Hi! I'm a cinematographer and media entrepreneur. As a filmmaker, I use cinematic storytelling to make powerful, impactful connections. And as an entrepreneur, I firmly believe that one of the most powerful ways to change the world is through businesses run with empathy and soul. I get to be a creative artist while exploring the art of business, and for that I'm grateful. Sign up for my newsletter to read interesting bits about modern media and film.
Where it started, how it's going
Where it started, how it's going
Hey there!
This week I'm diving in a bit more into the story of my journey selling stock footage. Hopefully there are some tidbits of tips you can glean that might inform or inspire your own process.
Here’s what’s in this week’s email:
- How it started (my origin story)
- Macrostock vs. Microstock
- Tip: your clips are products
How it started
Seven years ago, I knew what stock video was and that there were various marketplaces that sold stock clips. Even though I had dabbled a very tiny bit in submitting stock photos before then, it had literally never crossed my mind that I could sell video clips (and perhaps have better success than with photos).
Then in late 2014, I ran across Story & Heart.
I submitted an application to become a contributor. Here's where the journey sparked for me. I met up with Zippy Etzel, one of Story & Heart's founders, when he was in town for a creator's conference. Over coffee, he unfolded the world of stock footage — explaining the difference between macrostock and microstock and what Story & Heart was trying to do differently from other marketplaces. I was hooked.
Unfortunately, Story & Heart didn't last. It became clear after a while that they weren't making as strong inroads to have a sustainable business. Of the clips I had on their site, I got less than half a dozen sales.
That's when I finally realized that I didn't need to put all my eggs in one basket. What about these other marketplaces... Pond5? Shutterstock? And this Fotolia thing that had just been bought by Adobe? (Hint: it became Adobe Stock.)
That was 2016. I jumped in, and made a whopping $446.81 that year. But it whet my appetite to figure this stuff out. 2017 ended with over 10x that revenue, and I knew that I was onto something. Even as a side hustle, it was nothing to sneeze at.
Seven years in, and I've made somewhere in the ballpark of $45,000 in passive profits selling stock footage. The opportunities are only expanding — go get it!
Macrostock vs. Microstock
I mentioned above the idea of macrostock and microstock. So what exactly are they?
Macrostock is the OG of stock footage. Companies like Sony have vaults full of footage that they license out... often for a very pretty penny. The licenses are very specific and very limited. It might be buyout rights for a piece of footage used in a documentary. Or a region-specific license limited for 10 or 20 years. These licenses are designed so that whoever's buying the clip to use it is the ONLY one using that clip. You won't see it anywhere else. Typically these stock footage collections are not available to the public. I've negotiaged one or two private deals selling stock clips this way, and can say that while such deals can be rare, they are lucrative (think $$$-$$$$ per clip).
Microstock is what we're accustomed to seeing. It essentially turns video clips into commodity products that can be bought over and over again since the license doesn't restrict usage to one entity. Pricing is much more affordable.
Unless you've got the right connections and business deals in place, the average filmmaker is unlikely to break into the macrostock world with the exception of one-off deals. So microstock is where we usually live — a long tail game of selling in volume.
Tip: your clips are products
Right in line with that, it helps to think of your clips as mini-products. They require some work upfront — planning, shooting, and then all the backend stock metadata work — but then they sit on digital shelves for years to come, with no limit to how many times they can sell.
So our goal is to first make clips that are likely to sell. Marketplaces want to see things that have economic value. Is it something that could reasonably be expected to be useful to someone making a documentary, ad, educational video, etc.?
Next, set up those clips for success on the marketplaces. Platforms do the heavy lifting of marketing for you, but your clips have to be discoverable. That means good descriptions, keywords, etc.
Then, get those clips in as many places as possible. It's unlikely people price shop for the same clip between marketplaces. It's more likely that if someone has a Shutterstock account, they're going to shop at Shutterstock. And if they have a iStock account, they're going to shop at iStock. So rather than taking the bait of "higher royalties" to have clips exclusively on one platform, take them out of obscurity and get them on as many digital shelves as possible.
Once they're up, sit back, wait a while, and begin enjoying the passive profits!
That’s it for this week!
-- Chad
Chad Stembridge
Hi! I'm a cinematographer and media entrepreneur. As a filmmaker, I use cinematic storytelling to make powerful, impactful connections. And as an entrepreneur, I firmly believe that one of the most powerful ways to change the world is through businesses run with empathy and soul. I get to be a creative artist while exploring the art of business, and for that I'm grateful. Sign up for my newsletter to read interesting bits about modern media and film.
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