Microstock photography results for April 2008

A bit down on last month as I didn't get any extended licenses sales but still averaging up after the slower Christmas period. It is coming into our winter know so I may be spending a bit more time in doors to get through my backlog of photos. This should pick up the earnings at shutterstock which always happens when I upload more.

Finally had my first flame at istockphoto which you can read about here.

Disappointing news is that Luckyoliver is closing its doors, and I am just shore of a payout. I cant use any of the credits I have, as they have locked all credits which they gave away for free. Not happy but as they say, nothing in life is free.

Good news is that StockXpert seems to be picking up. Hopefully this trend continues.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

17% shutterstock
11% dreamtime
6% Fotolia
19% istockphoto
9% bigstockphoto
5% 123RF
28% StockXpert
4% Featurepics


Previous results for 2008:

March 2008 Earnings

Feb 2008 Earnings

Jan 2008 Earnings

Dreamstime - promotion for competition winner

Dreamstime have negotiated a new way to promote their website which is going to have major advantages for the monthly winner of their competition - a 2 page spread in a digital magazine with a circulation of 90,000!!!

press release is below:

Starting next month you can be recognized as a published photographer and a Dreamstime competition winner! You'll be given a two-page spread in FlipNews to showcase your winning photographs together with a short description of yourself and hyperlinks to your Dreamstime portfolio page. FlipNews is a digital format magazine which is distributed world-wide to over 90,000 subscribed readers.

Their IT and web-savvy readers includes those interested in creating FlipBooks and e-Book publishing; and in improving photography skills and writing skills. They are also likely consumers of computer hardware and software; and purchasers of images and graphics for publication content. Assignment will be launched one month in advance. This prize is bi-monthly and will be awarded to the first place of the assignment. Photographers can win it only once, so if you have previously won it, the second place will be featured instead.

Full link

Microstock photo results for March 2007

March was a best ever month, with record receipts at 4 sites and second best at 2 others.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

23% shutterstock 2nd BEM
19% dreamtime BEM (best ever month)
8% Fotolia 2nd BEM
21% istockphoto (BEM)
4% bigstockphoto
4% 123RF
17% StockXpert (BEM)
1% Featurepics
0% Canstock
0% Galastock
4% LuckyOliver (BEM)

shutterstock had another great month but the surprise was how much StockXpert and dreamtime caught up. istockphoto also put in a solid performance as the rest of my backlog of photos went up there.
The best thing is that the increases are not due to mearly having more photos on line but also due to an increase in downloads (DL) and a general increase in the payout per DL. I will try and put some numbers togehter on this for another blog shortly.

Size comparisons of the microstock sites

I am upload photos at the moment and a bit bored so thought I would do another post. Since it is mid month I can do my monthly update so had to think of something else. From a desingers point of view (they are the ones that buy the photos so are very improtant), the number of photos is very important, after the quality of the photos on the site.

Therefore, it is intersting to compare the number of photos on each site. So here goes. These are from the last time I looked but give you an indication:

Fotolia 1,264,747
shutterstock 1,032,613
dreamtime 610,000
istockphoto 1,055,075
bigstockphoto 509,000
123RF 400,000
StockXpert 220,000
Featurepics 72,995
Canstock 264,470
Galastock new

Well, as you can see Fotolia is the biggest, followed by istockphoto and shutterstock so these are definately the big three and should be used by all microstockers. StockXpert is definately batting above its weight at the moment so is one to watch.