what I'm talking about.

By creating such portfolios, you are killing time and your photo stock career with your own hands. Naturally, everything comes with experience, but make at least a minimum of effort to speed up the process.

For inspiration, I will show a few pictures from the portfolio with the same kittens and nature, but these works will bring their authors a decent income, do not hesitate!

By the way, this is my referral. I'm really excited and proud!

Learn to use google translate

Separately, I want to say a few words about the attribution of works. Forget about labels like "Cat" and even "Cat and window". This is one of the most common mistakes newbies make on photo stocks. Write detailed titles and descriptions of the work, a few minutes spent on this will pay off in full, believe me!

And a special hello to the authors who sign their works in the spirit of "The Essence of Being", "Summer Mood", "Serenity", "The Meaning of Life" and other art-house. I love you (no).

And, summing up all the above, here is a brief guide to working with photo stocks for beginners in photography:

1. Collect all your portfolio in one folder.
2. Delete 50% of the pictures.
3. Retouch the rest.
4. Remove another 50% of what is left.
5. Attribute the rest.
6. Remove another 99% of what's left.
7. Re-read the articles about the commercial value of photography.
8. Take your camera and shoot new footage with human models, not pets
9. Repeat steps 1-6.
10. Ship the rest to photo stocks.

If you follow all the points, there is a chance to earn your first hundred dollars.

P.S. If your pet is an alligator, then to hell with point 8 - film only the pet!