The Key to Selling Clip Art

Among the biggest stock images websites are Shutterstock and
Istock.

Over the years, I have read several blog posts and articles from photographers and artists stating that their work is not selling.

Initially, I created pieces for arts sake. That is to say that I would let my inspiration guide me or I would take design remnants from work I had done for clients. This is great if all you want to do is create. If you want to earn money, this is entirely the wrong approach.

Having worked for a large corporation that relied heavily on statistics, data, and trends to improve sales, it did not take me long to realize that these methods would lend well to developing selling strategies for my images on line. The following text modules will describe specific business and sales practices as they apply to selling Clip Art and Stock Photography.

I will try not to make it too dry and boring. For those of you who manage to stick with it, I hope you get what you need from it and you are able to put these methods to work for you.

Since I have started using this method, I have seen about a 60% increase in the number of sales. I have also been able to refine a distinctive style and essentially create a formula by which I design my images.

The issue that creative and talented people face is that we think in terms of creating art and not in terms of running a business. The successful artists have realized this and either developed their business sense or hired someone to do this for them.

The ultimate truth is that in order to sell your work effectively, you need to devote as much time to creating a business and sales strategy as you do to creating your art work or your product.

As business people, it's important that we keep our egos in check and remember that the customer is always right. It has to be that the demand is what drives the direction of your product. Very few of us will have the distinction of being a trend setter. The reality is that we have to conform to make a living. Once we have that taken care of, then we can look to be more free with our expression and let loose a little more.

In a perfect world, everybody would simply work together for a greater good. In actual fact, clip art sales, like car sales and toilet paper sales, is a competition to get the sale.

We all have simillar products and in many cases, very little separates from the other dozen or more images vying to be the selected one.

For this reason, it is important to know your competition. Who is creating simillar work to you and what might give them (or you) the edge in a head-to-head, down to the wire selection showdown with a competing image?

Is it that you have rendered the subject better? Is it that you offer a vector and a jpg version? Is it that you offer a higher resolution image? Is it that your image is part of a series that can be used as a theme in someone's design project?

This is why you need to know your competition. You cannot sell in a vacuum. You need to know what your competitors are offering. Every successful company knows what their edge is over their competition and they exploit that. BlackBerry knows their edge over other smartphones is their security.

Spend some time searching the stock image web sites looking for images that use the same subjects as you. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses?

Be honest in your assessment. This is no time for denial nor for arrogance. Remain objective and you will see your own opportunities as well as your strengths.


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Essential to any successful outcome.

The next thing to do is research and collect data. This is critical to understanding what types of images are in demand and which ones are selling.
Have you ever noticed that when a successful action movie is released, several other action movies are produced and released, or when a book and movie series about teen-aged vampires strikes gold, there is a slew of books and shows about teen vampires that follow? This is because someone has found a formula that works and others want to tap into it.

So I ask you, why re-invent the wheel?

I spend a lot of time looking at the three big sites (Istock, Shutterstock and Dreamstime). What I look for are images that have a high number of downloads. I would search for a subject that interested me such as kids or landscapes then I sort by downloads (descending).

I then take note of specific subject matter, compositions, styles and keywords that place these images at the top of the list.

The great thing about Istock and Dreamstime is that they offer additional information in that they indicate the number of views, the number of downloads, and when the file was uploaded.

This data can provide valuable information about the image you are studying and can be analyzed in the following ways:

1. Ratio of Downloads to Views

An image with 10 downloads but 5000 views equals 1 sale per 500 views. This image is getting looked at quite a bit which indicates it may be using the right keywords to get traffic but does not have exactly the right subject matter, composition or style to make the sale.

An image with 100 downloads and 1000 views equals 1 sale in 10 views. This is a much better ratio of sales to views. This indicates that the artist has used the right formula of subject, composition and style in order to make this image appealing to a large audience. A good strategy here would be to tweak the keywords to include those of the example above in order to increase the number of views and logically, the number of sales.

2. Image Age

An image that has had 100 downloads with 1000 views but was uploaded 3 years ago, may not be a great performer. This image has a great sales to views ratio (1 in 10) but is resulting in only about 33 sales a year so it is not generating much revenue. The artist in this case, might want to revamp the keywords to see if the image would do better with more views.

On the other hand, an image that has had 100 downloads with 1000 views but was uploaded 6 months ago, would be a better performer however, I would still look at optimizing the keywords to increase the number of views..

3. Keywords

An image that has a good ratio of sales to views over a short period of time has probably used effective keywords. This has allowed it to be found frequently and as a result, has sold often. I usually take note of these keywords and apply them to my own images.

Even images with with lots of views but few downloads are using the right keywords and they should be noted.

Dreamstime has a list of the most searched keywords that is updated monthly. This is a fantastic tool that lets you know what people are buying in terms of subject matter. This information is invaluable and should drive the direction of your product development.

Having studied the top selling images, you should be able to design your work to mimic these. Unfortunately, the hard work has not ended yet. The trick here is to mimic the top sellers without copying them.

This will mean lots of draft images and close scrutiny to ensure they do not resemble any images in a way that can be considered as plagiarism.

It is easy to find yourself copying images by using this method so before putting any images up for sale, look at them carefully. Compare them to your research and if necessary, ask an impartial party if they see any obvious similarities between your work and your research.

Although it is important to study the successful contributors, it is also essential that you develop or maintain your own style and identity as and artist.

Now that you have the pieces of the puzzle, you can put them all together.

Design the images according to your research subjects. Use compositions and techniques similar to the top sellers. Use keywords that are used by the images that get the most views and never upload an image and then forget about it.

Monitor your own images for number of views and the number of sales. Ultimately, this will let you know if you are heading down the right track. Do not wast time creating a series of images until you know it will pay off. I usually create one image, upload it for sale and if it starts selling well, I will produce the rest of the series. In the business world, this is known as market research. If the demand is not there, many big businesses will not continue with a product line. You should do the same.


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Setting goals and targets is a critical part of being successful in your efforts.

The business world has what it calls S.M.A.R.T. objectives and it is an incredibly simple method for defining targets.

As you have probably already guessed, each letter in the term SMART stands for something:

S - Specific - set a specific target. For example, an initial goal may be to develop 5 stock images that sell on average 3 times a week consistently.
M - Measurable - Is there a way to quantify the results of this objective so that you can empirically determine that you have reached your target? In the case of your specific target, the measurable would be once you have 5 images that consistently sell 3 times a week for 4 weeks.
A - Attainable - Do not set a target that is beyond your reach. For example: a target of 100 images that will sell 30 times a week each within one month would not be attainable.
R - Realistic - A goal may be attainable but for your purposes, may be impractical. This is where a reality check is needed.
T - Timely - set a definite time frame for achieving your goals. This should be realistic as well. For example, a goal of 5 images to sell an average of 3 times a week may take 3 months to realize. A goal of researching 5 top selling image subjects and styles might only take 1 week.

Without goals, you do not have direction. It is important to record the goals as well as the out comes. It's when you start to see measurable results, that you will notice the momentum build.

The issue that creative and talented people face is that we think in terms of creating art and not in terms of running a business. The successful artists have realized this and either developed their business sense or hired someone to do this for them.

The ultimate truth is that in order to sell your work effectively, you need to devote as much time to creating a business and sales strategy as you do to creating your art work or your product.

This is an on-going process and should be part of you daily to do list. Continuous research will keep you on top of trends and possibly on the cutting edge of these trends. It will help you to analyze your own sales and allow you to develop your product according to buyer demand. Most of all, remember to treat it as a job, Commit the same amount of time to research, development, promotion and creation as you would a part time or full time job.

This is a quick case study based on actual numbers from an Istock contributor. (please keep in mind that these results are purely speculative based on the information attained from Istock).

The numbers work out as follows:
-To date, this image has received 63577 views
- Of those views, 2600 resulted in purchases
- This is a sales to view ratio of about 1:25 (1 sale per 24.5 views)

This image was uploaded three years ago. This image received about 866 sales for each year it has been online.

So, to calculate earnings based at 30 cents per purchase, (estimated less than the average payout on Istock), the total sales revenue for this image would be about $260.00 each year - not bad.

if the artist can produce 100 pieces that sell like this (which is conceivable if they put in a solid part-time effort for about a year), this artist could earn about $26,000/year just from Istock alone. The fact is that this artist is selling on other sites and the sales numbers are just as good.

It is quite conceivable that this artist is making a decent living designing and selling stock images.

This section is being edited and will be updated shortly.