Microstock Agencies – which for me?
Posted by mattantonino | Posted in Agencies, Earnings | Posted on 26-02-2010
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I’ve made many changes in the last few months to my microstock direction. I went from mostly models over white and travel images to food. It’s been a HUGE leap but one I think will be very successful after the results I’ve seen thusfar. Now that I am back to work I’ve also eliminated and added some agencies. Some non-producers are gone and others with a somewhat plausible future have been added. I thought with all the change it would be a good time to post exactly what I’m doing now.
123RF 4.7% of income, best month was January 2010.
Bigstock 4.2% of income, best month was August 2009.
Canstock 2.8% of income, best month was April 2009.
Dreamstime 17.4% of income, best month was July 2009.
Fotolia 7.3% of income, best month was March 2009.
IStockPhoto 4.6% of income, best month was February 2009.
MostPhotos 0.06% of income, best month was December 2008.
Shutterstock 51% of income, best month was June 2008.
DepositPhotos – NEW
3dStudio – NEW
GraphicLeftovers – NEW
Despite the three NEW agencies I’ve already let a few go. ImageCatalog and StockRiot closed, killing themselves. I closed my own account at Zymmetrical, Fotomind and Crestock. Those 5 had a combined earnings of less than .01% of my total so I was not sad to see any of the 5 go.
I am also letting go of 4 other agencies very soon if I don’t see a reason to keep them. They are: Cutcaster, Veer, Vivozoom, and Yaymicro. I’ve heard reports that Veer may be moving so I’ll stick with that. I told Vivo I’d do the same and I will give John at CutCaster a little longer and see how things go. These 4 sites have *totalled* under $50 for me in the 12+ months I’ve been with them. $4 a month combined doesn’t cut it.
My own earnings are picking up. Last month was the 3rd straight month of improvement and this month blows them away. This month is shaping up to be in my top 3 months all-time and with a boost could be BME. Shutterstock has not recovered my momentum at all but Dreamstime has rebounded a bit, Fotolia is almost where I need it to be and 123RF is having another solid (but not bme) month. I have been *trying* to upload to Istock. I know everyone gets on my case for my small portfolio but I have to say – it’s the rejections, not my efforts, now!
I feel I have a long ways to go and a lot of potential earnings still on the table. Shutterstock is almost $250 from my BME still, DT is $50 and Fotolia is $50. Add that to a few extras from the new sites and just to get back some momentum I could increase earnings $350-400 easily. That would get me past my goal of paying my mortgage with stock and close to my $1k goal.
So that’s where I am. Did I miss anything worth submitting to? If I did post it in the comments and I’ll sign up using your referral link. Don’t give me junk though! Only link to sites that are 2% or more of your income. These long LONG long LONG tail sites are time-wasters.
(I’m especially interested in hearing about PantherMedia, Lori.ru, StockPhotopro and Scanstock if you use them.)




