Earnings from Stock Photography in August 2016
It is hard to work up the enthusiasm for posting this, but another poor month for me. Shutterstock continued in the doldrums with hardly any single or enhanced sales and total earnings of $610. To think I used to regularly get over $1000 from that site! iStock was poor with an estimated $200 and Alamy/Corbis was not great with $100 – not helped by the closure of Corbis to new sales.
What was good – well Fotolia/Adobe stock was pretty good at $259. 12 months ago that was $90. Canva was good with $229 and even 123RF surprised me with $195. Not sure what they are doing over there, but I keep submitting and sales do go up.
Nothing else was worth commenting on, with total earnings for the month of $2079. At least I just crept over that $2000 mark! Lets hope the winter months show an improvement.
PS – Update. I did look back at last year and August 2015 was $1945, so looking on the bright side I am showing a year on year improvement! Now I can smile again!
Nice work. I hope to come over 2000 some day 🙂 Do you use any software to collect the earnings from the sites?
Hi Jorgen
Having a regular $2000 in income is not a bad problem to have! And I should remember that!
Steve
Hi, the difference between your last year earnings and now is almost not existing, zero – and you (we all) should earn much more year by year (ranking position improving with sales)… Just consider, how many new images did you add to your collection? = How much time did you spare on making new photos to keep the last year earnings level?
Sorry – I meant to answer the question about software. I don’t use anything apart from Excel. All I’m interested in is the total each month and I don’t try to track sales on individual images or even which ones get accepted.
Arletta – you are right, of course. I’ve probably added another 1000 images or so, but sometimes you have to look on the bright side!
The month of August is not worth commenting for me either. For the first time I did not have a single on demand download at SS. Overall on all my sites I made 30 bucks or so, but I still have less than 500 pictures on each. Looking back, however, April was my best month, when I had less than 200 pictures on any agency!
A surprise was another sale at Alamy, but this time, I got less than 4.00 bucks for it. Considering that the photo was a pair of sneakers without the logos on them, I cannot complain.
My worst disappointment is Zoonar, the only place where i have not made a single sale. I have played around the search engine and have found out that it is not as smart as, for instance, SS’s search engine. So I added, modified some of my key wording and I am now in the process of setting my picture shop if that helps. The owner has been in a bad mood with me, rejecting over 95% of the pictures I submit, and that does not help either.
I am beginning to wonder this is dupable for a beginner, I mean, make an income on Stock that goes beyond a monthly cup of coffee. The way the search engines on most sites work do not help beginners. Oh well, enough complaining.
Thanks for the update.
Hi Alessandra
I often think about whether it is possible to start now – even when I started in 2008, the “old timers” were saying that the golden age was past! The way my SS earnings are dropping makes me think that site is much harder than it was, although Fotolia is definitely on the up and up. I wouldn’t worry about Zoonar too much – my sales come not from the site itself, but their partner sites – Alamy, Getty, sometimes, and AGE. I can’t explain why the owner is so hard on you!
If you like photography, I would keep going!
Steve
Michael of Zoonar is not hard on me, I just think he does not like many of my pictures. The problem is, some of those he has rejected are good sellers. Sometimes he accepts everything, even a model release I uploaded by mistake passed his scrutiny once.
I used to like photography, but last time I went to a local gallery I only saw pixelation, exposure issues, the eye is not in focus, and you know how it goes. My husband asked me what my problem is that I could not enjoy some of those artistic expressions. Stock has ruined me for that 🙂
Hi Steve
Whats happened to your Sept sales. Are they now so bad with SS that you dont want to share them? I usually have sales every single day on SS but nowhere near the level that you do. However, as of yesterday, I have gone 5 days without a single sale! A $6:50 sale on Fotolia has however raised my spirits today! Another statistic which may interest you is that I have had 15 zooms on Alamy in the last month but alas no sales
regards
kevin
Hi Kevin
They are coming!! They aren’t great, but I am waiting to get the results from Alamy and Corbis (which are managed by a partner of mine) before I publish the whole lot. Probably next Monday.
Steve