25a. 8 months without uploads

25a.1. No uploads anymore

I have been doing micro's for about one year (oct 2006 till oct 2007). After that my motivation was gone. The money wasn't that important to me, although I managed to collect a 4 figure number each month. I didn't get much satisfaction from 'my publications' either, so I thought it was time to move on.

I sold all my photographic gear and bought me a racing bike. Since then most of my free time I spend on this bike. (result : my weight went from 90 kg to 75 kg now :o) )

But all this isn't of much interest for you I guess. What may be interesting, is the way my earnings evolved. We all know that when you upload less, earnings seems to drop. So what happens when you don't upload for a long time ??

After 8 months without uploads, I think I can give a fairly good answer to this.

25a.2. Number of upload, overall earnings and more

Underneath you'll see a, fairly busy, graph with the number of uploads each month, the evolution of my total portfolio size, my total earnings (excluding referral earnings) and the $ per image for each month.

Let me explain the graph a little bit

- The orange line shows the uploads for each month. I uploaded around 1100 images over a period of 13 months, which is an average of around 80 images a month. My last uploads were approved begin nov 07.

- The blue line shows my total portfolio size.

- The green bars show my total earnings (excluding referrals). Until I stopped uploading, earnings went almost exponential. After November 2007 my earnings dropped significantly. But even after 8 months, I'm still earning 50% from my best month. This surprised me a little. I expected a more severe drop.

-The purple line show the earnings per image. Maybe this is the most important line. It divides my total earnings by the portfolio size, telling me how much each image at average yielded. This is a measure of a) the quality of the portfolio and b) the amount of commission we receive.

At the peak I earned $1.65 per image which is a lot more then most contributors at mid-stock (like Alamy) report.

25a.3. Earnings per agency

Now you've seen how my total earnings and portfolio size evolved. Let's break this down to the individual agencies.

Underneath a graph of my earnings for each agency. It's a fairly large graph so I suggest you click on the thumb to open the graph in a new window.

I don't think I need to comment much on this graph, it explains itself imho. Besides I will go through each agency individually.

Maybe it is interesting to compare the earnings over the past 6 months. Mind that for Shutterstock and Dreamstime they are without the referral earnings. For all other agencies this is with referral earnings (but they are for those agencies not that important)

25a.3a. Istock

Now let's look a little closer to each agency seperately.

After a bad December month (december is a bad month for all agencies due to the holiday week at the end), I had very good earnings in January. This surge really surprised me.

After that January month things went from bad to worse, declining month after month. Earnings dropped 66% from it's peak and I'm back at levels not seen since March '07. Let's hope this stabilizes somewhere.

25a.3b. Shutterstock

Shutterstock has always been a good earner for me. But the past 6 months it earned 'only' 20% of my total earnings. Earnings from images dropped 68% from it's peak to levels not seen since March 2007 when my portfolio size was only 50% of what it is right now. But the last 4 months earnings seems to stabilize. At least that's something good.

Also note that the drop in earnings after I stopped uploading was very severe. It's known that you need constant uploads at Shutterstock to keep your earnings at a high level. Much more than with other agencies.

When I include referral earnings Shutterstock is by far my biggest earner. At the moment I referred 169 photographers. I don't know how many of them are approved, but I guess it would around 40. At the moment referral earnings are at par with my image earnings, and they are still rising.

25a.3c. Dreamstime

At Dreamstime, my last month of uploading was also my very best month by far. In December earnings dropped by almost 50%, but since then they seem to be stable.

In contrast to Shutterstock and Istock, where earnings dropped to levels not seen since March 2007, my earnings at Dreamstime are still at levels of around August/September 2007.

All this figures exclude referral earnings. Dreamstime is, besides Shutterstock, the only agency where I have a significant amount of referral earnings. The last 6 months my referral earnings at Dreamstime where around 30% of my image earnings. Not as high as with Shutterstock where they are at par, but still significant. I referred 105 photographers of which 51 completed their registration. But only 9 (!!) have more than 100 images in their portfolio.

25a.3d. Fotolia

Fotolia is a differrent. I still can't figure out their search engine, imho it's totally messed up (read :can't find my own images). But that's an other story.

From October 2007 tot April 2008 earnings dropped 38%. But the last two months earnigns at Fotolia increased big time. Last month was even my BME (Best Month Ever). But I must admit that I had 7 Extended Licenses which accounted for around 20% of my earnings. Yet without these EL's this would probably be a BME. Remarkable !

Referral earnings at Fotolia are very thin. I referred 45 photographers, but earned only $129 in total. Not really impressive.

25a.3e. StockXpert

StockXpert is a special story. I uploaded my whole portfolio in September and October 2007 which gave me a huge return the first months. Besides that I had one or two very successful Santa Claus images who contributed big time to these earnings. But after December, when Christmas images are less in demand, earnigs dropped big time.

In March 2008 they were only 25% of my BME. But also here it seems earnings seems to stabilize. The spike last month is due to one large Extended License. without that earnings would have been equal to the previous 3 months.

25a.3f. BigStockPhoto

BigStockPhoto is my smallest earner, it accounts for only 8% of my total earnings. It's surprisingly to see that my earnings didn't drop at BSP, they are flat since October 2007 which is actually a good thing.

25a.4. Conclusion

When I stopped doing micro's, and thus stopped uploading, I expected that my earnings would drop to almost zero within 6 month. But time has proven me wrong. After 8 months I still make 50% of my best month, and that excludes referral earnings, when I included those I still make 60% !!

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