Monday, February 18, 2008

Finally, an extended sale at Shutterstock !

Finally, I was starting to believe that it will never happen: I got my first extended sale at Shutterstock:)

At $ 20, it is also the higher per photo sale I had so far just ahead of my last sale at Mostphotos ($18).

This download (the 1494 th) brings me just over $ 400 for my all time SS earnings, less than $ 100 away of my raise: after that, I will earn $ 0.30 instead of $ 0.25 for subscription sales.

Hope more EL will come this year !


And again I try to build up my referral at SS , so if you wish to register with my link please click below:) thanks

Submit Photos to Shutterstock and make $$$!


And... here is the picture downloaded below that I took last year in a science museum in Poland during an exhibition dedicated to physics.


Monday, February 4, 2008

Experiment 6: best sellers


It is time to do a quick roundup and see what the best sellers are across my five main agencies (shutterstock, fotolia, istockphoto, dreamstime, 123RF) the past few months.

So here they are below with number of dl's and date of upload. It is interesting to note that the two architectural shots are doing very well. Although "blue building in Warsaw' is on Shutterstock as well it has been downloaded only a few times.I will update this post in few months with hopefully more downloads and agencies.



Glass building in Glasgow@Shutterstock (57 downloads,uploaded 04/12/07)



Blue building in Warsaw@123 RF (20 downloads, uploaded date 07/22/07)






Copernicus memorial in Warsaw@Istockphoto (17 downloads, uploaded 07/31/07)




Macro Science @Fotolia (12 downloads, uploaded 30/03/06)

Morning rush hour in Warsaw's metro@Dreamstime (5 downloads, uploaded 07/22/07)



If you not yet on Shutterstock and want to give it a try you can follow my referral link below

Submit Photos to Shutterstock and make $$$!

Friday, February 1, 2008

January earnings

Highlights

In term of sales, January was quite the opposite of last month: a very slow start and a good finish. Overall January earnings took over December at the very end of the month and thanks to one sale at Mostphotos, I was few dollars away from my $ 200 target. +8 % growth and + 20 % including midstock. % earnings between agencies is starting being more balanced now since I have steady sales not only at SS and FT but also IS,123RF,DT and SXP. So overall a BME with BME at IS,123RF,SXP and LO.

Ranking $: SS>FT>IS>DT>123RF

Ranking performance: SS>IS>FT>SXP>DT

Ranking $/DL: SCP>FT>BSP>SXP>IS

Microstock one by one


  • SS (-22%). Still the highest earner but it was a disappointing month; sales did not really follow the trends of previous months since with a bit more than 200 pictures now, I was expecting to make around $ 110 this month. New uploads did not really sale like hot cakes as previously observed. Global performance down form 54 to 35 %. 200 + portfolio this month.
  • FT (+32%) Better than last month despite no having EL. For 5 months now FT in my number 2 earner but IS and DT are getting closer and closer. Like IS FT put in place new prices so logically earnings should go up if customers do not download too much the new XS size.600+ portfolio this month.
  • IS (+128%) BME. More downloads and more $ due to the new price structure put in place at the beginning of the month. This was reflected in the $/dl: 0.79 per picture sold ($ 0.65 in December) .For the first time I sold more pictures than the number on line. Very good performance of 29% not too far from SS this month.
  • DT (-19%). A slight decrease in earnings this month. A significant decrease in $/Dl down from 1 to 0.67 due to an increase in sub sales (4/20 this month, 0/17 in december). The new keywords feature in place is quite interesting and it was in my case very relevant to the pictures downloaded. Approval rate of 68 % this month.
  • 123RF (+83%).BME. Almost beat DT this month, I have few pictures who sell very well there. 400+ portfolio this month
  • SXP (+46%). BME. A slight increase this month. I opted out for the subscription sales and did not see any detrimental effect on sales. On the negative side, slow and inconsistent reviews.
  • LO performed better than usual with 7 sales this month and take 3 % of the earnings.
  • Slow sites (less than 1% of sales each): BSP,CSP,CT. I am disappointed to have only 0.25 c sub sales at CT I wish they had a system to opt out like SXP. I started contributed to scanstockphoto as well this month and sold one picture for 1 Euro.


Midstocks agencies

I am now on Mostphotos (280 pics), Zymmetrical (15), Panthermedia (7) and Zoonar (1).I had my first sale this month at Mostphotos (€ 12.5). I like the easy upload there and the fact that pictures are on line immediately. If you want to register with my referral link please do so here.

Panthermedia an already well established german midstock agency is now available in English. Commission is 30% for pictures already on microstock sites. Note that IPTC is now currently available. Depending on picture size and assuming you have 30 % royalty you will get between 1.5 and 24 Euros in your pocket. For extended license the maximum you can get is 72 Euros. If you do register please not that Panthemedia is divided in two entities: Stock Agency (SA) and Photocommunity(PC). Join SA is the cheaper option to sell pictures and only cost 0.35 euros to cover for the Paypal setup fees.
Here is my referral link below if you are interested to join:

PantherMedia - Fotocommunity und Bildagentur für lizenzfreie Fotos



Zoonar is another midstock agency based in Germany. Pictures can be sold as discount, standard or premium rates. With the 50 % commission offered, you can expect to get between 15 and 85 Euros if the original size of your picture is downloaded. A desktop application called Zoonar media manager allows you to upload conveniently entire folder of images. Please note that the minimum size of pictures to upload is 6MP. However upsizing is allowed (up to 1 MP) if it does not create too much artifacts.
If you want to register with my referral link please do so below:
Zoonar

Miscellaneous stats

  • 425 pictures sold (281 on SS)
  • Days without sales: 0
  • Best day: $ 17.58 (23/01)
  • Most pictures sold in one day: 27
  • Average per download: $0.42
  • Global performance : 88.71 %


Detailed earnings Figures in USD. Note: 100 % global performance is defined by a portfolio with an average of sales of $ 1 per picture.