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2/4/2015
How I Sell Stock Footage
I would like to preface this article by saying a few things.
1. Selling stock footage isn't a guaranteed way of creating an income. 2. In comparison to other's I'm a beginner stock footage seller. With that out of the way lets begin. What is Stock Footage? Stock footage is a video clip that can be bought by anyone online. And be used by them legally. Why stock footage? Think of it this way. What would a News station do to get a 5 second shot of a town? Send one of their videographers out to the town to get the shot. What would the expenses of this be? Travel costs, shooting costs and editing costs. Or Purchase a 5 second clip online? What would the expenses be? $5- $100, depending on the clip they want. So now you see the market of selling stock footage lets begin. Where to sell Stock Footage? There are hundreds of places to sell your stock footage. Each website has its ups and downs. The best stock footage sites on the internet, in my opinion are. Pond5 Pond5 is the stock footage site I use. It gives you 50% of the price of the clip. So if your $100 clip sells you get $50. ShutterStock I am considering signing up for ShutterStock. ShutterStock gives you 30% of the clip price. This a lower rate than Pond5, that is why I am using Pond5 only. iStock iStock gives you 16% of the video price. This really puts me off using iStock. I can't see how I would make money. All three of these site are great and will be a brilliant place to upload your clips. Ideally you would want to upload to all three sites. I would love to do this but I cannot dedicate so much time to videography. I would rather put that time towards articles or school work. Pricing your Stock Footage Now that you have signed up to a stock footage site it is time to sell your footage. And before this you need to set a price for your footage. There is a big argument around whether to price your clips low or high. One side of the argument argues that low prices mean people will buy your clips more. This sounds like common sense but other people argue otherwise. The other side of the argument is that high priced clips will sell better because it gives the impression of being better quality. This also sounds like common sense. I believe that selling your stock footage at a higher price works better. I believe this for one reason. If i worked at a News station and had a $50 budget I would spend that on a clip that is close to $50. I would try and use all the money because 95% the clips that are high quality are expensive. You can use what ever method you want. I actually use a system that involves both arguments. I would put my clips on Pond5 and price them appropriately, $50 give or take. I always post my clips at this price range because they are high quality. I do make exceptions for some clips. Some clips I have are extremely rare to get hold of and impossible to setup. For example here is my rarest shot. Now that you have priced your clip, what is next? Key Wording Key wording is the process of writing words that are related to your clip. These word are what makes people find your video. Put yourself in the position of a buyer, you are looking to buy a clip of a spider in a web. What would you enter into the search bar? Large spider in spiderweb. Scary spider on a cobweb. These are the types of keywords you want to be using. For example, if I were posting a clip of a young male teenage running in a field, I would use the keywords. Person, male, teenager, boy, running, jogging, exercise, workout, field, environment, sport, run, jog. And so on. All sites limit your number of keywords so be careful with what you type. Pond5 limits you to 50 keywords. From my experience you want to try and use all the available keywords. This will help you get your content out there. You're now so close to pressing the upload button. But there is another step. Model Release If your shot contains recognisable people in it you need a model release. A model release is the signature of your actor on a piece of paper giving you permission to make money from them. If your video doesn't contain anyone you can ignore this. There are hundreds of model release forms on the internet. Just make your forms says something along the line of "I give (your name) permission to use media of me, to make money (signature of actor). You're now at the end of the quest to selling stock footage. The only thing left to do is press submit for upload. This means that someone will review your work and check if it is eligible to be on their site. This process can take 3 days to 3 weeks. It all depends how busy the site you are uploading to is. 1 Week later... "Congratulations your videos have be processed and are now online". But wait there is more. Sometimes you might get your clip rejected. Normal procedure is to get a email explaining why it is rejected. If you get this unfortunate email remember to take their advice on what made it get rejected. Try to avoid filming what they say. Conclusion Now you have one video online. And you expect money to roll in. But nothing is happening. Why? Stock footage is a big industry and it is competitive. I would be astonished if your first video sold in a month. My first video took 3 months to sell. Don't expect money to roll in the door. It just wont happen immediately. Slowly build up your videos and maybe when you have 100 videos online you might get a download a week (if you're lucky). Remember be patient when selling stock footage. Why I upload and sell Stock Footage? 1. As an excuse to bring my camera everywhere. I love filming so I need an excuse to take up room in the car. The most important thing about videography is you enjoy yourself. I don't care about the money in stock footage. I hope it comes but I'm not disappointed if I don't make a lot of money. I just enjoy taking videos. 2. Money. I did just say I don't care about the money. I know. And I don't care. But at the end of the day it does help to have a little bit of encouragement from money. But like I have said before don't expect too much money, it won't come in the beginning There you go thats why I shoot and upload stock footage. Why do you want to shoot stock footage? It's important to ask yourself this. Get your intentions clear in your head. I would not recommend having the mindset of making money. I believe you will give up quickly. Have the mindset of having fun and enjoying yourself. And when the money comes be proud. I think that covers everything you need to know about stock footage/video. Contact me if you think there is something I need to update or change. |