May in Microstock off to good start!
Immediately after I published my previous post on April’s earnings. I went to check my email and found that I had a sale on Fotolia. It could be a good month! It was a XS but a sale none the less.
Allen
Archive for 2008
Microstock April 2008 Update
April was a really busy month but I still got to do some shooting and uploading. Even got a couple more added to most of the sites. I got a good jump in my average portfolio size, but I’d really like to do something like Lee Torrens’ Shoot Daily and Contribute Nightly or Matt Antonino’s April 450 – monthly microstock goal . Both of which are very ambitious but not really an attainable goal for me right now.
Had an interesting experience with my best sale from last month. It was just a simple shot of some gravel I took while watching one of my boys baseball practice. That is what I’m working at getting better at, having the camera with me and seeing the opportunity to take a shot that is a good microstock shot. The shot is the picture to the right. Makes me think if you can get it past the review process, it may well sell on Microstock, within reason.
My average portfolio size is currently 52 up from 43 images. It looks like that will take a hit along with my total balance when Lucky Oliver goes away in May. I did sign up for 123RF last month but need to submit my first batch of images there too, probably use the same batch I use for ShutterStock.
I should point out that these numbers are my career TOTALS not just the totals for April. When I get some more consistent downloads and earnings I switch to monthly numbers.
| Sites | Portfolio Size | Downloads | Balance | Comments |
| Fotolia | 112 | 12 | $7.59 | Sold one |
| Lucky Oliver | 98 | 2 | $1.20 | Guess I’ll have to say Bye-Bye to my $1.20. |
| IStockPhoto | 34 | 5 | $4.56 | Good month here |
| Crestock | 9 | 0 | $0.00 | |
| ShutterStock | 0 | 0 | $0.00 | Got the notice that I can resubmit #5 but haven’t had time. |
| StockXpert | 0 | 0 | $0.00 | Need to get my second attempt together |
| Dreamstime | 8 | 0 | $0.00 | |
| Totals | Avg.52 | 19 | $13.35 | Hopefully I don’t see this number go backward with the loss of LO |
Here’s a couple other blogs I follow, hopefully someday my earnings will rival some of theirs:
Microstock Diaries: Microstock Results for April 2008
Nil to Mil: April Earnings and Portfolios
Pixels Away: Microstock Photography Earnings Report for April 2008
Allen
Microstock March 2008 Update
March was a pretty dry month for downloads, only got two from Fotolia. I was successful at getting a couple more pictures approved at most of the sites. I got some images approved on Dreamstime which is a new site for me. I’m really trying to focus on getting good images that will sell as microstock images. Everything I’ve been reading says you can’t really make any predictions until you get a portfolio of 100 images, so that’s my goal, especially for IStockPhoto.
My average portfolio size is currently 43 images, and that doesn’t include the sites I don’t have any images on yet.
| Sites | Portfolio Size | Downloads | Balance | Comments |
| Fotolia | 90 | 11 | $6.27 | Only site to get any downloads this month |
| Lucky Oliver | 92 | 2 | $1.20 | |
| IStockPhoto | 22 | 2 | $1.40 | |
| Crestock | 9 | 0 | $0.00 | |
| ShutterStock | 0 | 0 | $0.00 | Failed to get accepted four times |
| StockXpert | 0 | 0 | $0.00 | Need to get my second attempt together |
| Dreamstime | 7 | 0 | $0.00 | |
| Totals | Avg. 43 | 15 | $8.87 |
Allen
Four worm experiment
Well Bentley over at RedWormComposting has inspired me, that and my boys bugging me to check out their worm bins. It’s actually been quite a while since I’ve checked out the boys bins so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was afraid they would be dried out and all the worms dead. What I found was the opposite, they were actually soaking wet, and almost decomposed down enough that the worms couldn’t get out of the standing water. And I was happily surprised to find some worms in the bins.
My older boy’s bin was the first one I checked out. The contents had settled down to about half the original size, but I quickly found some worms. The final count in this bin was 2 adults found and 7 juveniles, so they did reproduce some. I did see at least one cocoon, and I’m betting there were more but I wasn’t really looking for them.
The second bin was my younger sons. I was a little disappointed to only find two adults and no juveniles. I think this one may have just been too wet.
These two bins were in the small clear snack food containers so in the process of searching the bins I moved them each over to a bucket. The larger bin should enable the worms to hopefully find an area in the bin that is to their liking.
The final bin that I checked through was my bin which has been in a bucket the entire three months. I only found one adult, but did find 7 juveniles.
I may have set the bins back a little by my digging through them but hopefully they’ll all make a come back and continue to grow. My biggest concern is the bin with only two adults, hopefully there were some cocoons or small worms that I missed.
While doing my digging I did check on my main bin and found it quite active with LOTS of worms and much of the contents in the bin converted to worm castings.
Allen