Lee has a great post on his blog about the Long Tail and the application of some of its ideas to microstock. The post and comments are well worth a read, but Lee’s summary gets to the heart of the matter.

  • If you want to create photos in the most popular subjects, expect that you’ll be competing on quality
  • If you want to create photos in long tail niches, keep your costs (and expectations) modest
  • Photos with a small market (low demand) might earn more in non-microstock markets

If you want to reap the greatest rewards, you have to find a way to play in the competitive categories around business, lifestyle, medical shoots etc. It’s possible to find areas where competition is relatively low, but volume (and therefore potential) rewards are likely to be lower. To cover many topics in the tail to boost your aggregate earnings, you have to pay attention to your production costs to make sure you can stay profitable.

Ultimately, as with everything, there’s no free lunch and you need to assess the market, your abilities and put in the work.