January 2009 earnings

Highlights

A good month in term of earnings considering the slow start of the month and the fact that I did not have any EL and sales in midtock. Among the 10 agencies, I had only one BME at Dreamstime. RPI went up so does volume of sales from last month. However compared to the same period last year, RPI is only half its value and volume of sales about the same despite the fact that I have a larger number of pictures on line.

Compared to January 2008 in ():

Total earnings: $ 265.08 ($ 179.26)
Pictures sold: 462 (446)
Average $/dl: 0.58 (0.42)
Global RPI : 0.48 (0.89)

• Shutterstock. A good month above the $ 100 mark again due a large number of OD sales which represent 15 % of the earnings, up from 5-8 % normally RPI=0.17. I had however my first 0 sale day ever this month.
  
• Istockphoto. Sales are getting better again. IS new price structure certainly boosted my earnings.RPI=0.16
  
• Fotolia. Very close to the second position this month and earnings. RPI=0.05
  
• Dreamstime. A BME by few dollars hope it continues this way. RPI = 0.04
  
• Stockxpert. A lot of sub sales this month since I had a only 6 credit sales on 45 sales. RPI=0.03
  
• Bigstockphoto . Dissapointing month with earnings lower than in december
• 123RF. Dissapointing month as well, a bit better than last month but still far from past performances....
  

Less than 1%: SCP (no sales this month),CSP,CT


On the midstock front no sales this like I mentioned earlier. I have 500 pictures on line now on YAY and decided to hold uploads now on. I give a bit more time to Cutcaster but still wait for my first sale there. I hope Zymmetrical and Panthermedia will pick up next month....



Stats

Lookstat screenshot January 2009

The trends of this month are clearly visible on this screenshot from Lookstat. FT should be added shortly to the list of agencies and it worth mentioning that Lookstat implemented a new feature this month to track earnings per picture. I will do a post about this later on but it is definitely a very good tool to analysis strengh and weakness of a portfolio.

Detailled earnings January 2009 (figures in USD)

December earnings

Highlights

At this time of year, it is usual to look back: beside the financial aspect, stock photography was clearly beneficial in a number of points with probably the most important is the improvement of my photo and software editing skills (especially HDR). Also got a better understanding of what kind of pictures are selling on what websites.

Microstock industry is very changing and it is difficult to make predictions but it is safe to assume that in 2008,Shutterstock, Istockphoto, Dreamstime and Fotolia will generate the most revenue. Next year will be critical for a lot of new microstock or midstock agencies and some of them have clearly less and less time to deliver. Finally it will be interesting to the evolution of prices since I stockphoto put in place a new table of prices.

To go back to December, the month was good with a comforting 14 % growth in earnings compared to November and a second half of the month significantly slower due to the holiday period. Three BME at SS,SXP and DT.

Microstock one by one

• SS (+23%) BME. The biggest earner for the fifth consecutive month and an increase in sales proportional to the number of new uploads. For the first time I sold more than 300 pictures a month and reached also 1000 downloads. I had also my best day ever with 34 sales. Global performance up to 54 % this month
• FT (-25%) Despite one EL (the first in almost six months), earnings went down 25 %. Performance just under 5 %.
• DT (+221%) BME. A very good month and for the first time, DT performed better than FT (just over 7%).Very important also to note, the $/dl almost doubled and was this month $ 1 very close to FT. At this pace I believe than DT will become number 2 earner very soon.
• IS (-15.6%) A bit slower this month but managed to get more pictures this month(+10)
• SXP (+15%) A slight increase this month. 100+ portfolio. Performance 3.8 % no far from FT
• Slow sites (less than 3% of sales): LO (1 sale), BSP (1 sale), CSP (2 sales),CT (2 sales)

No downloads yet on the new midstock agencies with 100 pictures on MP, 17 on ZY and 10 on PS.

Detailed earnings Figures in USD. Note: 100 % global performance is defined by a portfolio with an average of sales of $ 1 per picture. Ratio DL/IS is the ratio of all the time downloads over the total pictures of portfolio


% earnings for each microstock




Best seller december : $ 11.52

Miscellaneous stats

• 445 pictures sold (361 on SS)
• 1 EL on FT
• Days without sales: 0
• Best day: $ 14.84 (18/12)
• Most pictures sold in one day: 38
• Top seller made $ 11.52
• Average per download: $0.37
• Global performance : 89.9 %