Making money from Stock Photography – March 2021

A new month and a new set of earnings. I have been doing this for so long, I could write these on autopilot! However, it looks as though this month is maintaining a more positive direction in terms of earnings with the total ending up (without EyeEM who are late for some reason) at a very pleasing $3274. Well up on January and February and about $110 up on earnings in March 2020. The full historic graph is here:

I obviously did something really special in March 2019, but this is maintaining a nice growth line year by year over the previous months. Lets hope this is the start of a new trend, although I have been doing this for long enough to not bank on that. For those new to my blogs, here is my file count of images (and about 500 videos)

And, once again, I had a lazy month in terms of uploads:

Lazy, not because I am not active – I did upload some images that have gone on to sell reasonably well (so I guess that is an excellent use of time and effort), but I’ve been continuing to try to boost my sales of art prints at Fine Art America. Not very successfully yet, as I sold a mug for $2 this month, but I think this is a long game and I will keep at it and hopefully report some successes in coming months! I’ve put a lot of effort into Pinterest (my account is here) and I am now up to 26K monthly views, but no sales as a result! In fact, very few clicks through to my images on FAA. I’m uploading about 4 pins a day at a steady routine and have bought some room templates to show off my images as prints:

I also link each one through to the matching print on my Pixels site (as I have with that image above) and try to include a “call to action” in the text. Time will tell if this works!

Successful Stock Agencies in March

Back to the world of stock! The standout agency with growth of 605% over March 2020 was….

Canstock! I bet you never guessed that. But I sold three images for more than $10 to end the month with earnings of $102! But in terms of a sizeable income, Shutterstock was the winner again with $1026 after $614 last month, although Adobe Stock did well to end with $626 and iStock was $501. The biggest blow to me was the loss of the guaranteed $298 a month from Canva which lasted most of last year. Now Canva came in at $115. However, that shows how generous they were (I guess) with their double earnings offer. I don’t think my portfolio quite suits the Canva buyers, so I am glad of whatever I earn over there.

For some reason, Zoonar was good this month, increasing from $7 to $70 with reporting of quite a number of sales on Picture Alliance. Dreamstime, Deposit, Pond5 and Alamy all beat the $100 mark as well. Incidentally, I got back to Level 5 in Shutterstock in March so that is helping with earnings. It still annoys me why I had to spend 2.5 months with lower earnings though!

What sold for me in March 2021?

Shutterstock again led the pack with higher priced sales, including this at $120:

This was just a grab shot when visiting a convent a few years ago and it was a statue just sitting in the garden. Nothing special or artistic. I extracted it from its background and set against a black background which presumably was exactly what the buyer wanted. I did a couple of other composites with this and they have earned $550 in total.

A newer version of my famous bag of ice sold on Shutterstock as well for $63:

This and the original have earned about $2400 altogether. This wasn’t a new photo – just a rework of one of the other images taken at the time of the first shoot that I thought looked a little different.

And just to show you that anything can sell, this was a grab shot when touring a house in Northern Portugal which sold for $32 on Shutterstock again:

I also sold videos of a rotating bitcoin and also the rough seas in front of a cruise ship to help Pond5 get to its earning level this month.

This one of a cellphone tower taken from my drone sold for $30 on Shutterstock again:

This one has earned $140 or so and a version with a replaced sky sold for another $20 or so. As I outline in my premium posts, it is important to try to double guess what will be in the news and try to anticipate the need for images. I did that recently with some images of an invented US Treasury Check for the Biden stimulus money in the US and those have earned about $200 this year and an even more short term one to illustrate the move of the filing date for US taxes to May has earned about $30. All that needed was a calendar page (printed out) and a push pin. Money for nothing really. So either follow me in those articles or keep your eyes peeled (an old English saying) for those opportunities that others may not have spotted!)

I think that is all I have for you about this months earnings. Back to creating Pinterest Pins…