I spent much less time on microstock in August than usual. I added only 40+ pictures to my portfolio. Nevertheless, I reached to important milestones at iStockphoto and Shutterstock, and a new BME in total earnings.

Summertime and microstock sales are slow. I added 61 new pictures to my portfolio in July, but my earnings dropped down by 9%. My RPI was down from 0.70$/image to 0.61. This is my total RPI derived using the number of all my pictures prepared for microstock (not pictures accepted in any particular agency).

IS continued to climb and is definitely my #1 earner. DT was also growing. SXP stayed at the same level despite of uncertain future of that agency. Earnings from SS with only one EL dropped down by 25%. FT experienced even more dramatic decrease in earnings.

July was my 20th month in microstock with $7215 of total earnings.

This month my earning report is shorter than usual since I am just leaving for a week of vacations away of computer and submissions to microstock. I will be paddling in the Missouri River 340 race – 360 miles nonstop from Kansas City to St Charles. This year I am taking Surfrigger, my outrigger canoe, for the race.

I will try to shoot some travel oriented pictures for stock when driving from Colorado across Kansas to Missouri and back. However, during the race I will have only my “paddling” camera, waterproof Pentax Optio W30, so I would be shooting mostly for my Paddling with a Camera blog.

13 Months of Microstock Photography Earnings: June | July | August |September | October | November | December | 2009 January | February | March | April | May | June

I prepared 77 new pictures for microstock in June extending my total portfolio to 1492 pictures. It means that I am slowing down a little bit in shooting for microstock. Fortunately, I don’t see a summer slow down in my earnings. For the first time I reached more than $1000 of monthly earnings!

iStockphoto and Shutterstock provide 70% of my microstock earnings with IS moving to the first place. Adding income from Dreamstime makes almost 80% of earnings, so it’s clear where my focus should be.