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Microstock Photography Earnings – August 2009

Marek — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:57:46 +0000

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.

Microstock earnings and payments from August 2008 to August 2009

iStock. BME, a steady growth during last 6 months, #1 with almost 50% of my microstock income. I reached the silver canister level in August (2500 downloads) and my weekly uploading limit increased from 15 to 20 pictures. I have a chance to resubmit some old pictures now. 22 new pictures added. $1.03/ download.

Shutterstock. A better performance than in July, but still well below the April or June. I reached $3000 total earnings in August, so my payment rate increased from $0.33 to $0.36 for subscriptions and from $2.48 to $2.70 for on-demand pictures. 33 new pictures added.

DreamsTime. ~15% down from July earnings. 30 new pictures added.

Fotolia. Better performace than in July which was pretty bad. 22new pictures added.

StockXpert. BME, still going strong with a lot of contributions from from Photos.com and JupiterImages subscriptions. Reviews and payments seems to take much longer time than it used be …

123rf. Slow!

Big Stock Photo. Better than in July.

CanStockPhoto. Earnings seem to stay on the same level: one big sale through PhotoSearch and a few $0.30 subscription sales. 2nd payout.

Featurepics. 2 small sales … Will I reach my first payout this year?

Veer. Almost 500 pictures accepted. My acceptance rate is above 80%, however, they rejected practically all my best selling pictures as not suitable for stock.

The 3D Studio. Some photographers reported pretty good sales there. I uploaded 100+ pictures: thousands of views, zero sales.

agency	portfolio size	downloads (EL)	earnings	% earnings	RPI
iStock	847	529	545.51	48.2%	0.644
Shutterstock	1362	582	271.34	24.0%	0.199
DreamsTime	1071	107	$92.25	8.1%	0.086
StockXpert	1315	143	$67.80	6.0%	0.052
Fotolia	892	73	$56.30	5.0%	0.063
Big Stock Photo	1260	28	$37.00	3.3%	0.029
CanStockPhoto	1201	19	$26.75	2.4%	0.022
123rf	1274	28	$16.69	1.5%	0.013
Veer	497	9	$14.65	1.3%	0.030
Featurepics	1333	2	$9.00	0.7%
	1599 total	1520 total	$1133.04 total		0.709

Some other bloggers are reporting monthly earnings from microstock:
Microstock Diaries … Microstock Experiment … NiltoMil … jrtb … MeLastMohican’s Blog …

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

Related posts:

13 Months of Microstock Photography Earnings: August |September | October | November | December | 2009 January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August
How to Evaluate Performance of My Microstock Portfolio?
A Reverse Look at Microstock Sales from My iStock and Shutterstock Portfolios
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, Panthermedia, CanStockPhoto.

Summertime! Earnings from Microstock Photography in July 2009

Marek — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:14:02 +0000

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.

Microstock earnings and payments from July 2008 to July 2009

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.

2008 Missouri River 340 – start of the race at Kaw Point

Some other bloggers are reporting monthly earnings from microstock:
Microstock Diaries … Microstock Experiment … NiltoMil … jrtb … Driftless Ramblings … bankizdjec.pl … MeLastMohican’s Blog … Probably Due To Network Congestion

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

Related posts:

13 Months of Microstock Photography Earnings: June | July | August |September | October | November | December | 2009 January | February | March | April | May | June
How to Evaluate Performance of My Microstock Portfolio?
A Reverse Look at Microstock Sales from My iStock and Shutterstock Portfolios
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, Panthermedia, CanStockPhoto.

$1000 in Earnings from Microstock Photography in June 2009

Marek — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:02:04 +0000

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.

I added back a column with RPI (return per image) to my earnings table below. However, my total RPI is calculated now using a total number of my microstock pictures, i.e., pictures prepared for microstock sitting in my computer. RPI = $0.70/image seems to be pretty low, but my goal is to increase that number. Keep in mind that my production costs are also really low.

Microstock earnings and payments from June 2008 to June 2009

iStock. BME. IS is returning to #1 position in my earnings . 45 new pictures added. $1.04/ download – better than in the previous month. 755 downloads left to reach the silver canister (2500 downloads).

Shutterstock. 3 EL. A better performance than in the previous month, but still below the April BME. 70 new pictures added. $362 left to reach my next milestone here, $3000 in total sales.

DreamsTime. BME. Good sales, but my effective acceptance rate dropped down below 50%, i.e., I am submitting selected pictures only, and they take only 64% from them. 38 new pictures added. “Too many shots of the same item or from the same series” is the rejection theme.

Fotolia. BME. My acceptance rate is improving slightly. They even accepted some of my backgrounds. 53 new pictures added.

StockXpert. BME. 40% came from Photos.com and JupiterImages subscriptions (more than 20% less than in May).

123rf. Slowly going down in earnings since April BME.

Big Stock Photo. BME. Review time is much faster since they introduced upload limits.

CanStockPhoto. One big sale through PhotoSearch and a few $0.30 subscription sales. I reached the first payout. Unfortunately, PayPal is charging a fee from their deposit.

Featurepics. 2 small sales …

Panthermedia. 400+ images in my portfolio. 1 sale in June. I reached the payout of 40+ euros with 4 sales. They sent it to PayPal. When it will arrive?

agency	portfolio size	downloads (EL)	earnings	% earnings	RPI
iStock	773	357	$372.95	35.7%	0.482
Shutterstock	1269	699(3)	$360.28	34.5%	0.284
DreamsTime	980	83	$91.40	8.8%	0.093
Fotolia	833	69	$65.06	6.2%	0.078
StockXpert	1222	115	$61.60	5.9%	0.050
Big Stock Photo	1163	45	$42.50	4.1%	0.037
123rf	1184	33	$24.05	2.3%	0.020
CanStockPhoto	1106	10	$22.50	2.2%	0.020
Featurepics	1230	2	$4.20	0.4%
	1492 total	1829 total	$1044.54 total		0.700

June was my 19th month in microstock with $6266 of total earnings.

My latest stock photos on Dreamstime

Related posts:

13 Months of Microstock Photography Earnings: June | July | August |September | October | November | December | 2009 January | February | March | April | May | June
How to Evaluate Performance of My Microstock Portfolio?
A Reverse Look at Microstock Sales from My iStock and Shutterstock Portfolios
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, Panthermedia, CanStockPhoto.