Earnings from Microstock photography in June 2011

Well, time to dust off the camera and get shooting again! June was not a good month for sales with the total not even hitting the $600 mark, ending at $595. The reasons were pretty clear as I looked at the various sites. Although the number of downloads was pretty similar from month to month, there was a distinct lack of any enhanced or higher value sales. In previous months, I was seeing several $28 sales on Shutterstock and occasional ones on iStock, and it is surprising how quickly earnings can grow with just a few of those large sales. Also, no sales of video this month, which left another hole in the earnings. Still – no need to be disheartened – interest in my eBook “Getting started in microstock photography” is picking up, and the reader reviews I am getting from the early customers are very positive. I also got a nice review from the StockPhotoSecrets web site. July is also starting in an interesting way, with two video sales, one enhanced from Shutterstock and a full rights sale from Dreamstime (more about that shortly!)

Here are the graphs:

Images on line

Earnings per site

Earnings per month