Monday, October 1, 2007

September earnings

Highlights

A month of September a bit slower than expected but still a BME with 12 % increase in earnings which just managed to break the $70 mark. Overall, sales were less frequent than august with 4 days without earnings with week ends much slower than last month. Top three images made more than last month taking a bit more than 20 % of the total earning.
After FT, some other microstock agencies experienced technical problems (IS,DT,BSP) which confirms the fact that it is safer to be non exclusive especially with a small portfolio… Also acceptance rates are fluctuating for me this month: going up on CT, DT, going down on FT
The question I was asking last month is answered: amongst BSP,CT,123RF,LO,CSP, 123RF and CT are the clear winners in term of earnings.

Microstock one by one
  • SS (-2.7 % in earnings): For two months in a row the best site in term of earnings and portfolio performance. Performance a bit lower this month with 41.9 % ($ 0.42 per image of the portfolio) taking just under 50% of the earnings. Apparently the search engine was modified this month changing the pattern of the sales and giving advantage to old pictures. Review time is always under 24 hours …


  • FT (-12.1 %): Managed to hold its position this month but another disappointing month with again this month a decrease in earnings. Sales are very irregular also and a poor performance of 2.8 %. It is worth noting also that the reviews were more severe this month.


  • DT (+200 %): A nice surprise this month with an increase of 200% in earnings and a surprisingly excellent acceptance rate of 84.4 % (was 66.7 last month). Portfolio performance: 7 %.

  • IS (+18.3 %): A slight increase of the earnings compared to last month but without the technical problems sales might have been even better. Portfolio performance: 8.2 %.
  • 123RF (+337 %): The biggest increase among all the sites. I put some free pictures on my portfolio to see if it has really has an effect on the sales. Portfolio performance: 2.4 %.
  • CT: Few sales this month, apparently the marketing campaign pays off and it is worth mentioning CT eased it reviewing process so the acceptance should go up. Hopefully sales will continue next month.
  • SXP: First sales this month but unfortunately reviewing process was very slow which explains the small portfolio.
    LO,CSP: Not sales there this month despite uploads……
    SV,FP : no sales, no uploads…

    Miscellaneous stats


  • 184 pictures sold (134 on SS)
  • Days without sales: 4
  • Best day: $ 6.07 (06/09)
  • Most pictures sold in one day: 13
  • 1557 total pictures on 12 microstocks (328 exclusives on FT)
  • Top 3 pictures take 21 % of total earnings
Detailled earnings . Figures in USD. Note: 100 % global performance is defined by a portfolio with an average of sales of $ 1 per picture






Top 3 sales



What's next?
1. Focus on 8 microstocks: SS,IS,DT,CT,SXP,123RF,FT,LO and pause uploads for SV,BSP,CSP,FP
2. Upload at least 20 pics on SS

2 comments:

ckalt said...

very nice blog and so detailed! looks like you are quite ahead of me :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Laurent,

Great blog - thanks a ton for sharing your perspectives and experience. I'm the CEO & founder of Orange Line Media. We have built some tools to help us monitor our microstock performance and have released a beta. It's fairly limited at the moment but with help from contributors such as you our hope is that we can quickly improve it.

If you have the time, I'd love your feedback. Please drop me a line when you can.

Thanks a ton.

Rahul