I make a strange comparison today because I have spent a couple hours with my charts in the last few days.? What I have learned is that weight loss and microstock have much in common.

A little setup

Last year from March to July I uploaded seriously.? Wedding season hit and my time was cut drastically and I was unable to continue.? My earnings grew every month from March through July and dropped after.? My July earnings were $575 and dipped to an October low of $380, or 66%.

Shutterstock had the biggest dip from $398 to $174.? Dreamstime and StockXpert actually rose from $82 to $99 while Fotolia more than doubled from $14 to $30.?? Bigstock and 123RF stayed mainly the same.

The lesson

When you want to lose weight, seriously, you eat the right amount of calories and exercise properly.?? Other things are short term fixes but that is the only long term fix and most people know that.? However, we still have many, many overweight people in the world.? The reason: action. People fail to carry out their plans.

Microstock, according to my 10 months of charts, is exactly the same for me thusfar.? When I work (March through July, November through now) my earnings have risen accordingly.? When I stop my actions earnings drop.? This is a simple and predictable formula for my own work.

There are two exceptions – Dreamstime and Fotolia.? Both actually rise with time not necessarily linearly with action.? However, that is a function of pricing structure.? The more your images sell on DT and FT, the more they are worth.? I would assume with more data that Istock would work similarly in a way (as your ranking increases).

The action

Where does that leave us?? If you want to succeed in microstock you need to work commensurate with what you want to earn.? If you want to lose 30 pounds, don’t do “5 pounds of loss” worth of work.? If you want to earn $2000 a month, don’t do $500 worth of work.

So that is where my thoughts lie – to getting on the treadmill and running.? And sitting at the computer and working.? Action.? Money, life, fitness, fun – it’s ALL in the action.