Driftless Ramblings » Photography

Microstock Earnings May 2009

astoner — Sun, 31 May 2009 14:11:48 +0000

I suppose I’m taking a slight risk posting this before the actual end of the month, but I’m willing to take that chance. I’ll update the post if I actually get a Sunday download.

It’s now been two months since I’ve done any uploading of images. I’m actually really getting the itch to get back to uploading, just don’t have much time right now. The reason I want to get more pictures uploaded is because I’m really starting to see the financial effect a large, high quality microstock portfolio can have for me. Although I can’t really say my portfolio is large or high quality.

Site	Portfolio Size	Downloads	Earnings	Comments
Fotolia	172	2	$2.10
IStockPhoto	122	3	$3.42
Crestock	21	0	$0.00
ShutterStock	141	7	$1.75
Stockxpert	236	4	$5.90
Dreamstime	39	2	$0.95
123RF	239	0	$0.00
BigStockPhoto	46	0	$0.00
Totals	Avg. 125	18	$14.12

Microstock Diaries
Nil to Mil
Pixels Away

Allen

Microstock Earnings April 2009

astoner — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:04:30 +0000

Did not get many pictures uploaded this month. My earnings were actually better this month with some activity finally picking up at IStockPhoto. I’m actually starting to get close to a pay out on a couple of the sites. It’s only taken me about two years.

Site	Portfolio Size	Downloads	Earnings	Comments
Fotolia	172	3	$0.90
IStockPhoto	122	6	$7.15
Crestock	21	0	$0.00
ShutterStock	141	9	$2.25
Stockxpert	236	1	$0.30
Dreamstime	39	0	$0.00
123RF	239	0	$0.00
BigStockPhoto	46	0	$0.00
Totals	Avg. 125	19	$10.60

Microstock Diaries
Nil to Mil
Pixels Away

Allen

Microstock Earnings March 2009

astoner — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:10:44 +0000

Up last month, down drastically this month, although my numbers aren’t big enough to draw any sort of conclustion from. Sorry it’s a couple days late.

Site	Portfolio Size	Downloads	Earnings	Comments
Fotolia	172	2	$1.50
IStockPhoto	108	0	$0.00
Crestock	21	0	$0.00
ShutterStock	141	10	$2.50
Stockxpert	234	4	$1.20
Dreamstime	39	1	$0.35
123RF	239	1	$0.36
BigStockPhoto	46	0	$0.00
Totals	Avg. 125	18	$5.91

Microstock Diaries
Nil to Mil
Pixels Away

Allen

8" x 8" 30 Page Photo Book only $11.99

astoner — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 01:59:03 +0000

ArtsCow.com is offering a great deal on 8″ x 8″ photo books with 30 pages. They’re only $11.99 with free shipping. Here’s the codes you’ll need to use to get this price:

Z232VLM

Apr/29/2009

They do expire April 29, 2009 so pick your code and go give it shot. I’m ordering mine as soon as I get my pictures uploaded!

Allen

Microstock Earnings February 2009

astoner — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:57:40 +0000

I had a 30% increase in microstock earnings from January to February! Mathematically that’s an accurate statement, the reality is that my numbers are still too small to make any assumption from that,I went from under $10 to just over $13. Wah Huh! Sorry, I’m in a bit of a sarcastic mood.

My experiment on rf123 doesn’t really seem to have worked. The ones I donated to get downloaded several times, but I was hoping for some action on some of the similar ones. And BigStockPhoto didn’t do anything in February, like I had hoped it would after it’s good start.

Site	Portfolio Size	Downloads	Earnings	Comments
Fotolia	172	4	$2.58
IStockPhoto	101	2	$1.97
Crestock	21	0	$0.00
ShutterStock	140	16	$4.00
Stockxpert	234	6	$2.50
Dreamstime	39	1	$1.67
123RF	221	1	$0.36
BigStockPhoto	37	0	$0.00
Totals	Avg.121	30	$13.08

When it comes right down to it, I had fun doing it and what ever money I make is a nice extra. Although that doesn’t mean I don’t plan to keep working at it and setting some goals although my 10/week is already shot.

Microstock Diaries
Nil to Mil
Pixels Away

Allen

1655 Free Digital Prints

astoner — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:47:40 +0000

That’s right, 1655 free digital prints!

I thought 200 free prints from Artscow was a lot previously, but I was going to update my free prints list and found that they are NOW offering 1200 free prints. That’s 600 free 4×6 prints and 600 free 5×7 prints. The one catch is you can only use 50 of each a month and have to pay shipping. That is 50 free digital prints a month for the next year. You’ll have to start taking more pictures.

With the Artscow offer I’m not sure why you’d use any of the other but I did verify that they still available. After my last post about this I did purchase quite a few prints and other products from Artscow and was very happy with the final products.

Allen

Microstock site 123rf.com

astoner — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:47:52 +0000

Just out of curiosity I tried donating an image last month on 123rf. I don’t know if that’s what helped me get the downloads that I did in January or not, but it was the best month I had there. So this month I’m donating several more with some thought involved in which ones I’m doing. Here are a couple of the images I’m donating.

My thought process was that these are single images similar to several other in my portfolio, so the hope is that the buyers will like these images and want some other images that are similar. I also updated my ‘faved’ images which can also help with downloads.

I’m also trying to get more deliberate and consistent with my shooting and uploading. I’m also wondering a little if I shouldn’t do some purging of some of my original images. When I look back at them now I can’t believe they were even accepted.

Allen

Microstock Earnings January 2009

astoner — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 03:11:58 +0000

January has been an interesting month. It started out with better downloads and a renewed commitment from me to keep more pictures uploaded consistently. I did pretty good for about a week! Actually I’m still trying to get into a routine of regularly shooting and uploading. My goal is to ten a week, but I’ve really only done that one week in January.

We just got back from a long weekend where I was doing a bunch of shooting. The down side is that it was at the beach and those shots are tough to get approved and selling. I doubt I came up with anything real original.

I did add another agency this past month, BigStockphoto, and I’ve actually had a couple downloads already.

Site	Portfolio Size	Downloads	Earnings	Comments
Fotolia	164	1	$0.99
IStockPhoto	100	0	$0.00
Crestock	21	0	$0.00
ShutterStock	131	18	$4.50
Stockxpert	177	3	$0.90
Dreamstime	39	0	$0.00
123RF	206	4	$2.08
BigStockPhoto	19	2	$1.50	New one in this month
Totals	Avg.107	28	$9.97

I’m glad to see I kept my average the same while adding a new site.

Here’s a couple other blogs I follow that report their earnings:

Microstock Diaries
Nil to Mil
Pixels Away

Allen

Microstock Earnings December 2008

astoner — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 02:28:46 +0000

December was really busy with Christmas and everything so not much happened. I hope people don’t find my numbers discouraging, especially since I don’t. I’ve not really been putting much time into this endeavor. I’m doing it more to learning something new and get better at photography.

Site	Portfolio Size	Downloads	Earnings	Comments
Fotolia	155	0	$0.00	Added one file, but no sales
IStockPhoto	98	0	$0.00
Crestock	21	0	$0.00
ShutterStock	111	11	$2.75
Stockxpert	152	2	$0.60
Dreamstime	39	0	$0.00
123RF	174	1	$0.36
Totals	Avg.107	23	$3.71

Here’s a couple other blogs I follow that report their earnings:

Microstock Diaries
Nil to Mil
Pixels Away

Allen

Nikon SB-600 Speedlight Flash

astoner — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:47:25 +0000

Well I broke down and bought the Nikon Speedlight SB-600 AF Flash Light – i-TTL, TTL, D-TTL, Manual – 65.6ft Range, but I bought it from Buy.com instead.

My wife has been wanting an MP3 player and I saw Sandisk Sansa c250 2GB MP3 Player, On the fly FM and voice recording, MicroSD slot -Recertified on Buy.com. An MP3 player for $17 I didn’t think I could pass it up. It is refurbished, but I tend to trust the brand name SanDisk.

Allen