Guest Blog Post- From hobbyist to professional artist

Whenever the microstock business receives a mention in the media, it is usually accompanied by the common description of microstock artists as amateurs, hobbyists, and stay-at-home moms or dads who have a consumer-level digital camera and some vacation photos they hope to make a quick buck off of. While those descriptions may accurately represent many artists working in the microstock field today, there are many others who consider microstock their profession. A number of things can factor into why the amateur title may be a fitting description for many microstock artists, but this does not mean that amateur status is permanent and are a few things that you can change today that will elevate your position in the stock imaging world. Changing your outlook on your microstock work and how you approach your craft can help to turn a hobby into a job.

There is a frequently used phrase in self-help and confidence-building circles: “Act as if.” You may have heard some slightly different versions of this saying, but in all of them the underlying principle is the same; How you conduct yourself has a direct effect on what you become and where you end up, in all aspects of life. In microstock, acting as if you are already a professional may spur you on to truly becoming one. Take a look at your typical microstock day and think about how an outside observer would regard your activities. Do you conduct yourself in your daily life like a hobbyist or a professional?

One of the quickest and easiest ways to transform your microstock hobby into a job (part-time or full-time) is to re-assess your work-flow and make changes that shift that work-flow into a more efficient, business-oriented process. If you are working in a cluttered area, with many distractions and very little organization, clean up your workspace and create an environment that is more like an office. Create a schedule for yourself, and stick to it. If you only have an hour a day to devote to microstock work, make sure that you put in that hour every day, and around the same time each day. Finally, make decisions based on good business choices, not personal preferences. Don’t limit your choice of agencies to work with based on your personal feelings about them. If you are only working with one or two agencies because they are your favorites, you are restricting your earnings potential and making an amateur decision. If you start to think and act like a pro microstocker, you will quickly transform your hobby into a job and your income will reflect this change.

Contributing writer Mike McDonald. Thank you so much, Mike. See Mike's Cutcaster studio here and his website here. Come on Mike. We want some more of your awesome work here at Cutcaster.