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Articles from March 2012

Flickr As A Marketing Tool

By Jim Pickerell | 1152 Words | Posted 3/30/2012 | Comments
Most professional photographers believe Flickr is a site they should avoid because someone might steal their pictures. They think of it as a place where amateurs put the pictures they want to share with family and friends. Todd Klassy is using it very effectively to market his images in his part-time photographic business.

VC’s Explore Microstock Investments

By Jim Pickerell | 560 Words | Posted 3/30/2012 | Comments
Since the beginning of 2012 there has been an explosion of interest by Venture Capitalists in investing in microstock companies. This article examines the implications.

Stock Photo Market Statistics

By Jim Pickerell | 3144 Words | Posted 3/29/2012 | Comments (4)
I’m regularly asked for information about the size of the market. This story contains a quick summary of some of the important industry statistics as well as links to related stories where I expand on these numbers. Included are Microstock colllection growth trends; iStock download and revenue trends since 2005; images licensed annually; royalty payouts; Getty return-per-image from 2003 through 2007; Asian market; customer buying behaviors and useful statistics for photographer business planning.

Growth in UIG/Encyclopaedia Britannica Image Quest Product

By Jim Pickerell | 469 Words | Posted 3/26/2012 | Comments
Universal Images Group Limited has built a database of more than 2.5 million education images for use by Encyclopaedia Britannica, in its Image Quest online subscription service for schools, colleges and universities.

Court Finds Pearson Must Reveal Print Quantities And Publication Dates

By Jim Pickerell | 505 Words | Posted 3/22/2012 | Comments
In the case of Jon Feingersh Photography, Inc. vs. Pearson Education, Inc. Judge Anita B. Brody in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has denied a request from Pearson that it not be required to release the print quantities and publication dates of the various textbooks in which 50 of Feingersh’s images were used.

Encyclopaedia Britannica Going Out Of Print

By Jim Pickerell | 478 Words | Posted 3/21/2012 | Comments
After 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica (EB) is going out of print. Sales peaked for Britannica in 1990 with 120,000 copies sold. In 2010 – the last edition – only 8,000 copies of the 32-volume set were printed and 4,000 still sit in a warehouse unsold.

Will iPads Become A Standard Fixture In The Classroom?

By Jim Pickerell | 414 Words | Posted 3/21/2012 | Comments
Recently, the results of a year long study of Algebra 1 students at the Amelia Earhart Middle School in Riverside, California were announced. The math scores of the students who were taught using Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s HMH Fuse: Algebra 1 curriculum on the iPad were 20% higher in the Spring 2011 California Standards Test than other students who were taught using traditional paper textbooks.

epa and Alamy Announce Strategic Commercial Agreement

By Jim Pickerell | 300 Words | Posted 3/20/2012 | Comments
Alamy and epa european press agency have signed a strategic commercial agreement which allows Alamy to sell epa's award winning news, sport and entertainment images including the epa archive. The images are available through Alamy’s website to key market sectors in the UK, North America and the Middle East.

Splash News Breaks Five Million Images

By Jim Pickerell | 229 Words | Posted 3/20/2012 | Comments
Splash News has an archive of more than five million images and is adding new images at a rate of 5,000 a day, up from 3,000 a day a year ago. Splash was acquired by Corbis last summer. Its images are being added to both Splashnews.com and Corbis.com.

Pricing Stock Images Based On Usage

By Jim Pickerell | 300 Words | Posted 3/18/2012 | Comments
There are a number of stories on this site that will aid you in determining what to charge for a stock photo usage. Below is a list of story titles and the number of credits required to read the entire story. Click on the detailed description link and it will take you to a short description of what is included in the full story. Click on the Story link and it will take you directly to the story and deduct the appropriate number of credits from your account.

Making Stock Photography Profitable

By Jim Pickerell | 1405 Words | Posted 3/16/2012 | Comments (1)
If your goal is to earn a full-time living from photography -- and particularly stock photography -- you need to read this series of 14 articles. They were originally written in the summer of 2010. Since then the general state of the photographic industry has continued to go downhill. These articles discuss key aspects of the business and issues that those who want to earn their living taking pictures must consider.

Fotolia Acquires Wilogo, Expands to Crowdsourced Design

By Jim Pickerell | 345 Words | Posted 3/16/2012 | Comments
Online stock photography agency Fotolia has acquired Wilogo.com, a thriving community for design crowdsourcing. The community, founded in 2006, has been connecting companies in need of design work with a community of people willing to take on the job. Wilogo positions itself as a full service crowdsourced design community able to accommodate most marketing and branding requirements of client companies.  Designers who participate have expertise in both print and web design.

Stockfreeimages.com Offers 400,000 Free Images To Designers, Webmasters and Bloggers

By Jim Pickerell | 593 Words | Posted 3/16/2012 | Comments
Dreamstime has launched Stockfreeimages.com a database of almost 400,000 royalty free image that they have culled from their primary collection. They are giving these images away for free. One of the interesting things about the image selection for this Free service is that Dreamstime has chosen to include  some of its best selling images from its primary collection.  

Too Many Images

By Jim Pickerell | 552 Words | Posted 3/15/2012 | Comments (1)
I received a marketing email from Pixmac today encouraging people to look at their Easter Egg pictures in preparation for Easter. They have 29,723 images to choose from.

Send Roger Ressmeyer To Space!

By Jim Pickerell | 381 Words | Posted 3/15/2012 | Comments
To infinity, and beyond!  Roger Ressmeyer is one of 20 candidates with the chance to win a sub-orbital space flight. All he needs is lots of votes from people like you. Roger has been passionate about going to space all is life. And wouldn’t it be great to have a professional photographer actually fly in space. With your Facebook votes you can help him fly!  Vote here (http://apps.facebook.com/spaceracecompetition/entries/147)

Pinterest.com – Another Assault On Rights

By Jim Pickerell | 345 Words | Posted 3/13/2012 | Comments
A little over a month ago we wrote about the new Internet craze call Pinterest which claims to have over 10 million users. In our story we linked to a blog post by Sean Locke where he explored the copyright infringement issues. For additional information on this hot topic read posts by Kirsten Kowalski and Allen Murabayashi.

Print On Demand

By Jim Pickerell | 1306 Words | Posted 3/12/2012 | Comments (1)
A few years ago when a photographer wanted to make his images available as posters or fine art prints he usually searched for a publisher with access to a network of retail outlets. Assuming the publisher thought the image had market potential he would normally would pay a one-time fee for the rights to make several thousand lithographic copies of an image and through retail contacts make the product available for customers to purchase. The Internet and Print-On-Demand (POD) technology has dramatically changed this market.

Getty Images Historic Trends

By Jim Pickerell | 529 Words | Posted 3/10/2012 | Comments
This article provides links to several stories that track the historical sales of Getty Images and may be useful in understanding sales trends of the company.

A Win-Win In Educational Licensing

By Jim Pickerell | 1212 Words | Posted 3/7/2012 | Comments (1)
Image creator success stories in the current educational publishing environment are few and far between. The strategy one photographer used when licensing educational re-use of an image may be instructive.

Pond5 Reaches 1 Million Stock Video Clips

By Jim Pickerell | 264 Words | Posted 3/7/2012 | Comments
Pond5, the pioneering online marketplace for stock media and creative components, announced today that the one-millionth clip had been added to its stock video collection, making Pond5 by far the largest and fastest-growing collection of royalty-free video on the Web. The site also offers millions of stock images, audio files, and other creative components for use as raw material in media productions of all types.

iStockphoto Provides Themes On iGoogle

By Jim Pickerell | 226 Words | Posted 3/6/2012 | Comments
iStockphoto has announced a partnership with iGoogle to provide users a new selection of beautiful and immersive full-page themes. Initially, there are more than 30 themes in the iGoogle Themes library.

Robert Harding Acquires Specialist Stock

By Jim Pickerell | 238 Words | Posted 3/5/2012 | Comments
Robert Harding World Imagery www.robertharding.com, a travel and global imagery specialist agency has acquired Specialist Stock.  Specialist Stock is a comprehensive collection of environmental and nature themed still photos and footage that is regularly licensed to international broadcasters, publications and the education sector.

Video And The Tools

By Jim Pickerell | 201 Words | Posted 3/2/2012 | Comments
Anyone asking themselves whether or not they should get into video should look at Corey Rich’s videos “WHY” and “HOW of WHY.” Corey is a filmmaker/photographer as well as a teacher. Yes, these videos were made to promote and sell the Nikon D4, but for the interested filmmaker they go far beyond that.

AP Images Represented By Imaginechina

By Jim Pickerell | 84 Words | Posted 3/2/2012 | Comments
As of March 1, 2012 Imaginechina will be representing the images of The Associated Press in the mainland China market.

Future Of Licensing

By Jim Pickerell | 1404 Words | Posted 3/1/2012 | Comments (1)
ASMP’s “The Future of Licensing” webinar with Frederic Haber, of the Copyright Clearance Center; Henry Oh, entrepreneur and digital content distributor; Eugene Mopsik, Executive Director of ASMP and Richard Kelly, moderator was held yesterday and can be downloaded here. Licensing was defined as a process that allows a customer to use something that is too expensive for them to own outright.

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This stock photography news site focuses on the business side of photography with a special emphasis on stock photography. Our goal is to help photographers maximize their earnings based on the quality of their work and the commitment they are prepared to make to the trade. The information provided will be applicable to part-timers as well as full time professional photographers. We’ll leave it to others to teach photographers how to take better pictures.

Jim Pickerell launched his career as a photographer in 1963. In 1990 he began publishing a regular newsletter on stock photography. In 1995 the information was made available online as well as in print and was gradually expanded to a daily service. Click here for Pickerell's full biography.

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