Being successful part-time?

[mayah54167702]

Backstory: many years ago I put a bunch of my average-quality art and photos on Adobe Stock. These were a mix of abstract art and bland cityscapes. I had a few downloads but my lifetime earnings is under $5, nowhere near enough to pay out. 

I know graphic design is a career, and I know it's important to take it seriously and create high-quality commercial content. My question is, is it possible to create your own stock brand if you only have a few hours to spare a month? I'd be focusing mostly on creating textures and perhaps vector illustrations as this would be easiest with my background and current equipment. I worked full-time as an artist for around four years, so I do have some experience.

My aim would be to sell more like $50 per year rather than, say, $200 a month, as it would be more about trying to develop the discipline to create a sustainable brand alongside other commitments, rather than needing it to live on. Is this feasible?

Or do stock contributors generally need to be full-time creatives in order to have enough skill and talent to produce the dynamic content that brands require, particularly given how saturated the marketplace is? Does anyone have any tips for part-time success?

[reedesign1912]

The really nice thing about success, is that you get to determine and define what it means to you.  Absolutely, you can be a successful part time stock contributor.  What I would suggest is to seriously search for content similar to what you plan to contribute.  As you said, it is a saturated marketplace.  Ideally, you want to offer the customer something different, something where there aren't already millions of great offerings.  If you can offer quality content and find your niche, I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the results.  One of the benefits of contributing to stock and researching what others are offering is that it pushes you to be more creative and challenges you to be a better artist.

It really is up to you to determine if contributing is worth your time and effort, but I would say your expectations are very reasonable and you should do it.  All the best to you in 2022.

[Ralph Lear]

At .33 cents a sell you are still aiming high. You need alot of top photos to achieve that.  It is possible though.

[Nancy OShea]

@mayah54167702,

Whether you work at it full-time or part-time, textures and abstracts won't make you rich.  Most content creators can do that very easily themselves.  Why would they pay for it?

Stock customers expect professional quality images for use in commercial projects.  Successful Stock contributors know this and focus on what sells by providing customers with their BEST work in a variety of different keyword categories. 

• Aging,
• Beauty & cosmetics,
• Banking & finance,
• Construction,
• Cultural diversity,
• Drone footage,
• Education & learning,
• Entertainment,
• Environment, climate change,
• Fitness & exercise,
• Food, drink & nutrition,
• Holidays,
• Home & office,
• Medicine & medical technology,
• Mental health,
• Poverty & homelessness,
• Real people in social settings,
• Recyling,
• Socially relevant issues,
• Science & math,
• Sports,
• Travel,
• Yoga, meditation & spirituality.

Avoid low % sellers:  e.g. sunsets, clouds, abstract backgrounds, plants, flowers & pets.  The Adobe Stock library and other stock sites already have plenty of those.

Finally, you will need to carve out extra time for post-process editing, adding images to your websites on Adobe Portfolio and/or Behance and of course marketing and self-promotion on various social media platforms (i.e. FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc...).  Now if you think you can cover all that in just 5 hours/week, I tip my hat to you. 

Best of luck in 2022!

[ricky336]

Hello,

Commercial is the keyword here. As @Nancy OShea says, creating your own abstract images, I think won't really get a lot of interest. What sells is what can be used commercially. So in my honest opinion, it really isn't worth the time and effort to get a few sales a month if you only have a few hours a month and remember, you  need to pay tax on that as well.

So, $50 per year, plus take into account tax, is the difference worth the time and effort? 

[Abambo]

Backstory: many years ago I put a bunch of my average-quality art and photos on Adobe Stock. These were a mix of abstract art and bland cityscapes. I had a few downloads but my lifetime earnings is under $5, nowhere near enough to pay out. 

(...)

My aim would be to sell more like $50 per year rather than, say, $200 a month, as it would be more about trying to develop the discipline to create a sustainable brand alongside other commitments, rather than needing it to live on. Is this feasible?

By @mayah54167702

The problem is that you need to create the content that is searched for, you need to create regularly, and you need to provide a lot of content. If you can't do that, it isn't worth the energy.