Do you have Rights Managed licenses that you use on a regular basis? With new updates to LicenseStream you can now save these licenses and re-use or modify them over and over again.

You can apply these Ready Made licenses to images in your gallery so that they appear to potential buyers or use them yourself when you need to present licenses for private client images. When Gallery visitors see an image, any Ready Made license you've created will automatically appear as a convenient choice.

Plus, we've added new Gallery Management features that allow you to assign or remove Ready Made licenses with the click of a button.

We've also added a "Contact Me" feature for your Gallery images. When you apply this feature, potential image buyers are prompted to enter their contact information and a brief description. This information is then automatically emailed to you through LicenseStream. This is a great feature when you want complete control over the pricing of certain images.

Most top photographers understand the need to focus on an area of specialty if they want to grow their business. We recently posted on Marketing Your Photos – Start with A Niche and Marketing Your Photos - Expand On a Successful Niche. With this post, we’ll explore how to use LicenseStream Galleries to power your niche photography.

First and foremost, LicenseStream Galleries give you the means to display and sell your images to buyers around the world, using your choice of licensing models.

The key elements to your Galleries are groups, keywords and descriptions. Before setting up your gallery, you will want to consider your plans for the future. Let’s have a look at how your plans affect your choices within these areas.

Groups
Are you going to have one single niche or are you likely to eventually expand into multiple areas of specialty? If you have just one niche then your entire gallery will be built around that niche and your group naming structure will reflect that. For instance, if your niche is around wilderness shots, you might have groups like:

• Forest
• Desert
• Marine
• Mountains

However, if you are going to include outdoors sports as well as wilderness, you might have groups like:

• Sports – Kayaking
• Sports – Mountain Biking
• Sports – Climbing
• Wilderness – Forest
• Wilderness – Desert
• Wilderness – Mountains

Keywords
Assigning keywords to photos with the Keyword Generator and adding your own descriptive keywords is pretty straightforward. That said, it’s a great idea to give some thought up front to the types of buyers who will be searching through your Gallery. For instance, depending on who you cater to, an art director in an agency may well use different terms than an independent Web designer.

It’s also important to be consistent in your conventions for keyword selection.  For example, imagine if you have a lot of shots of Florida beaches and some of them were keyworded with the beach and state (Cocoa Beach, Florida), while some of them were only  keyworded with the state (Beach, Florida). In that case, imagine a buyer searching for “Cocoa Beach.” They would receive a set of results and think that they had a complete set of Cocoa Beach photos, when in fact some of the best ones could be missing due to your inconsistency in keywording.

Descriptions
Your photo descriptions in the gallery are another valuable tool. They are an excellent place to describe and set context for your photos. They are also searchable within your Galleries. As with keywords, give some thought to your buyers and the kind of language they relate to and are likely to use in their searches.

It’s also good to decide in advance how your Gallery will interact with your existing Web site or blog. If you have a showcase of your niche images on your site, it’s a fairly straightforward process to add individual photo links to each image on your site so buyers can license them directly through LicenseStream (see Setting Up Your Site or Blog to Sell Stock Using LicenseStream). Alternately, you can link to your Gallery home page rather than specific photos. This is a great strategy for email signatures, bios, business listings, etc.

Happy Shooting!

In our recent post we investigated the idea of starting with a niche as a smart strategy for marketing your photos. So, what’s the next step if you want to expand on a successful niche?

As with all businesses, there are basically only two ways to expand:

1. Grow your market (i.e. increase the number of clients you serve).
2. Grow the amount of business you do with your current client base.

In some cases, you may want to do both of the above. For example, a good strategy for the underwater photographer in our previous post would be to expand their market somewhat and then grow the volume of business within that market.

Let’s assume that the photographer in this example successfully followed the steps to develop a meaningful niche in the area of underwater photography in La Jolla, California. While this is a success in itself, it’s likely not going to create a revenue stream large enough satisfy all the needs of your business.

In this example, our photographer would be smart to follow many of the same steps mentioned in our previous post to expand the geographic boundaries of the market niche to include underwater photos taken throughout Southern California. There’s definitely work involved, but by following these same steps the photographer would over time be able to develop relationships with agencies, chambers of commerce, tourism boards and strategic retail partners throughout the geographic area (see Marketing Your Photos – Start with a Niche for more details).

Depending on the specific niche, after efforts spanning a year or two, you might well have the basis of a thriving photography business throughout Southern California. Let’s assume in the case of our underwater photographer, however, that the amount of business within this niche in this region does not generate enough revenue to satisfy their needs.

At this point, our photographer could expand the underwater photography niche beyond Southern California, but this would likely have its limits unless they were prepared for a rigorous travel schedule and the challenges of making new relationships far outside their locale.

A more efficient option may be to add a related niche or two. Closely related niches might include:

• Wildlife
• Beach shots
• Families interacting with nature

By capitalizing on existing relationships with art directors, agencies and businesses, adding one or more of these niches will be very easy compared to getting established in the first niche. With a receptive group of clients in place, this is a truly rewarding way to leverage all your work to date.

One critical point to remember, however, is not to try to plunge into too many areas at once. By doing so you would risk diluting the credibility and respect you took so long to build. As tempting as it is to try to do “everything,” keep in mind that it’s way more satisfying and ultimately way more lucrative to limit yourself to a number of niches in which you can truly excel.

Happy Shooting!

Watch for upcoming posts as we describe how to use LicenseStream to power your niche stock business.

I’ve met a LOT of photographers lately who are finding the task of independently selling their own stock quite daunting. In particular, many photographers wonder how they can compete against agencies that have massive resources and existing relationships with art directors, ad agencies and the like.

The simple and most effective answer is to start by competing with them on a level where you can actually win! The best way to do this is to pick a niche and make it yours.

Let me explain…

Agencies often do a good job of getting your work in front of buyers, but are typically challenged in terms of dealing with very specific and narrowly focused subject matter. After all, there are only a certain number of topics that they can specialize in. With this in mind, your goal is to define a specialty topic that you can “own.”

The market you are in and the topic you want to specialize in will define just how “narrow” you need to get in order to find a niche in which you can thrive.

Consider the example of a commercial photographer in Southern California who shoots underwater as a hobby. This would be an example of an excellent niche. That said, we need to narrow it down a bit.

For instance, if you search “underwater photography California” in Google, you get 394,000 results. If you narrow it down to “underwater photography San Diego” you get only 162,000 results. If you narrow it even further to “underwater photography La Jolla” there are only 24,400 results and a “first page” that you could definitely get listed on if you take the time to do proper search engine optimization on a relevant section of your Web site, Gallery or blog.

Does this mean you want to limit yourself to such a narrow niche? Not a chance! However, a narrow niche like this is a great starting point. Having narrowed things down, you now have a very specific set of obvious potential buyers.

You might start by contacting the La Jolla Chamber of Commerce and letting them know about your unique collection of images from their area. Chances are good that they will also give you some tips on other people and businesses you might want to talk to. Depending on your promotional strategy, you might even consider licensing the Chamber of Commerce some of your images at a very favorable rate in exchange for photo credits and promotion.

Next, you might want to contact a selection of relevant businesses in La Jolla and let them know about your collection of images available for licensing. Typically, you’ll get a mix of businesses that have in-house marketing staff and other companies that use an agency. In the latter case, find out who their agency is. Chances are that agency would also want to know about your collection of photos.

To support these activities you might also try a few non-traditional tactics. For instance, you could:

• Start a blog, posting stories and photos from your underwater sessions in the region.
• Find a good quality printer of postcards and visit all the relevant local stores with a sample of postcards featuring your images and their branding (plus very clear photo credits and your URL). They may well be more than willing to offer such a postcard for sale. You’re not likely to get rich from this sort of postcard revenue, but it could be an extremely effective way to become known as THE photographer in this area.

Realistically, with the approaches outlined above, you could achieve “success” within 6 to 12 months with some diligent effort. Conversely, if you put in the same amount of effort but spread it across a number of different stock areas, it’s unlikely you’d get nearly the same amount of traction in that timeframe.

The real question is how to then grow this first success into something even greater.

Interested? Check back next week as we discuss how to expand upon a successful niche.

The ImageSpan team is back at home now and recovering from PDN PhotoPlus East and the PACA International Conference in New York City.

This last week has felt like a “coming out” of sorts. The start of our recent excitement was when we launched our new Content Tracker last Wednesday, a feature that searches the Internet for any web sites using any photos you’ve uploaded into LicenseStream (our Engineers are kicking off the first “crawl” of the web and LicenseStream users should see results within 60 days).

Once images are found by Content Tracker, LicenseStream provides the contact information of any infringing web sites and gives users the ability to send emails requesting payment, takedown, photo credits or other options. LicenseStream closes the circle on the whole process by providing the licensing engine that then allows the site owner to pay you for the right to license your photo.

Our LicenseStream Content Tracker feature has really struck a chord in the photo community.  Rob Haggart at APhotoEditor.com was the first blogger to get excited about this new feature and wrote about how “ImageSpan May Change Stock Photography Forever.”

We also got coverage on PopPhoto , a great video interview on PhotoBusinessNews and great coverage on a number of other prominent sites including Photography Bay and Contentinople.

The “long story short” is that we’re seeing a great boost in traffic and interest in LicenseStream and it’s been extremely gratifying to get such great feedback from the market.

Check back later this week as we launch a series of blog posts on marketing your work.

In the meantime, check out LicenseStream Marketing Director Rafael Solis in action at PDN PhotoPlus East in this interview with Photo Business News:

As mentioned in a previous Blog entry about SEO, detailed Descriptions and a variety of Keywords are things the search engines are looking for. One of the great functions of the LicenseStream engine is the ability to import these fields from Metadata already stored in your images. If you are using Photoshop, Adobe Bridge or LightRoom, then there is a wealth of information you may enter before you even upload to the LicenseStream system.

In Adobe Photoshop, even in the Elements version, you may pull down the File menu and find File Information. In Adobe Bridge and LightRoom, the display grid may be set up so the most common fields are visible and easily editable. However, there are additional fields you should access through the File Information option, such as whether the images are Copyrighted, which places the copyright symbol (©) directly next to the file name when opened in applications like Photoshop.

Another area of File Information is referred to as IPTC Contact, where you may store your name, company name, mailing address, email address, phone number(s) and web site(s). This will help reduce the possibility of your images becoming what is referred to as “Orphan Works”. There is new legislation in Congress that basically states, if an image creator cannot be found with a reasonable amount of effort, then the image is considered an orphan work and will fall into the public domain, meaning no royalties are due to anyone for use of the image. While the information may still be stripped out without much effort, that becomes what is referred to as a “Destructive” violation for images properly registered with the Copyright Office, thereby increasing the penalties.

For Keywords, the Keyword Generator function in LicenseStream is a good place to start for the basics. But notice there are blocks below the pulldowns for “Additional Keywords”. This is where you may enter words you think appropriate that are not in the pulldown menus, or where those entered in the editing applications mentioned above will fall. Look at the Celebrity Gallery of Roth Stock Digital Media for example. While “Entertainment” is available in the pull down menus, we've added Entertainer, Red Carpet, and things like Movie Premiere in our keywords.

Orlando Bloom© Lee Roth

Don’t feel limited by the suggestions from the Keyword Generator. They are simply that, suggestions, although they do contain common search terms often used by publishers. However, if you have a woman in a blue dress in a field of yellow flowers, there is no reason you cannot enter the second color as an additional keyword. Similarly, if you have a man and a woman in a photo, “adults” works, but so does man, woman and couple. The point is to not feel limited by the Keyword Generator, but to use it as a good starting point. And if you have happened to enter some of the suggested keywords in your editing software, they will populate those fields when you upload the image. In fact, it is a bit faster to load those words in the image metadata before the upload, once you get used to the system.

As for descriptions, they end up as text on the LicenseStream Gallery pages. This carries a lot of weight with the search engines. In writing your descriptions, keep your keywords in mind. Looking in the Roth Stock Scenic Gallery, take note of the Wofldogs. There are paragraphs describing wolfdogs as a subspecies and talking about the sanctuary where the subjects we photographed reside. Even though those keywords also appear as text on the page, when used in sentences and paragraphs, they weigh heavier with the search engines. But don’t overdo it. In some search engines, using the same keyword more than six times might actually be looked at as spamming the engine and result in penalization in the rankings instead of the higher ranking you are after. Just try to be natural with your descriptions, almost conversational. That way, it’s easier to read, and should result in better search engine rankings. After all, that is the goal of every Web designer, whatever the topic!

Wolfdog© Lee Roth

Lee Roth is executive producer of Roth Stock Digital Media, based in Hollywood, California, with their newest studio located in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lee’s celebrity photos are syndicated worldwide and regularly appear in such magazines as People, In Touch, Us Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar and many others around the world. In addition to celebrities, Lee also specializes in live events, scenery, environmental issues, and private glamour sessions.

Lee’s bio and links to all of his content categories are available at his portal, RothStock.Com. He may be reached at 702.202.4555 or producers@rothstock.com for more information and booking inquiries.

© Lee Roth 2008 / RothStock.Com 

We're very excited to be "demoing" LicenseStream at this year's PDN PhotoPlus Expo, next week at the Javitz Convention Center in New York.

Here's the details:

Ever wonder how to make the best use of Groups and Lightboxes?.
    
Groups are a great way to organize your content making it easier for buyers to get to specific categories they might be interested in. Take the Scenic Gallery of Roth Stock Digital Media for example. While the entire gallery offers a range of content, Groups have been set up to help those looking just for Animals, Cities and Towns, Colorado Scenes, the Continental Divide, Flowers and Plants, Lifestyle, Pikes Peak, and a little burst of color with the Red, White and Blue group.

Pikes Peak © Lee Roth

As the gallery expands into new regions, photographer Lee Roth tells us that additional groups are planned including Utah Scenery, Arches National Park, Zion Canyon National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park. Lee says you will find all of the Utah content in the Utah Scenes group, yet you will be able to quickly drill down to a specific park if you like, without even having to search for it. Lee considers this suggestive selling to people who may not immediately realize what topics are available in the main group.

We work on the red carpet in Hollywood and Las Vegas at events like movie premieres, awards shows, charity benefits and nightclub parties. So, as you can imagine, we've created a number of groups in his Celebrity Gallery. Here you’ll find groups highlighting different types of events, not to mention headshots and full length. These groups help publishers search a subset of the entire gallery. This way, if they are looking for headshots for a story about hairstyles, for example, they don’t have to search the entire database or scroll through lots of pages where full length fashion shots are mixed in. Of course, with good keywords, publishers may also search for “Headshot Jessica Alba” and go straight to what they want.

Angelina Jolie, © Lee Roth

So what are Lightboxes good for? Let’s say the publisher who was searching for hairstyles is not sure of how much space they are going to have for photos to accompany the article that is being written. By creating a Lightbox, the buyer can save the photos they like in their own area for quick reference when it comes time to make the final selections.

So, as you can tell from these examples, Groups and Lightboxes are powerful tools. And when combined with good keywords, these tools can make your site very efficient to use, and as a side-benefit, very useful to search engines as well (but that’s a topic for another Blog entry!)


Lee Roth is executive producer of Roth Stock Digital Media, based in Hollywood, California, with their newest studio located in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lee’s celebrity photos are syndicated worldwide and regularly appear in such magazines as People, In Touch, Us Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar and many others around the world. In addition to celebrities, Lee also specializes in live events, scenery, environmental issues, and private glamour sessions.

Lee’s bio and links to all of his content categories are available at his portal, RothStock.Com. He may be reached at 702.202.4555 or producers@rothstock.com for more information and booking inquiries.

 © Lee Roth 2008 / RothStock.Com 

We're pleased to announce the winners from our Photoshop World contest.

Both Melody Bostad of One Eye Designs and Joseph Orsillo of Orsillo Photo won $1000 gift cards from B&H Photo Video.

Congratulations!

The Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) has put some great resources online for anyone who wants to learn about copyright.

Included is a video presentation from PACA counsel Nancy Wolff, a downloadable Copyright Education PowerPoint presentation, PACA's Copyright Commandments, a variety of legal docs.

You can find these and a number of other resources in the PACA Document Library.