Earnings from stock photography in September 2020

Once again, a very reasonable month. I know that we are probably in the final stages of this industry in terms of whether a single contributor (as opposed to a group of artists continually uploading new content) can make a reasonable living from stock, but usually the death of an industry takes longer than you think! In this case I think the major impact on earnings is the pressure that is on the stock agencies to get buyers to pay a realistic amount for an image or video, mainly because the rise of “free” stock agencies continue to create the widespread impression that these photos and videos are just something that is available to be used in exchange for “exposure”. With pressure on income, they are reacting by tightening their belts (a bit) while tightening the noose around our necks by reducing the amount they pay to contributors. To be honest I don’t see this ending, although I was pleased to see that my analysis of earnings from images taken in 2020 turned out to be quite positive. I did forget one thing in that article – I did recommend that images of the TikTok and WhatsApp applications would be a great topic back in August but I didn’t then bother to take any myself! I hope at least some of you managed to get some sales there!

Incidentally, I was discussing that article with some friends yesterday and we concluded that there were three groups of stock photographers. There is a group that doesn’t really know what they are doing (technically or as a business) and so they don’t do very well. There is a group of photographers who are pretty good at what they do technically, enjoy photography, especially while traveling, but don’t really want to spend their time illustrating concepts and ideas that might create well selling images. They do OK at earnings, but it is a constant struggle to earn more as travel publications have been hit by the major drop in vacations. Finally, there is a group who are pretty good technically, but also realize that this is a business you need to work at – so spending quality time thinking about concepts and how to illustrate them, spending time in a home studio with props and lighting and finally, spending time keywording and describing those “boring” images is key to success. You can quite happily exist in either of the latter two categories, but need to recognize what you are trying to achieve and be content with the outcome. I’ve said this before, but I now believe we are in the stage of the industry where you need to work to maintain your income – almost as if this was a salary. Yes, there will continue to be an ongoing revenue stream when you finally hang up your camera, but the days of adding images and gaining incremental earnings seem to be behind us. It is also interesting to look at what Alex is reporting this month – he commented that with working hard at his day job, he is looking more at stock in the “Enjoy what you are doing” category. Anyway, I’ll get off my high horse and get down to business!

Overall monthly results

The month ended with total sales of $3405 – well above the summer months and in fact, my best September result. $450 above last September in fact. Of course, it was helped by the great Fine Art America sale (next section below) and also the continuation of the Canva double payment. I decided early on to record the Canva results in the month when we are paid rather than the month the images actually sold and so I am about to record my sixth (and last) double payment. We will have to see what happens when the subscription sales are reported much later in October. But regardless of that, it was a very good month for me. Here is my traditional graph:

I didn’t add very many images in the month – 81 in fact – and so my graph of assets (photos plus videos) per agency looks like this:

Just to fill in part of the puzzle about assets, I have 578 videos for sale on Shutterstock – the rest of the above is made up of still photos.

Fine Art roars back to life

As I reported earlier in September, my Fine Art sales got a major boost with the sale of a 40 inch metal print of the local university in Morgantown – WVU. This one sale gave me almost $290 in profit and I got a smaller $4 sale of the same image on a Tote bag. Over on Society6, this same image as an art print netted $17 (amazing how the prices vary between Print on demand sites!) and I sold two of my water colors of the skyline of San Diego for a total of $37:

I have increased the margins on my printed products on Society 6 part way through the month. I’ll see if it makes any difference to sales during October. By the way, I use the Jixipix apps for these “attempts” at art – I find them easy to use and can usually find one of the profiles that gives the sort of results I am looking for.

No sales via Photo4Me in September, but the total from all these sites reached $348 in the month.

Significant Images sales in September

The US election continues to fill our minds with wonder and the magazines, papers and websites are full of images illustrating different themes. My award for the highest price sale in September was given to this fine concept:

This one – a Photoshop mockup – sold for $49 on Shutterstock. It sold as a “Single and Other” and so I have no idea what it will be used for. Also on Shutterstock, I got $44 for this composite of having my temperature taken in a mall setting. With all this fame, I’ll have to look into setting my hair styling expenses against my tax bill. (Sorry – a USA joke).

Adobe did OK with this sale of a decision point concept (a walkway in the Great Dismal Swamp) for $41:

Finally, I sold this image taken with my drone off the coast of Hawaii on Alamy for $47 net:

My best overall selling image in September was another simple “made at home” concept. Altogether this sold 33 times to earn $55:

Agency Performance

As usual, the best selling agency was again Shutterstock with total sales of $880 – my best result since March. However, Adobe Stock was not far behind this month with $625. If there was a prize for best growth, Adobe would have won it after a pretty poor result of $481 in August. iStock was pretty good as well with a total of $487 after dropping as low as $325 in August. Then we drop down pretty rapidly. Alamy was not too bad with $201 and even Dreamstime has performed pretty well over the past months with $104 in September.

Video Performance

My videos actually did pretty well in September with total sales of $398. Leading the way was Shutterstock with total video sales of $237, including two sales for $67.50 for the same clip on the same day. Perhaps a mistake, but at least Shutterstock rarely processes refunds against our account:

The star for the month was this video of a senior man looking at the sunset from the deck of a cruise ship. It sold for $70 on Adobe Stock:

My trend of video sales is showing its usual up and down pattern, but they do generate a reasonable amount each month:

Sales of 2020 images

While I was creating this month’s report I decided to repeat the exercise I did earlier and see how much the images (and videos) I created and uploaded in 2020 actually earned this month. This analysis does not include any iStock images sold in September. What I saw really surprised me to be honest. Videos are easily put on one side – I sold one of my 2020 videos for $3.98! But the still images were very different. Microstockr Pro shows me earning $1665 from images in September. This is less than I reported above because Microstockr doesn’t track every agency, but the results should still be consistent. The images I created and uploaded in 2020 generated $520.67 – just over 30% of my still income came from 2020 images! My blank social security card earned $86 of that, the eviction notice with mask is mentioned above for $55, the aerial Hawaii shot for $47 and me with a mask for $43. Then I had bookcases at $22, election stickers, more eviction notices, pictures of masks and coronavirus tests and so on. Altogether I sold 700 unique images in September and 135 of them were created in 2020. Almost all of them were just created in my home studio. So it really reinforced, for me, that continuing to create new concept images is “goosing” my earnings in a very solid way. So on to next month and new concepts!