I started my microstock adventure over a year ago with submitting pictures to iStockphoto. A little later I added other agencies, and several months later Shutterstock and StockXpert. During these first months my microstock earnings were dominated by sells from iStock.

At that time it looked like I could predict my future earnings from microstock: more pictures in the portfolio, more earnings. It was almost exactly a linear relationship. Then, this perfect growth picture got complicated.

My efforts in growing iStock portfolio remain the same as shown by a green graph below: 15 uploads every week. My acceptance rate stays also the same around 72%. I was hoping to increase my upload limit after reaching the bronze canister level after 250 sold pictures, but iStock changed limits and I am still at 15 upload slots per week.

Around May or June of 2008 my sells (number of downloads) at iStock reached a plateau. The earnings fluctuated a little bit more due to an occasional extended license deal, but in October they started to go down. I am not sure how much it was caused by the changes at iStock (best match search algorithm) or by the declining economy. My loses at iStock were never so dramatic as reported by some other photographers. During last two months I had clearly more sales in small and extra small sizes than before.

Now,some good news. It is February 17, 2009. My February earnings at iStock already exceeded the January earnings and are heading towards a BME (best month ever). We will see if it is just a pleasant fluctuation or a long term trend (till the next surprise for nonexclusive photographers at iStock).

iStock lost its top place in my microstock earnings for Shutterstock in the last September, but occupies a solid second place.

I don’t complain about uploading procedure since I am using Deep Meta software which make uploading process to iStock and managing the portfolio really easy. Since I work on Mac I installed Deep Meta under Windows XP run with the aid of VMware Fusion.

Related posts:

• iStock Earnings and 7 Best Selling Pictures in My Microstock Portfolio
• 13 Months of Microstock Photography Earnings:
  2008 January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August |September | October | November | December | 2009 January
• What Sells in Microstock? My List of Picture Bestsellers
• How to Get Accepted by ShutterStock? Don’t Give Up!
• My microstock referral links for photographers:
  Dreamstime, ShutterStock, BigStockPhoto, 123RF, FeaturePics.