Last week I started with a New Year resolution to post once a week with some example stock images taken that week. I did this partly to keep the pressure on myself to take more images and I also hope it will be helpful to give you some ideas. This is the second week, but first an update on some images uploaded last week. I took as set of images of an Apple Macbook (no logos), but was surprised that...
As I mentioned in the annual review, I did think about committing to a stock photo a day target for 2012, but decided against it – too much of a commitment! Instead, I will post, at least once a week, images that I have uploaded in the past seven days. I’m not saying that all these will be great sellers, but it will perhaps give you some ideas of what to shoot. I often find other photos to be a...
I’ve just published my December stock photo earnings results, and thought it would be helpful to review the year – how I did, what changed, lessons learned and thoughts for 2012. First, a graph of earnings per site through 2011: The December results showed the growth in earnings, but in a nutshell, I went from total earnings in Dec 2010 of $429 to $1188 in Dec 2011. Month to month growth over the year of 176%! What did I do...
The December results are pretty good, and also quite consistent from month to month. Although December obviously has two major holidays, and work tends to slow down in many offices, the final sales of $1188 are better than I expected. Shutterstock came in really well with a couple of Enhanced Licenses on Friday (of the coastline of St John), to give total earnings of $507 for the month – a record for that site. The previous high had been $451...
I’ve been doing some analysis of my portfolio to try to work out if the earnings have risen because of the number of images online, or if other factors are coming into play. The answers are fascinating! Although there is a lot of doom and gloom in the stock industry, with the common view that earnings are falling faster than you can put images online, the key point from my analysis is that the earnings per image is actually increasing...
A question that I am often asked is how you can find out where your images are being used online. I use the Google Images search to do that – and here are the steps: 1. Although Google Image Search works with any size of image, it takes quite a time to upload the full size JPEG to their server for the search. It is much quicker if you make smaller copies (800 pixels wide and lower JPEG quality) of...
Another pretty good month – even though the Thanksgiving holiday in the US depressed sales in the final week (especially on iStock). Overall sales again beat the $1000 barrier to come in at $1068. Not as good as last month’s $1300, but there were not at many big ticket sales. Veer was $31 instead of $135, Alamy $30 rather than $85 and CanStock slumped from $72 to a measly $11. Isignstock maintained its good record – down a bit from...
As you progress with your portfolio and your efficiency in managing large numbers of images improves, it is natural to look at other stock sites to increase your revenue. There are many, many online sites out there, so how do you decide which one to try? This post is an update on the various sites that I currently upload to – it covers the ease of uploading, potential revenue and any problems I have seen. By the way – if...
One of the interesting challenges in stock photography is to identify the next set of photos to take. When the weather is pleasant, exterior shots can be taken, but on cold rainy days, what better than to relax with a nice glass of wine? This came from a misguided attempt to produce one of those shots where the edges of the glass are light and the center is dark to highlight the wine. I was balancing a piece of velvet...
Another great month! I have now easily beaten the $1200 barrier and ended the month with sales of $1262.67, beating last months record by a cool $200. Most of the sites did well, with Shutterstock setting its own record with $451 and iStock maintaining a steady performance of over $200 in the past 3 months. Back in May, I was averaging $100 on that site, which shows what the Photo+ program has done (coupled with steady uploading each month.) I...
