Stage 1: Camera Acquisition
So the first part is fairly easy: I go buy a camera. With little cash, this is not a quick process. I discovered some extra credit on one of our cards and held on to it for months. As recommended by Robert Kiyosaki in Rich Dad Poor Dad
, I'm going to use my available credit to my advantage, buy a camera
, and move on to stage 2. I'll need to acquire additional batteries, hard drive storage and SDHC memory cards. My total investment for this endeavor will run about $1200. Per Rich Dad Poor Dad, this will be to create passive, recurring income.Stage 2: Photo/Video Acquisition
Using a list of good photo sites in and around the Tucson area, I'm going to make morning and evening trips to various local sites to shoot. I'll be shooting video and photographs using the above camera. I'm quite familiar with the camera's capabilities so I'm not too concerned with technical issues or my ability to resolve them efficiently. Furthermore, I'll be able to use available lenses and supplies from my present Canon DSLR camera. I'll be hitting state parks, local sights, and other places where I can shoot. Models require payment, BUT I can likely trade out a set of good headshot photos for unlimited rights to said photos and sell them as below.
Stage 3: Sales
Within the last 2-3 years, numerous stock photo companies has sprung up all over the internet. To name a few: Shutterstock, iStockphoto, and Pond5. These are just a few of the sites online making active sales. What do they pay? Well, my research suggests I can generate an average of $.05-0.25 per image per day. I know, not much. On the other hand, if I can generate an average of only $0.05 per image per day with say 1000 images (I can shoot 300 usable pictures a week if I push it, reasonably about 100), I can make $50 a month. Videos are going to be the real money makers, generating $1.25-5.00 per video. Videos take longer, use up more drive space and take longer to upload, but 25 or so good videos a month can bring in as much as $125.
I forgot to mention these numbers are per site. I have 3 specific sites ready to go (including my existing iStock site). More will come. If I can start selling with places like Getty, I can literally increase my income by 2-5x or more. Some stock agencies give $250+ per image and videos can net $1000.
Is there a market? Yes. Is there competition? Most certainly (I'm not the only one doing this). Is there still money to be made? Most definitely. See anyone with a camera can get it right once in a while and still produce high-quality stock photography. I like the baseball analogy - you can hit the ball 30% of the time and still be considered a great ball player. Now, with experience and an artist's eye, you can hit the ball only 50% of the time and be an amazing photographer.
Stage 4: Sales and Promotion
Now, since I'll own the rights to all of the images, I can still use them to promote myself. I'm merely licensing my images through another agency and making a percentage. Sort of like sales commissions, but I produce the artwork and they provide a handy central clearinghouse for my work (and others). By actively promoting my work (creating photo galleries and short YouTube video clips featuring my work) on my websites, blogs, and social media sites, I'll be able to ensure traffic and better search engine hits going to my site. This will be used to create my secondary sales (Phase II which is in the planning stages) of commercials, corporate videos, product videos, etc. These will be used to create good income, but only on a once-per basis (the photos and videos will be used to create recurring bread-and-butter income).
Not being satisfied with just doing a few things, I can use the income generated from one-off gigs like company videos and commercials to boost the rest of the company and reinvest. Stock photo is a lot of work, so it would be nice to have a better business model to take it's place and continue licensing the entire collection or sell the collection to another company for a substantial single amount.
Stage 5: Financials
So, make the photos and videos, create neat little videos featuring my work with my company logo, promote, sell, rinse, repeat. This will continue until I have a solid monthly income of at least $500 a month and my estimates put it closer to $1500 a month in 1 year with a library of over 10,000 photos and 500 videos. Many small stock agencies don't have libraries that large and my earnings numbers are quite conservative. Truly, with a library that size, I should be getting $0.25 a photo and $1 a video a month for around $3000 a month, but its hard to say where the market will go.
Additional costs will consist of basic essentials like gasoline, consumables like hard drives, memory cards, and optical media, new equipment like lenses, cameras, new computer equipment, insurance, licensing, accounting, legal, taxes, debt resolution, etc. Unfortunately, with no cash coming in, I have to operate without the majority of these things. I will need to make the most of what I have now: TIME. If I'm really busy, I should be pulling in lots of money and may not have time for stock, but I'll be making that up by making more money in a shorter time frame. That will also take time and patience. Got to remember not to jump the gun or put the cart before the horse or any other cliche you can think of.
Stage 6: Make Big Movies
That's my ultimate goal: produce films for theatrical and/or personal consumption and substantial profit. This will also take time and money. This part of the plan is incomplete.
Stage 7: World Domination
I can dream.
Let me know what you think.
