Selling And Image Quality

You are right it takes work and is not easy. But plenty of people make regular sales. At least you are off to a good start with some quality art and you have dome some of the work of keywords and descriptions. You will want to keep honing that. Hint: Locations and species common and even Latin names are important. The sales are made through the searches as well as through people that are directed here by personal contact and also through social media networking and other advertising. The more you work at it the more visibility you will have. Like anything worth doing it takes work but the rewards can be good. Do as much or as little as you want.

The way to avoid being frustrated with FAA is to keep in mind it's mostly automated. There's a huge volume of stuff coming in and only a handful of staff running the entire business, so there's no way anything gets looked at by FAA, and no value judgments are rendered. In other words, it's basically a machine.

There are millions of images on line here and no 'quality' filtering whatsoever. If you think about it, that's both good and bad. Good, because some of the things I've posted here - and a couple that I've actually sold - might easily have been rejected at an 'art' site where someone might have found them simplistic and uninteresting. Bad, because I'm a needle in a giant haystack.

When you see some thing on the "recently sold" page that makes you scratch your head and wonder "why?" keep in mind its probably an artist purchase. For the most part the quality work seems to filter to the top. You really have to search for the really bad stuff.

there are many bad images, everyone thinks their stuff is gold. many won't see them because the search sorts by sales. this way the junk settles to the bottom. the stuff on the sales page, there may still be junk, but bought by themselves. unfortunately it goes right to that page even if the image isn't printable.

it takes good and often unique work. because if it's interesting enough to take, people will advertise it for you. its like finding that funny bit of graffiti, or that odd video, you want to show it off. and that's what i get. people advertising it for me. beyond that it's keywords and such. the only time you see the bad stuff is when it surfaces in here as a critique. not all is bad, but i've seen some really bad ones. and some that were bad and the owner of it had no idea. and to this day is convinced her stuff is awesome and we are just jealous of her talent.

---Mike Savad

Take your own photographs and make them the best you can and don't worry too much about what other photographers are doig, shooting and selling. Concentrate on your own work, your own marketing and keywords.

Comments, likes, favorites, and group features will all move your images up a bit so even just liking your own photo could possibly move you up over the masses. One of the problems for the search is sorting out the better work, so they give you some easy things to do to move up a bit. Keep in mind that those things only count a little and are not cumulative, but it is a simple thing to move up. The search favors those who sell so just getting the first sale will move all your art up in the search a bit. You should try very hard to get a few sales and not let too much time go between sales. So if that means asking your own customers or friends and relatives, do it, because you have to get the ball rolling. If you are lucky you can get a sale right away from the search, but don't rely on luck. Make some sales happen and then you will get more visibility.

I gather this is one reason FAA has created the galleries. When you surf through them there is more quality control.