There have been a few mentions of LookStat Back Office services and our new Guide to Microstock for RM & RF Photographers around the web and I’m excited to share them with you.

LookStat Back Office Services – Just Press Play – A review by Tyler Olson on the Microstock Group Blog

The back-end service of Lookstat is a great tool for anyone who likes shooting more than sitting in front of a computer or who doesn’t have a room full of people working for them.

Microstock photography is time intensive.  Shooting and editing in larger numbers, keywording those images, and perhaps most time consuming, uploading to the large number of microstock sites – all add up to a lot of time spent per file.  Time that could have been more productively spent shooting.

For those who take advantage of the Lookstat Back-end service however – all they need to do is shoot, ‘press play’, and watch their images appear on the microstock sites of their choice.  Edited, key-worded, uploaded and processed – ready for sale.

This Month in Microstock: LookStat’s Guide to Microstock for Traditional Stock Photographers – A mention on Microstock Diaries’ news roundup

Helping to demystify much of the misunderstandings of microstock in the traditional market, LookStat released a beautifully designed and free 35-page downloadable PDF guide to microstock for RM and RF Stock Photographers.

February Microstock News – A mention of our guide at Microstock Insider

lookstat published a useful microstock guide, written as an introduction to microstock for RF (macro) and RM photographers. It includes some statistics, advice and checklists that are still useful for microstock photographers who already know the ropes.

Thanks to all the folks above for the kind words!

LookStat was featured on Selling Stock on Wednesday in a detailed article by Jim Pickerell that focused on our new Back Office services and how we can simplify the microstock keywording, uploading and submission process.

We’re really excited to have been covered in the article and I think Jim’s opening paragraph summed things up well:

The microstock submission process is an issue that frustrates many photographers.  Lookstat simplifies this process for those more interested in spending their time taking pictures than sitting in front of a computer.

We can eliminate the friction associated with keywording, uploading & submission so photographers can get back to doing what they do best, which is creating great images. Please contact us if you want to learn more about how we can help.

Selling Stock is a subscription-based online newsletter and  you can learn more about it here. Thanks for the mention Jim!

Also, a huge thank you to our customers who were quoted and those who worked behind the scenes to make this article happen. We are grateful to have your support.

We were lucky enough to work with Tom Grill (CEO of Tetra Images & a Founding Member of Blend Images) on one of his micro submissions. He has written a blog post about his impressions of the service which you can read here.

Sure there is a fee involved, but when I factor in the savings of time and aggravation and apply that time to producing even more pictures, I probably come out ahead of the game…

…For me, the service is money well spent.

It was an absolute pleasure to work with Tom and to be trusted with his images and we look forward to the opportunity to work with him again in the future.

We announced yesterday that we had closed a $500,000 financing round which was led by Founders Co-op and leading Seattle & Bay Area investors and entrepreneurs. Casey and I are grateful for the support of our users and our investors and we’re excited to have the resources to continue to develop our platform. News of the financing was on TechCrunch, TechFlash and Xconomy.

Lee has a review of LookStat on his blog Microstock Diaries. If you’re not already a subscriber to his blog, you should be. It was one of the first places I went when I began exploring microstock and I haven’t missed a post since my initial visit. In addition to writing an excellent, informative blog, Lee’s a great guy and if you get the chance to meet him, I highly recommend it.

Thanks for the review to Lee and also, a big thank you to Andresr for his nice words! Casey and I really appreciate it.

There’s a detailed review of LookStat on Microstock Insider. Thanks for checking us out and taking the time to post such an extensive, thoughtful review. Also, it was great to meet you at UGCX. We’ll definitely keep you posted as we make improvements.

While we have a long way to go to realize our vision of what LookStat can be and we appreciate our users’ patience with us as we improve the service, it’s always awesome to see feedback like this:

I am currently planning my next big shoot. I am finding the Lookstat earnings section very helpful in targeting the type of images we should be concentrating on. Especially useful is the ability to see the best sellers from the last 30 days or what every timescale you set.

An invaluable tool for me personally. Well done Rahul & your team!

Thanks Neustock Images! We really appreciate the shout out! It’s great seeing the service working for people as we hoped it would.

We got a nice mention on the Veer Marketplace.

The mix also included folks like Rahul Pathak of LookStat – part of a growing cadre of talented indviduals and companies who are developing innovative third party tools for microstock contributors.

Thanks for the shout out Brian. We’re grateful to be part of the microstock community and excited about the launch of Veer Marketplace. I hope you have a great 2009.

Rasmus Rasmussen has a nice mention on his blog about LookStat. For those of who don’t know, Rasmus is a long-time (and very successful) iStockphoto contributor and has been an image inspector for them for a while as well. He knows a ton about microstock and I highly recommend his blog to all those interested in it. Also, if you’re a contributor, his Microstock Photographer’s Guide is tremendous!

Sign up for LookStat, if you submit to more than one microstock agency. It’s a service that lets you compare sales stats from several sites, so you can see how you’re doing where. It’s easy to lose track, when you’ve got stuff all over the web, so this can really help grow your business. As an exclusive to iStockphoto, the very existence of LookStat somehow eluded me until now. I’m happy to say, that is no longer the case.

We’re flattered to be mentioned on his blog. Thanks Rasmus!

Happy New Year everybody. I hope you had a great time, are sufficiently recovered and that you have a fantastic 2009. There are some great LookStat mentions around the web as some of our users are using screenshots to display their earnings. Thanks for all your support and feedback and for talking about the site. Much appreciated. If you are interested in microstock, all these blogs should be on your subscription list.

• jrtb.com: December Stock Results
• Microstock Experiment: December 2008 Earnings
• PDTNC: December Microstock Results

While we love hearing good things, it’s especially great to hear about areas where we could be doing more to make LookStat more useful for our users. Some of the items that have come up over and over again are:

• More Sites (Fotolia is next)
• Sales History for a Particular Image
• Ability to Define a Date Range over Which to View Sales Data

We’re working on all of the items above and you should start to see evidence of this on the site very soon. Please drop me a line anytime if you have ideas or questions. I love engaging directly with current and prospective users.

Thanks again for all the support and may 2009 bring you great pictures and massive earnings!