Ken's (PictureLake's) Photos Found in Use,
and Other Exciting Developments

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Update August 1, 2008: It turns out this story was a syndicated story, going out to network websites all across the US. The story, along with my photo and credit line, are on more than 180 different network sites! But the reason they call this "microstock": My commission for this was $0.20.

This will likely be my last update for a while, since no one reads these anyway. :-) First, the picture to the left sold an EL (Extended License) in June on Fotolia. As mentioned previously, an extended license means someone purchased the photo planning to sell something with that photo on it. It might be a postcard, a calendar, a mug -- I will most likely never know.

What else has been happening since my last update? As predicted last November (though 5 months ahead of time), iStockPhoto became my #1 all-time money earner in June, surpassing Dreamstime which had always been my #1 site. iStock also surpassed Shutterstock by a few dollars, which had been ahead of iStock in the bid to overtake Dreamstime, despite the fact I'd been on Shutterstock for only a few months. I haven't been uploading recently, though, and Shutterstock more than any other site requires constant feeding of new images in order to do very well. I did have my 1000th sale on Shutterstock in June, so that was certainly a nice milestone. Not coincidentally, I passed 2000 total sales in June as well. (And for those of you thinking this is a money-making venture, realize that that amounts to less than $700 in total sales in two years of microstock. There's a reason why it's called microstock!)

LuckyOliver closed its doors a few months ago. OTOH, a new site, Yay Micro, started business last month. I uploaded my entire portfolio there, but so far, no sales. It isn't easy to start one of these sites, so I don't have much hope for them.

I hate to repeat the same image (Shutterstock's logo), but there was no choice. This is NOT an April Fool's joke. In the 3.5 weeks since joining Shutterstock, I had exactly 200 sales. So in less than a month, I had more sales from my tiny Shutterstock portfolio than I've ever had in total at any other agency except Dreamstime (where I've sold a total of 229 images over the past 22 months). Now, of course, I get only a small quarter per sale, but that $50 I earned is also the most money I've ever earned in a month from any agency (and the most I've ever earned in total during a month at ALL agencies combined until this past Feb!).

I also had BMEs (Best Month Ever) at 123rf, BigStockPhoto, Dreamstime, Fotolia, and iStockPhoto. All in all, March was a VERY good month!

This is a '5' event for me personally, but for others may not be as excited. Once each in 2006 & 2007 I tried, unsuccessfully, to be accepted at the #1 microstock site, Shutterstock. (Some feel iStockPhoto is #1, but most seem to regard SS as #1.) Friday I decided, what the heck, why not try again, now that I have better equipment, and more experience at what they are looking for. The requirements are tough -- you have to submit 10 photos, and at least SEVEN must be accepted. I still didn't have 10 photos from our new camera yet, so I had to submit 2 from our old camera (which generally creates photos that are simply too "noisy" for SS to accept).

Saturday, one of the 10 I submitted was rejected at another site, and I decided I should cancel my application and wait a bit longer. (You can try as many times as you want, but you have to wait at least one month between attempts.) I went online to cancel ... and discovered that my application had already been approved! You simply cannot image the shock, surprise, and (yes) awe that I felt. They approved 8 of the 10 (including the one rejected elsewhere -- but truthfully, that one is not very good).

Not only that, even though my images were up for only a few hours, I already had 2 sales! All sales at Shutterstock earn $0.25 each, so that was a huge $0.50!. Is it worth $0.25? Well, I still have only 8 photos up, yet I had 5 more sales on Sunday, and 6 on Monday (dare I say, so far?). So 13 sales in about 48 hours with only 8 images online. That is simply amazing.

The one downside to Shutterstock, or so I've read, is that new images do well for about a month, then sales drop to nearly zero. But it is still an amazing thing to be a part of!

I was also accepted last week at Stockxpert, a second-tier site which should be near the bottom of the pack (but eventually better than LuckyOliver or SnapVillage). I now contribute to NINE sites, and there are no further additions anticipated.

My iStock portfolio now stands at 40 files, and I had my 50th sale there in February. It's been my best performing site 2 months in a row. At the current rate, iStock will move into the #4 spot next month, and the #2 spot within a few more months. Amazing.

By the way, for December, iStock was #2 in sales (both # and $), behind only Dreamstime, which has more than 5x as many of my photos. Not bad, iStock, not bad at all.

October was a record-breaking month. I had 48 total sales, which is 14 more than I've ever had before (that was in Sep). Earnings-wise it was my second best month (first if you don't count August's surprise, big sale from 123rf). And my total sales count climbed above 300 (that's total across all sites from day one).

When I looked up how much money I made, I was shocked to find that, instead of the $6 or $8 that many sales would normally have earned, I made $44. How could that be? That's the '5' part of the story. Someone bought an "Extended" license for $99 for the photo you see to the left (I earned 37% of that), so that they could put it on items for resale (e.g., calendars, mugs, postcards, etc.). This is the first Extended license I've sold anywhere other than on Fotolia. On Fotolia, they used to sell for $10, giving me $3.33 (they're now $20). Nice, but nothing to get excited about. This is something to get excited about -- someone actually felt this picture was worth almost $100 to them. That feels especially good, since this is one of only two pictures we have printed and sitting on our mantel, yet both Dreamstime and Fotolia rejected this photo. (I tried submitting it three times on Fotolia over the course of a year, before finally giving up.)