The other day I was helping out a client looking for different types of people in our stock photo base. After working in the stock photo industry for some years you begin to recognize the different models, and you’d probably greet them as old friends if you ran into them on the street. Even when you have 10.000+ models in your image base, as we do now, you still recognize a surprising number of them!

So at first I didn’t stop to take a closer look when I saw a familiar face. But there was something about those blue eyes that made me click back to take a closer look. I thought to myself “This must be that Grey’s Anatomy guy, Avery, but is he a stock photo model”? I got Jan to check the model release, and it’s true.

Jesse Williams, who plays Jackson Avery in Grey’s Anatomy, is a stock photo model represented at Yaymicro.com!

Let’s enjoy his pictures while we wait for season 7, where he’ll play a leading role. First episode, “With You I’m Born Again” airs on September 24, at ABC.

Cheers, Linda

All images at YAY goes through a quality control. Normally this is done within 24 hours, but not during weekends.

Sometimes your image(s) will fail the approval process and get rejected. When images are rejected you’ll get one or more reasons for why we couldn’t accept your image into our database.

It is important not to take the rejections personally. It might feel harsh to find several images rejected, and rejected sometimes for reasons you don’t understand. Our reviewers looks at thousands of images each day, so mistakes will happen. If you feel wrongly rejected, please e-mail us and we’ll look into it.

You can view the list of most common rejections and explanations here.

You should try to look at rejections as possibilities for learning and improving. Creating great stock photos is a challenging process. By taking time to understand your rejection, and then working on improving your technique you’ll be one step closer to create better stock photo! Often you’ll find tips and inspiration in different stock forum, discussion groups, and on photo/photoshop tutorial sites. If you have tips for great sites, share it with the rest of us in the comment-field!

At YAY we have full-time, permanent reviewers solely working us. This might cost a bit more than freelance reviewers, but we find it easier and more reliable in terms of consistency, quality and possibilities for improvement.

So, if you have any questions or feedback about the review process, please e-mail us and help us improve our process!

Linda

Thanks to our wonderful photographers, only two years after startup we’ve reached 1 million images in our image base!  As we say in our press release: We are proud and excited that so many talented photographers have decided to let us sell their images for them! Thank you everybody!

The wide range of images combined with usability and low prices are attracting new customers in great numbers – we expect to multiply sales in 2010.

Image No. 1 million by Stephanie Frey:

Read more about the image and take a look at some of the other images from Stephanie Frey.

Read the press release here. You can also download a PDF of the press release.

Congrats and cheers from all of us at YAY!

Some photographers have been asking for more information on our third party sales program. Unfortunately, I’ve haven’t had the time to write more about how it works – until now. We’ve finally added a page with information on our 3rd party program.
To give a a short update, this is what the introduction says:

YayMicro offers a 3rd party sales program for our top photographers. This is an exclusive program where we promote and sell images through a growing network of partners. This requires no extra work for the contributor, but can generate a steady stream of revenue.

This program was introduced in January 2009 and has since then grown into one of our most profitable sales channels. There are a lot of image agencies in the world, and many of them are having trouble getting the content they want. We use our experience from the industry to collect photographers that fits an agency’s needs. YAY represents over 5466 photographers from around the world and has an image collection of 920 000. This brings us into an exclusive range of agencies, because most of the world’s image agencies have a rather small collection of their own – while they resell the content of other agencies.

These smaller agencies have until now been locked down for the average microstock contributor. We can help you get your collection to a range of different agencies around the world.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to send an email to contribute@yaymicro.com or comment this blogpost. We’ll soon start a new collection, so follow the blog and start making your own project folder now.

Jan

In order to expand out blog we’re currently looking for guest writers to join YAY blog.  If you are interested in writing at YAY blog, please send me an e-mail at linda@yaymicro.com. You’ll have to write in English (or Norwegian).

Cheers, Linda

Some of you might have experienced images back in pending, and then either rejected or back in your portfolio.This is an ongoing process here at YAY. When we notice images lacking in either quality, keywords, description, or if we find there are too many similar images in your portfolio we’ll send the images back for re-evaluating.

These images are evaluated together with new uploads, and are not marked in any way. So, it’s as fair as we can make the process. I would advice all contributors to be careful with their keywords, as images appearing “out of place” are especially noticeable, and therefore more easily sent back for new evaluation. We are not going through the whole database; neither are we aiming this against any particular photographer. So it’s not an early spring cleaning, but a day to day process (as most cleaning is).

If you feel you’ve been faulty rejected, please e-mail me at linda@yaymicro.com, and I’ll be happy to look into it! Also feel free to e-mail us if you have any other questions at post@yaymicro.com.

Cheers, Linda

There have been a few inquiries on how sales are developing at YAY Micro. A few contributors have terminated their account with us, because they haven’t seen the anticapted growth in sales. Deleting accounts makes little sense for contributors and for us. It requires work both from our photographers and approvers before an image is added to the database. When that is done, however, the image is ready for sales and no more work is needed. Anyhow, we do agree that it is about time that we give a status update on how sales are going. We can’t give you too much detail; there are nosy competitors out there.

So, how are sales developing at YAY? The answer is very promising! The number of downloads since September 2008 (we opened for sales in June 2008) has increased with a whopping 28 % per month. In 2009 the average monthly increase was even higher, namely 32 %. There are seasonal variations in the number of download (f.ex. July 2009 had 67 % fewer downloads than June 2009).

Graph:

Number of downloads per month 2009

In regards to photographer’s payouts, the numbers are even better looking for our contributors. The total payout during 2009 grew by 67 % per month! That means that our contributors are starting to earn some good cash. Even when compared to the number of contributors (grows at an average of 5 %), both downloads and payouts are looking increasingly good.

That doesn’t mean that we are resting on our laurels. Quite the opposite: We’ve increased our staff and will now add more resources into sales. We will also start more aggressive marketing towards both contributors and customers in China. Keep those uploads coming and we will guarantee that you will earn money. YAY started from scratch two years ago – and building a site requires patience. As the chinese say: Even the tallest tower started from the ground.

Happy microstocking!

Jan

Finding and configuring a Twitter background image can be tricky. Here is a short guide on how to find and add a unique background to your Twitter-profile.

Twitter offers 20 background images you can choose from. All of these have pleasing colors, and nice clean design. They are, however, quite generic. Instead of using any of these, you can upload an image that better fits your Twitter page and/or personality.

How To Change the Twitter Background Image
Go to Settings -> Design , then either choose a theme or click change background image. Don’t be afraid to goof around; your profile won’t change until you press save.

Finding the Right Image
There are several pages offering free Twitter backgrounds. Thousands of Twits (easier to say than Twitterers) use these images, so if you want a personal, unique profile you should try to find other images. Think about an object/idea/concept/thought that you feel can represent you. You might find a photo you’ve taken yourself, or you could try a search at images agencies such as YAY. We have hundreds of thousands of images, illustrations and vector files at a small cost ($1.5 for a small image).

Click here to try a search for images at YAY

How Large Should a Twitter Background Image Be?
Twitter accepts images in GIF, JPG and PNG formats. The file can’t be larger than 800 Kb, but the smaller the better. The resolution should be quite high, but still be visible for users with lower resolution. Twitter supports screen resolutions down to 800×600 pixels. Most users today have screen resolution 1024×768 pixels or higher.

You should aim for an image that works for users having large screens with high resolution. Therefore the image you choose should be at least 1600×1200 pixels, and it is even better to have 2048×1600. An Twitter background image of 2048×1600 will fill the screen of 98 % of all Twitter users.

Adding a Bio
The 160 character biography Twitter limits you to, can be a bit too short. Instead you can add a short biography, logo or other additional information in an information box on one or both sides of the main Twitter window. You have to remember that if you want your bio to be visible in 1024×768, it should not be wider than 120 pixels.

Take a look at our Twitter-backgrounds:
YAY Micro
Jan
Linda
Bjorn

Here at YAY we believe that all of us can make a difference in our world. One way to do this is to support humanitarian organizations. As a company we have chosen to support Kiva. Kiva is “a person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend to unique entrepreneurs around the globe”. This is known as microfinance of entrepreneurs, and the aim is to fight poverty by empowering people. You can lend as little as $25 dollars, and when the money is re-paid you can withdraw it, or re-lend it. At YAY we always re-lend the money. If you don’t have any extra money to help other people, maybe you could donate some of your time to volunteer work or to promote important causes?

Linda

If you want to join Kiva – click here!

Other humanitarian organizations:

http://doctorswithoutborders.org/

http://www.oxfam.org

http://www.redcross.org/

http://www.savethechildren.org/

http://www.unicef.org/

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One of our photographers, Todd (graficallyminded), has done an interview with us at YAY in his blog Arenacreative.com/blog. The interview’s mainly about YAY, our background  as well as how we perceive the stock photo business and the future of the stock photo industry. If you have any viewpoints or further questions we’d love to hear from you – just leave a comment!

In 2008, a new microstock agency popped up that caught a lot of our attention. The site’s design was so simple, yet visually pleasing and easy to navigate. Even the back end for contributors was designed for speed and ease of use. I’ve been personally selling my images from them from the start, and recently I had an opportunity to interview the team. I’m sure many will be interested in getting some insight from Yay Micro coming directly from it’s founders and employees.

Read the rest of the interview…

Linda