Learn about my largest stock footage paydays

Largest stock footage paydays

I wanted to share my largest Stock footage paydays and what we can learn from them. It’s fun to get emails about a new sale. There have been 3 times where I’ve opened up these emails and found out I had 4 or more sales per day resulting in $150US daily net profit or more. Let’s go through them.

Dec 15 2015 obo $170 US in net profit

I earned 4 sales from Videoblocks. The pattern from these sales is that they were all from my trip to Southern Japan in Okinawa and the Miyako Islands. The customer buying these videos was definitely looking for content in these regions. It pays to film a lot of diverse content during your trips. You never know when you might get lucky and customer needs a lot of content for their video project

June 7 2016 $165 US in net profit on Shutterstock

The shutterstock app is an awesome way to monitor your earnings. The notification doesn’t always work though. I checked the app and saw I got 11 downloads for a total daily payout of $165 US.  These 11 downloads were all from Bondi Beach Australia, which I’m pretty sure where for a special project. I’ve seen this pattern before where I’ll a group of sales for one location. I shot this collection over the course of my stay there at the Bondi skate bowl, the coffee shop, and along the Coogee trail. It helps to shoot a variety of angles and a different spots within a location.

December 16 2015 obo $170 US in net profit.

The next day I earned another set of 4 sales from Videoblocks. This time the common theme was that my sales were all from my trip to Alishan mountain in Taiwan. Each of these scenes was filmed at a different time and location in Alishan. The sale that surprised me the most selling the fire flies in the glass container. It was pitch black, I had no tripod, and barely was able to get decent footage. My decent footage was probably the best available.

April 18 2016 obo $150 US from 5 clips on Motion Elements

I was surprised to get a huge payday from Motion elements. Historically they have given me a one off sale, but this time they delivered big. Although I sold more clips I pocketed less than Videoblocks because they provide a higher net profit. These clip sales came from Macau with one being in Singapore. They are from 2 popular locations in Macau at the MGM and senado square. It’s interested that you can see the search terms from the customer and that they were searching for Singapore keywords for the Macau clips. I’m happy to see a large batch of sales from come from Motion elements. They are responsible for introducing me to Stock footage and I’ve had my collection on there for about 4 years now. Let’s hope that they continue to deliver. In terms of workflow it’s very similar to Pond 5 and their platform is fairly easy to work with. I definitely recommend getting your collection on there. If you do I would appreciate if you use the affiliate link. It helps me and doesn’t cost you anything.

Give motion elements a try (affiliate link)

Final Tips

• Be Patient – Some clips won’t sell right away. The Taiwan and collection were filmed in summer of 2015. The Macau collection is from 2014.
• Film a high quality diverse collection in a destination. A customer may find looking for various clips that represent that location. You want to be the sole supplier
• Diversify – Diversify where you host your collection and your online business. By putting your same clips on various agencies you give your exposure to different customer markets. Stock footage is a great business model, but it’s also important to diversify your efforts. Stock footage is a model that you don’t really have control over. You put in the work and your collection works for you. Chances are if you can do stock footage you have video and editing skills. You can do video freelancing, editing, or even teach courses online like I do.

The big question are who are these customers and how does one get a direct relationship with them. Have you had large paydays from a stock footage agency? Please share let’s get the conversation started.

The Next Step: Enroll in my Free Stock footage course.