May Results

Spring has continued to keep pace with approximately $100 in sales a month. I did manage to contribute a few new images. My re-allocating of exclusive Fotolio images to non exclusive has started paying off. Several images have sold on other sites. Also, I had 3 sales in my first month with CanStockPhoto.
This month I earned $102.

Monthly Sales over the past 12 months

Historical Sales

Downloads Per Month

This month StockXpert had a record 36 sales. BigStockPhoto was very quiet until the last week of the month. Although landscape images are some of the slowest sellers on the stock photo industry, I'm heading to Montana in July to look for a new home. Hopefully I'll be able to take some time and capture Big Sky Country with my camera.

Review of Fotolia Portfolio is Paying Off!

A few weeks ago, I started the process of removing my original images from exclusivity with Fotolia. Nothing against Fotolia. My statistics say that when you spread the love around, you get more back in return ($$$). Anyway, my first reclaimed image sold on StockXpert.

Sorry for the water mark. Anyway, this photo was taking in August of 2006 in the Mammoth Hot Springs campground of Yellowstone National Park. The tent is in Wyoming but the mountains and valley are in Montana. The tent actually belongs to friends of my mother, Bob and Cheryl Merchant, who happened to be in Yellowstone at the same time. After a long hike to a water fall, Cheryl cook out over the camp fire and I got this great outdoor image.

Changes at StockXpert

Two changes happening at stockExpert. As part of their Gettyimage acquisition, they are going through their database and removing any legally questionable images. Also, they are raising their image approval standards. for more information, here is the article: http://www.stockxpert.com/message/view/7905971

Change to BigStockPhoto Delete Policy

BigStockPhoto announced that they are making a change to how your approval rating is calculated. Currently if you upload and then delete an image, it is counted as a rejection. This policy is going to be changed so that when you delete an image, it down not harm you approval rating. BigStockPhoto origionally did this to discourage contributors from flooding there upload queue. This change is not yet in effect, but soon will be.

Chnage is in the Air at BigStockPhoto.

BigStockPhoto is tightening their submission process a bit. They feel that to many "low quality" images are being submitted and overwhelming their submission queue. Hey, look at it this way. You have a better chance at selling a great image then one that just does not stand out. Here are the new upload limits:

New users with less than 15 total approved images are limited to 15 images in the Admin Approval Queue at a time

Users with an approval percentage of 50% or less are limited to 10 images in the Approval Queue at a time

Users with an approval percentage of 70% or less are limited to 20 images in the Approval Queue at a time

Users with an approval percentage of 85% or less are limited to 40 images in the Approval Queue at a time

Users with an approval percentage of 92% or less are limited to 50 images in the Approval Queue at a time

Users with higher than 92% approval percentage have no limit.
Images that are uploaded and deleted will also lower your rating. Deleted images count the same as declined images.

April Results

Sales continue to be flat for me. I'm including a lot more graphs this month to show how things have been going for me. I've noticed that as my downloads started averaging more then 110 a month, that is when the number of subscription sales increased. Even though I was selling more, I was not making more. More troubling is the fact that my download record for a month is 136 set in July 2008. This month I've started uploading to CanStockPhoto. Also, with my SnapVillage portfolio being move to the Veer Marketplace, I'm hoping to get some extra cash flow that way.

On a good not, I cleared $2000 for my lifetime earnings. It took me 18 months to make the first thousand dollars but only 10 months this time. My next goal is to make the next thousand in 8 months.





Monthly Sales

FInished uploading to Yaymicro

It took some time, but I finished uploading my portfolio to Yaymicro. We will see if anything comes from it. Thus far these past 6 months, sales have been relativily flat. I'm still moving my Fotolia exclusive images to non exclusive and on other sites. I'm doing about 5 to 10 a day depending on how much time that I have. I decieded to re-keyword each image. If they did not sell well on Fotolia, I figured that this may help them on the other sites. I'll be posting my April stats with my historic information next week.