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.
In my post yesterday, I worried about the drop in earnings (in total and per online image) on Shutterstock, and as their financial results came out today, I did a bit of a calculation to help explain what is happening.
Firstly – what a poor month! I just scraped past the $2000 mark, thanks to Canva ($247) and Fotolia ($274). Alamy and Corbis were OK with $197, iStock at $248 and 123RF came in nicely at $154. But Shutterstock really slumped down to $536. I think I need to go back to 2012 before I find a month as bad as that. That make me think about my graphs of earnings per online image to see how things are looking...
I’ll start with a post about the good news this month – a sale on Fine Art America for a shower curtain (!). My profit on this was only $5, but it is nice to think about the buyer stepping naked past my image (OK, I’ll stop that…) This was the image:
These things only come round every month or two, but this one was worth mentioning – a sale of a 30 x 18 inch metal print of the Wailua Waterfall in Kauai – sold to someone who lives very close to the falls, so I guess they must think it is a good likeness! The profit on this one with my FAA pricing plan
Another month, another disappointment with Shutterstock! After it picked up to $920 in May, we are back down at $748 for June. The lack of on-demand and the more expensive Extended and Single sales really is making a difference and it isn’t the reliable earner it once was, unfortunately. Lets hope they have some plans to pull up the earnings (unless the plan is to accept so many images that each contributor gets a smaller share of the pie) However,...
I’ve put my Canon gear up for sale, but if anyone wants to buy directly from me, please get in touch via sales at backyardsilver.com. The macro lens has already been sold so I still have: Canon 16-35mm F4 L IS USM lens with hood: $895 Canon 1.6x Extender II with lens caps: $255
I have four Canon flashes (three 550EX and one 580EX) as well as the Canon ST-E2 infra-red controller. With my change of camera outfit from Canon to Sony, the next question is whether I can effectively use these flash guns with the Sony? There is a great article by Tim Ford, where he concludes that an optical flash adapter is the best way of getting the highest sync speeds, but he is using the 580EX II – mine are the...
We found our way to a very remote spot in West Virginia today – Jenkinsburg Bridge, also known as Bull Run Bridge over the Cheat River. This 1912 metal truss bridge is only about 12 miles as the crow flies from Morgantown, but the only road to it takes almost 50 minutes and the last 4 miles is on a 4 wheel drive very rough and steep track down the hillside. The road across the bridge is pretty much impassable...
I don’t often recommend books, but one I have really enjoyed reading and also found very informative is Alain Briot’s Marketing Fine Art Photography. He gives lots of good advice about what sort of photographs sell, where to sell them and how to go about marketing prints of your work. Making money from selling prints yourself isn’t easy, but it is very rewarding to get the personal satisfaction from someone deciding that your image would look good on their wall....
