Earnings from Stock Photography in January 2018

Another year goes by. Hard to imagine that I am now in my 11th year as a stock photographer having starting uploading in early 2008. Earnings that first year – $1113! Now we are in 2018 and January is traditionally a slow month for me in the stock world. This month is no exception – after a run of over $3000 months, I ended in January with $2727:

What is interesting about the chart though is that I was significantly ahead of previous Januarys – a 23% increase to be exact over the earnings in January 2017. It would be hard (but nice) to see that continue through 2018! In terms of uploads, I maintained a hectic pace

adding 250 images and videos to Shutterstock in January. Some of those were images left over from a trip to California in November, but I also took quite a number of studio type shots in the month as well – especially for the upcoming US Tax Return peak in March and early April. Overall, I have the following totals on the various agencies where I track file numbers:

In terms of the actual earnings, it was a mixed bag:

Shutterstock as normal was my biggest earner with $773 – a drop from the previous months but I didn’t seem to get many higher valued downloads this month. It is amazing what a difference a few large Single downloads can make to a month. iStock was down (I include the payment I get from them as my January earnings) with $389. Adobe maintained its steady pace – down a bit from the last 2 months but still good at $443 and Canva did very well again for me with $224. I went through a very “dry” period in the summer when my earnings dropped to $92, but it is performing much better now. Some sites that did great last month, for instance, Pond5 with $246 in December came in with $12! That can make a big hole in your earnings total! It just goes to show that some of the sites are very random – sometimes your images and videos meet a need, sometimes they don’t.

But, overall, a nice start to my eleventh year as a professional photographer!