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Microstock Photography Earnings – December 2008

1 January 2009 5 Comments

December is traditionally a slow month for microstock industry. However, I managed to keep the same level of my earnings as in November despite of my wrist surgery. I increased my average portfolio by 49 pictures only.

Number of downloads in iStock, Shutterstock and Dreamstime was much lower in December than in November, but two extended licenses (SS and IS) rescued my savings.

Shutterstock is providing now more than 50% of my microstock income. I experienced a plaque of rejections from SS during the entire of December mostly due to “low commercial value” of my pictures any other than isolated products. These were all similar pictures to my bestselling ones. I managed to get accepted most of them, but it meant more work and extra frustration when working with SS. New reviewers? Policy change?

I stopped including Featurepics in my reports, but I got one sale in December – 4 sales overall during the last year …

agency	portfolio size	downloads (EL)	earnings	% earnings
Shutterstock	711	331 (1)	$149.79	51.0%
iStock	481	54 (1)	$66.81	22.7%
DreamsTime	569	31	$27.28	9.3%
Fotolia	465	24	$16.49	5.6%
StockXpert	683	17	$14.10	4.8%
123rf	683	18	$11.51	3.9%
Big Stock Photo	641	7	$6.00	2.0%
Featurepics	645	1	$2.10	0.7%
	605 average	483 total	$294.08 total

Some other bloggers are reporting monthly earnings from microstock:
Microstock Diaries … Microstock Experiment … NiltoMil … jrtb … Driftless Ramblings … bankizdjec.pl …

Anybody else?

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

Related posts:

Growth of My Microstock Portfolio in 7 Agencies: IS, SS, FT, DT, BSP, 123RF, SXP
Microstock Photography Earnings in 2008:
November | September | August | July | June | May | April | March | February | 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.

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5 Comments »

James said:

Not too shabby! My numbers were down again as well, but I’m hoping to add new images soon. Have you seen lookstat? You should check them out for your monthly reporting. Happy New Year!

# 2 January 2009 at 3:40 pm

Marek (author) said:

I was lucky with 2 extended licenses. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have the same level of earnings as in November. Number of downloads in December was up to 20% lower.

# 2 January 2009 at 4:19 pm

Matt Antonino said:

EL’s saved me in November too – three with SS actually. +$75 always gets me happy. But the lack of them in December made my numbers “look” lower.

As far as Lookstat, I love it too – but without having all my agencies, it’s hard to use it for monthly reporting as it doesn’t show nearly my whole story.

Your portfolios are decent sized now – a bit of a push and you’ll hit $500 a month no problem!

# 5 January 2009 at 6:26 am