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.)

I know a lot of readers were concerned when I said I was going into food photography. Why the change?  I told you then and I will say it again – I’m OBSESSED with food now! I’ve made some healthy recipes, lost a few pounds and will keep shooting food.  I LOVE this job!  These images are all shot in the last week.  This is our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th food shoot.  We’re still learning but hopefully you like em!  Actually, hopefully stock photo buyers like em!

Let me quote myself.

I am not going to stick around and pretend to be something I’m not.  Too many people set goals and fail to reach them, yet still continue the journey unfazed.  I often share my experiences and ideas in hopes of helping you.  If I can’t help myself first, I can’t help you.

If I fail to reach both goals (10k images, $25k for the year) by 12/31/09, NiltoMil.com will close for good whether I continue to shoot microstock or not.

At this point in the year it is obvious that I will not reach 10k approved images OR $25,000 this year.

I am modifying what I wrote above.  I am not going to destroy or delete Nil. I am going to stop posting earnings, stop posting ideas until they are working better.  I AM going to keep Nil up for the archives and the posts that often get referenced.  I AM going to continue to put up posts of interest to me – whether that’s of interest to anyone else or not.  My journey will continue.

I need to help myself first.  I need to figure out the steps I should be taking to reach my goal  and when I do, I’ll be back full force with the full effort I can give Nil.  Until then, expect sporadic updates on what I’m doing, how stock is going and what I am trying to do to improve.

Total Earnings: $440.55

That’s a number I can live with.  Granted it doesn’t get me a lot closer to the “mil” portion of this goal but it also represents an increase over August of $13 and an increase over last Sept of $31.  I upload no new photos, keyworded nothing and submitted not a dang thing.  So an increase in my earnings with no new work is definitely motivating and exciting.

As always my fully detailed results are in my Google Spreadsheet here.

Well, the summer is almost over and I’m almost back to work.  September represents the next-to-last month of me not able to focus on microstock.  That being said I’m always happy if I make a few dollars anyways.

Specific results that are important:

Shutterstock finished +$74 from last month.  I would expect something more in the middle like $160 for October.

Dreamstime was way down but Fotolia was up.  I can’t wait to see what happens with Bigstock since the SS acquisition.

NO BMEs for the first time since I started tracking stats – that’s a little disappointing but gives me some new goals and motivations.  I’d like to have one month set EVERY BME just so I had a guideline to improve from.

Others reporting microstock income:

Microstock Diaries

jrtb

CJ Photography

Driftless Ramblings

PDTNC

MelastMohican

Pixels Away

Bankizdjec

Microstock Experiment

MyStockPhoto

Stock Illustrator

I’d like to address something – the time I spend on microstock.  I think some people who read this blog are slightly confused about me slaving away and getting nowhere.

In July, I added 15 new images to my sites.  That means I worked on it for under 1 hour in July.  I made $500 in July.

In June, I added 150 new images.  About 4 hours of work.  I also made $450.  I’ve now in 2 months made $950 on 5 hours of work.

In May, I added 160 new images.  About 4 more hours of work.  Made $400.

Grand total: $1400 while doing 9 hours of work.

What I need to do in order to increase my earnings is actually work on microstock.  I do need to continue improving – I’m just really starting my second year of being a stock photographer.  I need to upload with momentum – that’s proven very successful.  But I’m not sitting here day after day churning out work that isn’t selling.  I’m just simply not putting in the time.

Why?

Our studio has 4 photographers, we’re currently hiring 2 more and we’re going to do between 40 and 50 weddings this year combined.  We’ll likely do another 150 portraits and next year will come close to 70 weddings/250 portraits.  Our wedding and portrait business has brought in over $100k each year for the last 2 and will do so this year and next as well.  I am also in the midst of building a studio management software for photographers that will track clients, billing, orders, calendaring, expenses/taxes, and task management.  It’s a huge project but one I love doing.

All that to say, don’t cry for me, Argentina.  I’m here, I’m going to continue working on micro when I can.  Right now I’m being torn in 3 directions and this one is the least of my issues.

Very late, I know.  I went to Maine for two weeks near the end of July and was basically non-existent on the ‘net for that time!  Sorry.

July 2009 results

As always the fastest and easiest way to see stats is on the spreadsheet using the above link.  However, I’ll detail a bit of my month in here as well.

July total was $543.49 which was almost up $100 from June ($88!).  I’ll take that result.  However, only DT was a BME.  Shutterstock accounted for a lot of the leap with a gain of $42 over June.  Dreamstime’s $52 gain was the rest.  IS, FT, 123, BSP, SXP were all where I expected them to be.  MostPhotos gained one sale and Canstock continued to do very well for me despite having been so quiet for so long netting another $34.60.

3 month average is down slightly because of the terrible May I had.   6 month average is up $20 but 12 month is right about where it’s been for the whole time I’ve tracked it.  Kind of disappointing.  My results near the point where the goal looks near impossible now.  $6k a year will never get me there.  I need to crank up the earnings or abandon hope.  The two do not make sense together as is.  In the past 14 months, 12 have earned between $400 and 580.  That’s fairly consistent but not high enough by a lot.

Ah June.  Smells of bbq, flowers and sales worth dog poop.

As always my chart (which was done on the 1st btw!) is here.  And for Lee who is self-proclaimed lazy, I’m posting a June chart:

The work … well … let’s see.  For the month I started strong and have had a terrible last two weeks.  I had some personal stuff come up that has interfered with “work.”  I would say for the month I did about 4 days of uploading at about 2  hrs a day so 8 hrs of work.  My income increased from last month by $47 and I earned a total of $455.02. I did no shooting for stock in June and added only about 160 new images to my galleries.  That’s consistent with the time I think I put in.  So my income increased slightly on very little work.  Eh.

Two BME’s – StockXpert continues to burn up the charts, continuing in 3rd on my charts behind only SS and DT.  CutCaster also earned $4.02 breaking the previous high of $3.19.  Heh.   Other notes: Canstock had another Fotosearch DL, the 5th one in 5 months.  I like that.  I have many non-earners that may get permanently removed very soon.

At the halfway point of the year I think it’s important to take a look at where I am.

I’m not shooting enough.
I’m not editing enough.
I’m not uploading enough.

That about sums it up – decent return for almost no work I’ve done but wow, ok.  I am done playing around now.

My upload strategy of late has been momentum.  I think if we upload consistently rather than doing Power Week then nothing, we’re going to be better with sales and have a better acceptance ratio.  So far that has proven to be true.  I am now almost a full week into this consistent strategy and what I’m finding is that sales on SS, DT and SXP are rising.  Fotolia always takes awhile and BSP/123RF don’t sell enough to notice trends yet.  This consistent approach is also good for my portfolio.  Let’s take a look at where I was/am as an update.

• Shutterstock 1/1 – 1441
• Shutterstock 6/7 – 2395




• Dreamstime 1/1 – 1570
• Dreamstime 6/7 – 2346




• Fotolia 1/1 – 646
• Fotolia 6/7 – 1696




• StockXpert 1/1 – 1365
• StockXpert 6/7 – 2758




• Bigstock 1/1 – 1540
• Bigstock 6/7 – 2857

5 full months of uploading has nearly doubled my gallery on many sites, +700 or 900 new images on many other sites.  However, I’m nowhere near where I need to be on images, sales or earnings to get what I want.  So this change, along with some other new things I will be doing, will hopefully get me closer to goal.

So from now on, I’m uploading 25 a day 5 days a week, every week.  I think 500 new approved images a month is going to have to be a “good enough” goal.  If I can manage that, by the end of this year I will have 3500 new images or over 5000 on every site (except IS of course!)

Another goal that will happen this month – I’m adding at least a couple batches to DeepMeta for Istock, submitting more to Fotolia and trying to create some images that may sell better than things I have now.  We need to improve out quality to keep up with the best in this business!

Total Earnings: $408.01

I knew this month was going to be bad about 1/3 of the way through when I was on my way to possibly a Worst Month Ever.  I didn’t quite get that far down as May finished just over $400 for my 4th worst month since I started tracking in detail.  I’m fairly certain it couldn’t get much worse so I’m looking for a REALLY huge bounceback month in June!

Onto the details.

One BME to report – StockXpert – at $44.50 was my BME.  I didn’t have a $30 Photos.com sale this time, like I did in November, so I’m pleased with that BME.

Canstock was also notable this month – fourth consecutive month over $10 and 3rd of 4 to have over $25.  Considering that in 4 months I have now more than doubled my previous 4 year earnings, I’m very pleased with Canstock.

Shutterstock had a worst month for the last 12.  My momentum was completely gone by the beginning of the month and sales were tanked.  Then we seemed to have some database/sales problem as EVERYONE’s early May tanked.  I’m very sure my new momentum uploading will rebound Shutterstock in a BIG way.  I wouldn’t be surprised for a very large jump here next month.

Dreamstime was also off – about $20-$25 off my average month.  Not good news as I have no idea what caused the drop.  Normally I have at least some explanation but not for this.  Just a seasonal dip perhaps as last May was very low.  I need to continue adding new images to DT as well though.

IStock – well I don’t know why I was at $17 and now I don’t know why I’m back to $4.  Either way if I don’t have more than 100 images online, my months are bound to vary from superb to suck.

Fotolia – after three good months on Fotolia, this month was so bad I had to double check my results and I’m STILL not sure it’s right.  Terrible month here.

123RF was near a BME but not quite.  Bigstock was SmallStock once again with terrible earnings.  Nothing at all on MostPhotos, Crestock, ImageCatalog, CutCaster, Vivo or YayMicro.  Don’t honestly know why I bother with most of those.

As they are throughout the month and at the end of every month, detailed results are available here.

Others reporting microstock income:

Microstock Diaries

jrtb

CJ Photography

Driftless Ramblings

PDTNC

MelastMohican

Pixels Away

Bankizdjec

Microstock Experiment

MyStockPhoto

Stock Illustrator

I learned a huge lesson in the last 3 months. That lesson:

“Success requires first expending ten units of effort to produce one unit of results. Your momentum will then produce ten units of results with each unit of effort.” – Charles Givens

What I mean to say, exactly, is that stock is a momentum game. The more quality images you upload, the more people visit your gallery and thus the more sales you have overall. The first bit of starting requires a harder push than later on but you must start and (here’s the lesson of the day) KEEP GOING.

I’ve watched the downloads of several major contributors this month and last. They nearly always are consistently uploading. Image totals go up here and there and the contributors continue to be successful. Another thing I did was watch a few contributors with totals near mine. Some went up, some did not.  For the most part these type of users make up the majority of active contributors – those who are basically spinning their wheels.  The last group needs no monitoring.  They are the contributors who submit a few times, don’t make $10,000 and go away never to be heard from again.

I’m concerned only with the group that uses momentum in its favor.  This group uploads consistently, 50-200 images  a week almost every week.  This group also seems to make most of the money in microstock.

So what is it that keeps the momentum going?  What keeps a contributor going?  I think they are obsessed.  One of my favorite quotes ever is by John Irving.  He said the secret to business was “You’ve got to GET obsessed and STAY obsessed.”  Many start there – how do  you continue your obsession?  What makes you enjoy the business?

Recently I was away for a few months, reconsidering what I wanted to do in microstock.  Over the summer last year I lost my momentum and it really hurt my sales and my mood.  I have in the last few weeks been kicking it back into gear.  It’s time to run again.  I am obsessed with microstock again.  I want to learn, move forward, WIN.  I want to hit goals, hit higher ones and hit ones so high I have to reset them all.  I am officially OBSESSED with microstock and it’s time to get back to good.  I’m not going to let summer stop me this time.  I am shooting again, editing again, uploading again – with more consistency and less “flurry.”  Powerweeks work against me – that’s figured out.  Moving forward in a consistent manner is the goal.  We shall see!

Thanks for reading – I really appreciate all of you guys.  Leave me a comment and I’ll stop by to see what you’ve been working on too!