Hello, 2023

Hey there!

Happy new year! This is the first ever Footager newsletter… So if you’re getting this, thank you for becoming the OGs. This will be a weekly newsletter where I’ll unpack things like:

• Tips for creating and selling stock footage
• 30,000 ft. views of what’s going on in the industry
• Insights into my own journey & what’s working for me

So let’s jump in!

Here’s what’s in this week’s email:

• Trends to watch in 2023
• iStock’s 2023 download rate cards
• Tip: consistency is key

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Trends to watch in 2023

When people ask me what trends to get on with selling stock video, my usual answer is that if you’re shooting for a trend, you’ve already missed it. I’ll go into that more some other time, but for now, here are some things I think will continue trending relevant in 2023:

• Diversity. It feels a bit cliché, but there is always room for more footage of diversity of ethnicities in footage. This trend will continue this year as more businesses both jump into using video marketing, and continue to get on board with integrating diversity into how they position their brands in the marketplace.
• Climate. Did you know that stock footage is used ALL THE TIME in news, documentaries, and education? With climate change being a hot topic (pardon the pun), footage will continue to be wanted in this category. When creating footage in this vein, think outside the box — it doesn’t have to be clips of wind turbines and solar panels. It can be of sustainable practices like backyard/urban gardening, anything illustrating extreme effects of weather change (like flooding), or people recycling or picking up trash.
• Business. As cheesy as business-related stock footage tends to be, I don’t think this is a trend that will go away any time soon. There’s so much content being produced that needs a variety of clips.
• Relationships. The world is still in recovery mode from the pandemic, and a byproduct of that is a big focus on connection and its relation to our emotional wellbeing.

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iStock’s 2023 Download Rate Cards

If you’re an iStock contributor, you likely got an email from Getty on Sunday headlined “2023 iStock Exclusive Download Targets and Rate Card” — here’s what it’s all about.

In a nutshell, iStock pays different royalty percentages based on the number of downloads you’ve reached during the calendar year.. if you’re an exclusive contributor.

If you’re non-exclusive, their royalty rate is 20%. Yeah, one of the lowest in the industry. 😬

If you’re exclusive, and that means your clips on iStock are only on iStock, you can earn between 25-45% per sale. That sounds nice, but this is yet one more reason in my book to not sell exclusive. You have to hit 45,675 downloads in the calendar year to start getting 45% royalties per sale.

I had around 138 downloads at iStock in 2022. To reach 45,675+ downloads during a year, you’d probably have to have several hundred thousand clips online.

TL;DR — think twice before taking the bait on iStock’s “high” royalty rates for exclusive clips.

Shutterstock does something similar, but across the board (not just for exclusive contributors). I’ll break down their approach next week.

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Tip: consistency is key

The chart pictured above shows my stock footage selling journey. You can see where I started getting serious about it in 2016. From 2016-2018 I produced the majority of the stock footage I have for sale online — and the revenue followed. In 2019, I removed a portion of clips — and you can see the decline in sales following that.

Interestingly, 2022 experienced an increase in revenue — despite several marketplaces selling clips for lower prices. So how did an increase happen after two years of decline?

The TL;DR here is that consistency is key. Between 2020 and 2022, I produced about 478 new stock clips, but didn’t really submit the bulk of them until 2022. I also focused on getting most of my entire collection submitted to every single marketplace I sell on (Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, Pond5, iStock, VideoHive, DepositPhotos, Dissolve).

Marketplaces like it when you submit more regularly. That doesn’t mean you’ve got to be uploading every week, every month, or every quarter. But I have a theory that uploading from time to time signals to certain marketplaces that you’re an active participant in their platform’s growth, and their algorithms pay attention accordingly.

In my experience quality, variety, and quantity is the key to seeing any kind of decent revenue selling stock video clips. Consistency is what will get you there. That’s it for this week!

-- Chad