Earnings from Stock Photography November 2015

Good months and bad…

After a pretty good October when my total earnings reached $2639, November dropped, although at least I stayed above that $2000 threshold – ending the month with $2145.

Here is my overall earning chart – getting a little difficult to see now with so many months, so when I get to January I’ll rework it to show fewer years.

Growth in Stock Earnings since 2010

What do I see as the trends (as far as my sort of stock photos are concerned). Well, the big problem area for me is Shutterstock – partly because it always forms a big part of my earnings each month (40% or so) and partly because no matter what I do, I seem to be stuck in a rut in terms of overall earnings. The images I uploaded last month (travel in Spain) were generally accepted, but sales of those particular images have been very slow to non-existent. The same images on Fotolia seems to appear much more frequently in the sales charts on that site. As you can see from the chart, I first hit $1000 in SS earnings in late 2012 and I ended up in November 2015 with just $782. In that 3 year period, I have gone from 3186 images to 5625 on that site. Looking back at my numbers, I earned $0.28 per online image on SS in November 2012 – in November 2015 it was $0.14. Talk about working hard for the less money!

This isn’t just a Shutterstock phenomenon though. My overall earnings have been stuck in the $2000 to $2500 range for a couple of years. Not that that is particularly bad – getting that income month after month is pretty good and I enjoy the sort of photography I do, but I did expect a bit more income as my file count increased.

Here is my file count on three typical sites – I haven’t uploaded to iStock for a while – I need to do that, but it does show the focus I have been making on getting more images into RM sites as editorial shots. Because Alamy does not allow RF editorial, that pretty much forces me to make all my editorial shots RM and keep them off the micro agencies. However, it also means I have quite a collection of images that I can submit to ImageBrief briefs – I haven’t won anything recently but it still gives me ideas for shoots.

Growth in online files

So what are the bright spots in this universe of stock agencies. Zoonar is doing pretty well for me. I have signed up for all their distribution channels (except for Shutterstock) and I earn a reasonable amount each month from those various sites. October was $158, November so far is $56 although other sales are reported later in the month. Of course, Zoonar takes their commission from distributor sales, but they still add up.

Canva is another winner for me – October was $183, November $190. Their model of charging $1 per use seems to be paying off – I quite often see the same image licensed several times presumably as a designer uses it in different ways.

Deposit Photos is also pretty reliable – almost always around $100 a month. Fotolia seems to be showing quite an increase. I had fewer images on that site because they used to reject so many of my travel shots. That has changed recently but even so, I only have 4151 images with them. However, the earnings have increased from $44 in April 2015 to $143 in October and $126 in November.

Finally, Alamy and Corbis are getting more reliable. October was $115, November $194. As I put more editorial/RM images on those sites I’m hoping for more earnings…

Will this mix of bad and good news affect my activities? In my case, no – I enjoy what I do, it doesn’t cost me much beyond my time as I would have traveled to these places anyway, and I end up with some occasionally spectacular images that I can print and frame!