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23. Topsellers
In this chapter I want to find out what the average photographers can expect regarding sales. Let us first see how much the top microstockers earn.
23.1 Topsellers on iStock
In discussions people often state that their is no real money to be gained in Microstock sites, only some pocket money. Would this be really true ??
On 1 Sep '07 153 !! contributors had more than 25.000 !! downloads on istock. Even with that horrible 20/80 royalty structure on iStockphoto, I bet most of them (as not all) earned more than $10.000. That's sure more than pocketmoney for me.
I gathered some information about the top ten contributors on iStock which I molded into the table underneath.
In black the numbers of the end of 2006
In red the numbers on 1 Sep 2007 (roughly 9 months later)
| Top ten contributors on iStockphoto |
| Rank |
Contributer |
Date joined |
Files online |
# Downloads |
Exclusive ? |
| |
|
|
|
sep '07 |
dec '06 |
sep '07 |
dec '06 |
|
| 01 |
01 |
Lisegagne |
April '03 |
5200 |
4200 |
570.000 |
407.000 |
yes |
| 02 |
02 |
Hidesy |
Nov '03 |
8900 |
7200 |
308.000 |
235.000 |
yes |
| 03 |
-- |
DNY59 |
May '05 |
3100 |
-- |
203.000 |
-- |
yes |
| 04 |
07 |
sjlocke |
Aug '04 |
3100 |
2050 |
199.000 |
107.000 |
yes |
| 05 |
05 |
spxChrome |
Dec '03 |
2100 |
1750 |
157.000 |
113.000 |
yes |
| 06 |
09 |
dra_schwartz |
Sep '04 |
3700 |
3100 |
144.000 |
100.000 |
yes |
| 07 |
03 |
sx70 |
April '04 |
2500 |
2100 |
139.000 |
121.000 |
yes |
| 08 |
04 |
Mammamaart |
Jan '03 |
784 |
730 |
141.000 |
118.000 |
yes |
| 09 |
-- |
Nico_blue |
Dec '02 |
2600 |
-- |
139.000 |
-- |
yes |
| 10 |
10 |
duncan1890 |
Sep '02 |
2500 |
1900 |
139.000 |
95.000 |
yes |
This little search revealed some interesting things :
*All top10 contributors are exclusive to iStockphoto
*9 out of 10 joined all before September 2004
*Mammamaart has the greatest downloads-per-file ratio : 180
*Hidesy has the lowest downloads-per-file ratio : 34
*lisegagne had more than 600 downloads a day the last months
*hidesy had at average 41 files a week approved, 3 years long
*the top3 are all woman !
*the first non exclusive we find on place 15 (120.000 downloads)
23.2. How much does Lise Gagne earn ?
This is a question many tried to answer before. If I compare the figures of Dec '06 with Aug '07 we can make a estimation.
In 9 months she had roughly 163.000 downloads, that are more than 18.000 downloads a month (or 600 a day)
My average a download on iStock for this year is $0.69 a download. Given that Lise has double the payout I have I estimate that she has at least $1.40 per download. But probably more because her files are larger. Nevertheless, we'll stick with $1.40 download.
18.000 times $1.40 makes $25.200 a month ... ... Which also means that she brings in over $100.000 for iStock each month.
Just out of interest I did the same calculation for Hidesy.
73.000 downloads in 9 months -> 8100 downloads a month -> times $1.40 = $11.340. Still a lot of money, but only half of that of Lise.
If we look at the survey by PDN online about the income of stockphotographers, both will in the top 5% of all photographers
Interesting Read :
click here for an other success story on Black Star Rising called : "Erik Reiss : Microstock Success Story"
23.3. Summary
The fact that 153 iStockers had more than 25.000 downloads surprised me. So there can clearly something be gained with micro's. But this doesn't answer the question what the average photographer can expect.
To answer that question I turned to Dreamstime. They provide a list of their photographers stating when they joined, how much files they have online and how many downloads they have. The list can be filtered in several ways.
Read more on the next page.
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