It definitely seems to be getting harder to make money from stock photography these days, especially on Shutterstock. Overall, the month was not too bad, to be honest, with total income of $2798, which is quite an increase from March’s total of $2436. Here is my usual historic chart of total earnings: And of course, some readers will want to know the size of the portfolio. I did add more images in April from my trip into Ohio to photograph...
Some months are good, some months stink… After a very poor January, February, even with fewer days, came back like a lion (isn’t that saying supposed to be about March?) And then March came along, and I ended up with total earnings of $2421, a big drop from the $2995 I saw in February. The graph looks like this – which shows how far this March has fallen from previous years: In fact, this is the worst March earnings total...
It’s a common question – how much can you really earn from stock photography these days? And I must admit that it is getting harder year by year. But after a particularly difficult January performance, especially on Shutterstock, things have taken a turn for the better in February with total earnings for the month of $2986. I was updating my spreadsheet to add in 2024 and noticed that my total earnings from selling photography since I started in 2008 wasn’t...
A new year and what a poor start to the year! Yes, I know that our favorite agency resets all the commission percentages in January, but even so, January 2024 turned out to be pretty poor. Total income ended up being $2243 with my normal chart looking like this: And my file count chart: So, what went wrong? A couple of things really – the main one being that SS slumped from $610 in November to $407 in December and...
Another year ends! It has taken me a while to write this – I was trying to finish the processing, keywording and uploading of all my photos from the recent trip down the Mississippi (in October!) and I finally did that with probably 700 images uploaded. Quite a few of the ones to Adobe are still in the review queue there, but I did a quick analysis of rejections from recent batches. There definitely was a change in their approach...
What an intriguing month! Firstly, I had a lot of Fine Art print sales that I reported on last week, then I had the conclusion of a private sale of files for prints that I’ll mention below and finally, an OK month for stock photos. The end result was a record $3940 for the month, all told! My normal chart first: And, for a change, a graph showing the growth of files from an agency that accepts most images –...
Month’s zip by and it is time for another review of earnings from Photography. I’ve been away on a cruise – this time down the Mississippi and I have many images to process, keyword and upload. 83 have been added so far as I wanted to perhaps catch the interest in the low water levels on that river, but so far, no takers! Back to the month of October. It turned out to be reasonable, although my sales of my...
Is there a monthly pattern in stock photo earnings as we often expect? This analysis of the past three years suggests that it may be more stable than we think.
Monthly report on earnings from selling photos and fine art prints online in September 2023. One of a continuing series of reports since 2009!
How much can you really earn from selling your photographs as wall art and as stock photos? This seasoned professional explains how he fares.
