Felt the loss of StockXpert.

• Sales this month were not s bad as I thought they would be. With the loss of StockXpert, I thought that I would not even break $100. Thanks to the second best month ever in sales at Fotolia, the month ended with $103.51.

Fotolia: $40.70

BigStockPoto: $19.00

Dreamstime: $14.10

123RF: $10.60

CanStockPhoto: $8.80

IStockPhoto: $7.69

YayMicro: $1.37

Crstock: $1.25

I also had 156 downloads this month. Moving average wise I had new 6 and 24 month highs. I also beat of February of 2008, but 2009. Had StockXpert not gone away or Dreamstime not under perform this month, that would not have been an issue. With winters grip finally letting go here in central Indiana, I'm looking forward to a lot of time outside with my camera in about a month. Bring on those spring storms!

Your Current Earnings Potential

What is your current earning potential? I have two ways of figuring this out. The first method is to go through each of the sites that I use and add together to most profitable month. This gives me what, on my best month, would be my earnings. As of right now, that comes out to $274.

The second method I have is my 24 month moving average. This is what I expect to make on a month by month basis. It is currently at $108.82. This last month I brought in $140. So, what is my earnings potential? It could be $274 a month. I should be getting at least $108 a month. Or you can look at it this way:

$274 x 12 months = $3288/year

$108.82 x 12 months = $1205.84/year

$140 x 12 months = $1680/year

I would much rather go with the higher figure but lets be real here. What are the chances of me hitting an all time high on every site in the same month? The second figure, which is what I should make according to my 24 month average, should be viewed as the number to beat. The last number is a progress report. Hopefully it will reflect a number as close to your best month as possible.

So Long StockXpert

Just when StockXpert was starting to produce good sales for me, they close shop. As of today, StockXpert is no longer accepting submissions. They will continue to sell images until the 11th of this month. After that, our images are supposed to be transferred to iStockPhoto. This is really depressing because last month I had my 2nd best sales month with the dollar wise, and my best month by number of sales. Also, not all images will be moved to iStockPhoto. That means a potential loss of 1343 products from the market for me.

This further eliminates competition in among the microstock agencies. This means a higher potential for 2 things. 1) higher prices for buyers. 2) lower commissions for contributers. My lowest commissions to date are $.25 an image. I cannot see how the agencies can think of lowering it even further, but I'm sure they will try. The little guy cannot do much about it so we can only hope that the big contributers Threated to pull there content if this downward spiral does not stop.

On the bright side, it will force us to really step up our game. iStockPhoto is very selective in what they accept. You have to produce high quality content to make in on their site. Time to work on composition and technique if you want to stay in the market.

From Disappointing December to Jumping January!

January was a real nice surprise.

• $140.77 made this the second most profitable month for me yet.
• The two extended license sales this month totaled a little less the $40.
• New highs in the 6, 12, and 24 month moving average.
• Hit the $3,000 life time earnings
• BigstockPhoto had its best month for me at $25.90.
• CanStockPhoto also hit a new high at $23.80

On the down side, I did notice the drop in Fotolia's commission. Well, at least overall we get a little bit more money but it still stings to know your hard work is not appreciated as much.

February should be interesting. With 3 fewer days, what will this month hold? Last year it held $119.68. In 2008 it was $91.32. We will see!

More signs of the Economic Recovery

Things are looking good for the Stock portfolio. Thanks to an extended license sale at BigStockPhoto, I now have new highs on my 6 month and 24 month moving average. This is the first time the metric for the 6 month moving average has hit a new high since July of 2008. This is showing me that there is a pick up in purchasing of my images over the last few months. The 24 month has been rising over the past 10 months since I've been keeping track of it. That is expected because it was looking at data from my first few months of selling stock. After July of 2011, which is 24 months after my most profitable month to date, I expect it to meander a bit while the data from the first part of the recession works its way out of the formula.

3,500 Sales and More Signs of a Recovery

Today I past 3,500 images sold. I have various milestones that I created nearly 3 years ago when I started to sell stock. This was one of them. I also keep track of some monetary statistics. One of them is my 12 month moving average. The last time that I set a new high for this metric was December of 2008. After over a year, I now have set a new bench mark for this metric of over $110 per month and rising. If you recall, December of 2008 was about when the recession was really starting to show. The graph of my 12 month average pretty much went flat. Now that the economy is recovering. I'm watching this line slowly rising.

I also keep tabs on my 3, 6, and 24 month averages. The advantage of watching these metrics is that it allows me to see how I'm doing in the market over a period of time that helps to balance out seasonal variances. I can also reasonable determine what my income should be in the future.

$3,000 Lifetime Earnings Reached

Yesterday I finally hit the $3,000 mark for my lifetime stock photo earnings. My goal to go from $2,000 to $3,000 was 275 days. I did it this time in 271 days. I hit this mark 9.7% faster then the previous thousand dollars. It was looking like it was going to be a close call, but thanks to a big extended license sale at CanStockPhoto, I hit this milestone early.

Here is my progress.

Goal	Days	Annual Income
$0 - $1,000	455 Days	$802
$1,000 - $2,000	300 Days	$1217
$2,000 - $3,000	271 Days	$1327

Where to go from here? My goal to hit $4,000 is in 250 days. Hopefully I will reach this well before October 1st. To reach this goal I will have to average $4.00 a day. I know, not much but I cannot compete with the photographers who have studios and enough money to shoot half naked 20 somethings. I'm hoping that with my improved equipment and increased travel opportunities coming in the near future, I'll be able to hit this mark early. Also, My fine art site, www.SnapBySnap.com is up and running and I'm already booking clients to photograph their private events. We will see how that effects the income in the future.