Tag Archives: stock photo industry

Cradoc Photo Business Software – fotoQuote and fotoBiz

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Once you start shooting professionally, whether full or part time, you quickly realize that actually shooting photos is the smallest chunck of time you’ll spend in a given day, week or month. The majority if your time is spent with organizational tasks, such as generating estimates and invoices, keeping track of clients and contacts and marketing.

If you don’t have a good workflow for these tasks, you’ll fall behind on your efficiency and get bogged down. The more successful you are, the more you need to be on top of your tasks, so good system is essential no matter how far along you are in your business.

I’ve struggled with efficiency at times, and throughout my career, I’ve tried a number of photography business software solutions to keep me on track. I always come back to fotoBiz and fotoQuote by Cradoc Software, though. These well thought out and affordable programs give you everything you need to manage a freelance photography business.

I’ve long been a fan of Cradoc applications. Back when I shot slides, I used Cradoc Captionwriter and I first used fotoQuote over 20 years ago while working at a small stock photo agency in Boston. I’m still using it today as part of the comprehensive program fotoBiz X.

No matter if you’re a full time or part time photographer, you need a good database for clients and contacts, creating estimates and invoices, pricing your photography, tracking sales, equipment, licenses and seeing what areas of your business are giving you the best return on your investments and time. In the past, I had a number of different types of forms, databases and spreadsheets scattered all over my computer; today, all of this stuff is in handled with one program: fotoBiz.

fotoBiz X

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fotoBiz X is powerful photography business management software that does everything you need. It starts with contact management. After entering or importing your client details into the system, you can generate assignment estimates, stock quotes, invoices and over 100 other types of documents, forms, emails, letters and reports. You also have a section for prospective clients that where you keep track of your marketing efforts, and there’s even a section for stock production. This is where you can track exactly how much you put into, and get back from your photo shoots.

fotoBiz X also contains a large magazine database that shows you want certain publications charge for ad space. This can help you in your negotiation process, and it also provides basic contact information for each magazine. This can save you a huge amount of time over having to research each magazine if you’d like to submit photos or contact them for work.

Once you land a stock sale or an assignment, fotoBiz lets you easily create the proper invoice and license for that job. It keeps track of all of your open and closed invoices and lets you create reports and export the data for outside bookkeeping. There’s even a place to keep track of all of your equipment for insurance purposes. Also, fotoQuote Pro is built right into fotoBiz X.

From stock image sales and license tracking, pricing, release forms, an insurance list of all your gear, Quickbooks export, international currencies and a full activity log, fotoBiz is an indispensable tool for managing every single aspect of your photo business.

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fotoQuote Pro

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fotoQuote Pro is the definitive photography pricing guide and coaching system and it’s completely up-to-date with today’s stock photography markets, even with regards to online uses. There’s no other program like it. 

Even if you only license an occasional photo to a client, the negotiating tips and pricing calculator will likely make the program pay for itself with just one or two sales.The latest version has over 86 new categories, including 30 web categories, and it even includes a section for pricing video.

fotoQuote also has a built-in assignment photography pricing coach, which helps you establish the right price, whether you’re shooting a small editorial job or a large budget project. With 38 coaching topics, fotoQuote gives you extremely helpful negotiating tips so you can approach any job with the right information.

As I mentioned above fotoQuote comes included in fotoBiz. It also comes as a standalone version if you already have a regular photo business software management system that works for you. Every working photographer should have a copy of fotoQuote.

No matter what level of shooter you are, if you want to earn money with photography, I highly recommend checking out these two programs. I think you’ll like what you see, they’re relatively inexpensive, and invaluable with regards to how much time, money and efficiency they’ll save you. They’re available for both Mac and Windows.

If you click here and use Discount Code DB0115, you’ll receive a 10% discount on the full version of these programs.

Years of research and work went into refining these programs. They address every single aspect that a photographer might face when dealing with clients or managing the day-to-day operations of running your business in an ever changing industry. Not only will these tools and templates let you streamline your business, you’ll just look more professional every time you reach out to a client.

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Will We Ever Return to The Good Old Days of Stock Photography?

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Many photographers pine for the “good old days” of stock photography, when they made big incomes from their agency images. In those days, if a photographer had a handful of catalog images with the right agency, they could make tens of thousands of dollars each year from stock.

In a post on John Lund’s Stock Photo Blog, travel photographer Glen Allison recounts that he earned about three million dollars over a fifteen year period from the images that he had with Tony Stone. He goes on to specify that those earnings came from a collection of less than a thousand images that were licensed over 60,000 times.

Other photographers have similar stories from their tenure at the big agencies like Tony Stone, The Image Bank, FPG and Westlight. These were some of the biggest names in the industry in the 80’s and 90’s, which many consider to be the golden days of stock.

Where are those companies now? They’re all gone. Tony Stone, TIB and FPG were all bought up by Getty, while Westlight was acquired by Coribs. In fact, almost all of the big agencies of the past either closed up shop or were bought by either Getty, Corbis or Photolibrary. There are very few big independent agencies left; Canadian based Masterfile remains of the only ones.

As it stands now, if you want to be in the game, you either need to be with one of the big three, or else get in with a smaller niche agency like Alaska Stock and Aurora Photos. Or you can throw your lot in with everyone else at Alamy.

However, these days, it almost doesn’t matter what agency you’re with, since stock incomes are way down. The economic downturn has shaken up the industry so severely that some photographers are literally clueless as to whether stock will even continue to be a viable income model for their future.

Thus, the question we all want to know is, will we ever see a return to the good old days where stock photography produces the type of bread and butter income that many photographers saw in previous years?

Sadly, the answer is “not likely,” but that’s not simply because the economy is so bad. Despite what we want to hear, the stock photo industry is only following the natural trend that many business models take as they evolve.

In many ways, the stock industry is riding the same rocky road that led to the dot com boom and bust of the 90’s. Remember what happened then? People invested heavily in a relatively new industry and saw enormous returns. Eventually, the field leveled itself out, and as more people got into the tech industry, average incomes flattened. Businesses that had a solid model and highly marketable services or products continued to do well. Those that didn’t, failed.

Although the stock photography model has been around for decades, it wasn’t until the 1980’s when it really gained momentum. Before then, the industry was comprised of a relatively small number of magazine and commercial photographers who made money by licensing their assignment outtakes. By the 80’s, competition increased, as did the need for more conceptual photography, and photographers began shooting very stylized imagery specifically for stock. Quality and incomes rose sharply and the entire industry flourished.

By the 90’s, the stock photo industry as we knew it had reached maturity, and like just about every other industry, it underwent a brutal period of consolidation and reorganization as the digital age took hold. The number of potential markets increased dramatically, but that required every agency to invest heavily in new technology. The larger companies were better able to afford and adapt to the new online business model. Many of the smaller agencies simply couldn’t raise the cash and they offered themselves up for sale or struggled to remain afloat.

In order to remain competitive, agencies began experimenting with new pricing models that contrasted heavily with the traditional rights managed model, first with royalty free, and now with microstock. Although many people argue that low-ball pricing structures have hurt the industry as a whole, we need to recognize that it makes sense to offer lower licensing fees for commonplace images that are targeted for smaller, less visible markets.

Unfortunately, where the promise of rights managed exclusivity has traditionally lured high end clients in the past, the recession, combined with market saturation, has left many photo buyers turning towards royalty free and microstock imagery in unprecedented numbers. As the economy improves, we shall see how many of those clients return to using rights managed imagery again. There is actually evidence that microstock sales may have peaked.

Finally, as online technology has opened up vast new markets to image suppliers, it has also dramatically increased the number of potential contributors. What has resulted is the “Crowdsourcing” phenomenon that has also taken hold in many other content based industries as well. Crowdsourcing isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because there are a large numbers of photographers, graphic designers, musicians, artist and writers who have gained new creative outlets and income opportunities for their artistic efforts, me included.

So, bottom line, how do we as photographers deal with this rocky road? Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. As the global economy continues to climb slowly out of the recession, we can expect that some high end clients will indeed return to using higher priced, rights managed photography. Why? Because the perception of image matters.

For the same reason that some people will drive a Lexus instead of a Kia and buy their furniture at IKEA instead of at Wal Mart, clients looking to create high end content recognize that you get what you pay for. Image costs money whether we’re talking about an actual image or an automobile, and if people and companies have money, they’re usually willing to trade it for that image. It’s simple human nature. Also, read Jim Pickerell’s thoughts on why some customers will always pay more for stock.

That said, market saturation of available stock photography makes it less likely that someone will actually find and buy your image, so the key to long term success for photographers is to diversify. Photographers should still continue to contribute heavily to a good agency, but they should work hard to build their photography brand in other areas outside of traditional agency based stock as well.

This means continuing to look for a variety of assignment work, marketing imagery online with strong SEO skills, and coming up with original ways to find new clients and income streams, both globally and locally. As some industry experts maintain, photographers should even consider shooting video, as well. I have added writing to my own business model, and over the past year, it has definitely helped me increase my overall income.

Take a cue from local retailers. More than anyone, they’ve had to deal with the onslaught of low prices and endless competition on the web. The stores that remain successful are the ones that continue to find creative ways to attract and retain customers. Photographers need to do the same.

So, to answer the initial question, no, we’ll probably never see a return to the good old days of stock that we saw in the 80’s and 90’s. However, the market is still emerging, and if you continually produce quality work and get it into the hands of a good agency, you can count that income as one part of a diverse business model. In this day and age, the economy is far too complex for anyone to rely on a single revenue stream.

My Experience as a Contributor to 10 Different Stock Photo Agencies

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Frequent readers to my blog as well as those who read my posts on The Photoletariat will notice that I often write about the stock photography industry. Most of the knowledge that I draw from for my articles and posts comes from my experience as a contributor to ten different stock photo agencies during the past eighteen years. Here is a list of all the agencies that I’ve worked with, as well as a few brief notes about each one.

1. Light Sources Stock

I began my stock photo career with this small Boston agency in early 1992. Run by former photographer rep and industry expert, Pat Hunt, Light Sources licensed images to both local and national clients and put out an small agency catalog. Although small, the agency attracted a number of high profile and talented New England based photographers, including Seth Resnick.

For one year, I worked as the assistant editor for Light Sources and ran the day to day operations of the agency. During that time, they joined the newly formed Kodak Picture Exchange and became one of the first agencies in the country to license images digitally through the service.

I cut my teeth working with Light Sources. I didn’t make very much money, but I learned a great deal about the industry and improved my creative and editing eye, as well as my client negotiating skills, all of which have helped me tremendously during the rest of my career.

2-3. The Stock Solution/Ad Stock Photo

When I moved to Colorado in the mid 1990s, I signed on with this well known Salt Lake City based agency. I saw very few sales with them, though, even as they moved totally online in later years. It was still early in my career, and the quality of my photography was still evolving. Faced with a tough economy and an extremely competitive market, The Stock Solution closed it’s doors in 2007 and transferred its entire collection of imagery to the online portal Ad Stock Photo. I still have a number of images up on the site, but have yet to see a single sale.

4. Index Stock Imagery

During its late 1990s agency buying binge, Index Stock acquired Light Sources Stock. At the time, I was very excited, because it gave me a free pass into a big agency. I saw a definite increase in big during my tenure with Index over the the next few years; I made a few thousand dollars per year with and continually submitted new work every quarter.

However, by 1999, like many photographers, I had become frustrated with the Index’s late payments, their emphasis in selling to low end markets, and by the fact that they decided to switch the commission rate from 50% to 40%. I declined to sign the contract rider and accept these new terms, and terminated my contract with Index.

Ironically, though, by the mid 2000s, Index had brought Pat Hunt on as Sales Director in the New York office, and over the next few years, I actually saw a dramatic increase in residual sales of my old Index images. However, it sometimes took a year to be paid for those sales.

5. Solus

Right after terminating with Index, I got in on the ground floor with Solus Images, which was started by the former publisher of Direct Stock. In contrast to the marketing strategy that some agencies were pursuing at the time, Solus built up a boutique collection of highly conceptual images, which they marketed to high end clients with great initial success. Those images that I originally placed with Solus sold well, and have continued to earn me a rather sizable income over the years.

Unfortunately, just as things were building for Solus, the post 9/11 economy shook up the entire industry. Solus entered into a licensing agreement with Calgary based Veer, who eventually bought the Solus brand outright. The entire business was transferred to Calgary, except for my editor, Phyllis Giarnese, with whom I had developed an excellent working relationship.

6. Veer

By now, everything was online and over the next few years, Veer sales became my bread and butter agency. I received a regular stream of high end sales through them, as well as through Corbis, who was one of their main distributors. Commissions have been up and down through the recent economic slowdown, but earlier this year, I had a gross sale through Veer for over $13,000, my biggest single sale ever. Lately, though, since the Corbis restructuring, my Veer sales have plummeted and I now see average monthly commissions of less than $200.

7. Alamy

Like just about every other photographer on the planet, I have put a large number of images with UK based Alamy. An enormous distributor of imagery, Alamy sells through channels all over the world. I don’t sell often through Alamy, but I have made a few thousand dollars with them over the past few years. I seem to average about one or two sales per month.

8. Photolibrary

In 2006, Australian based Photolibrary bought Index Stock and became the third largest agency in the world. I got in with them through my former Veer editor, Phyllis, who they’d hired to be their Director of North American Content. I gave them a large batch of initial images and have been contributing heavily over the past few years.

I’ve seen my Photolibrary commissions double nearly every quarter for two solid years, with both RM and RF imagery. They appear to have a very strong sales team, and I have high hopes that this trend will continue. In a way, I have come full circle and I now find myself back with what remains of Index, and again working with Phyllis Giarnese, my old Solus editor.

9. Corbis

I signed on with Corbis in 2007 when they acquired Veer. I had high hopes for the merger and looked forward to the steady income that I was used to seeing with Veer, plus additional royalties that I would now gain through additional markets with Corbis.

A few months ago, though, Corbis made a surprising move by shifting all rights managed imagery to the Corbis side and rebranding Veer as a distributor of royalty free and microstock imagery. Unfortunately, since this change has gone through, I have seen a huge drop in my Veer income, and I have not yet seen the rights managed side of the business pick up for me with Corbis.

I remain optimistic, though, since Corbis certainly has the resources to remain competitive. They have an exceptionally strong rights managed collection, and their rebranding efforts during economic slump could end up paying off big for them as the economy bounces back. However, at this point it’s still too soon to tell how it will all play out and if they will end up attracting a large sector of high end photo buyers that used to shop at Veer for their conceptual imagery.

10. Alaska Stock

Shortly after moving to Alaska in the fall of 2008, I signed on with Alaska Stock. They’re my first local agency since Light Sources and I love the fact that I can ride my bike up to the office to deliver images, chat with the owner and staff, or discuss current industry trends and needs.

Since they’re a slightly specialized agency in a unique market, I have high hopes for long term success with Alaska Stock. They’re one of the few small independent agencies that are still going strong. I’ve been with them for just over two years and so I’m still building up a solid collection with them, but I’m starting to see regular monthly income.

As it stands now, I’m currently aligned with the second and third biggest agencies in the world (Corbis and Photolibrary), as well as an international portal (Alamy), and a specialty agency (Alaska Stock). I feel that I have a well diversified position in the marketplace, and remain positive that as the global economy continues to recover, my stock photo collections across these agencies will continue to produce a regular channel of income for me in the coming years.

If any readers have had experience with any of these agencies, especially the older ones that are no longer around, let me know!