Microstock earning for May, 2009

May is over...yet another month has gone by and brings us more money via passive microstock earnings.

The whole point of these sites (stock photography and illustration websites) is to upload files and sit back and watch them earn money. Passive is kind of misleading because the real fact of the matter is that the more files you upload, the better chance you have of earning for that particular month.

Take, for example, Shutterstock - We (my wife Tracey and I) uploaded 148 files in March (we had a lot more free time on our hands apparently...and it was our first full month doing microstock, so we were full of verve!) and even without the pay increase (that we reached in April) we still made $254.86. In April the total downloads were down by about a hundred, but because of the pay increase (from 25 cents per download to 33 cents) we made $284.81 and only uploaded 62 files. In May we've been extremely busy with freelance work, so we were only able to muster 13 file uploads. And because of that our downloads were down and our total earning was at a 3 month low at $223.50.

But considering we spent a combined 2 or 3 hours creating those files in Illustrator, we still came out pretty well...

A (tiny) bright spot for the month of May was Istockphoto. We've been trying since February to get accepted (they had all sorts of wacky rules and regulations that, for one reason or other, got us rejected 3 times...heh)...and finally we were accepted into the fold in April...only to have the majority of our files (even the most popular of our shutterstock files) rejected. It was disheartening, but a small batch made it through each week and we ended up having a small portfolio of 31. And for the port to be that small and still come away with the second highest earnings for all of the stock companies we're a part of is pretty terrific. And when we finally have more time we'll have time to upload more and build on this small, but impressive portfolio...so good things will happen soon enough.

Dreamstime was the next surprise of the month. They came on strong from the previous month (from 28 to 43 dollars)...and while there were lulls in downloads, there were a bunch of expensive downloads...which is always nice.

In any case - we still made almost $350 for the month - without even really trying. And that's the beauty of Microstock. I almost regret the hundreds of files we made back in March (because we were throwing things up online...not really taking the time to craft quality illustrations)...so when I do end up having more time (probably in July) I think that'll be a major focus...and we'll see if bigger sales follow...

I'd suggest that anyone should take the time to sign up to one or more of these agencies - with Shutterstock being the easiest to get in to as well as the easiest to earn money at. Second would probably be Istockphoto - but they're a bit harder to get approved, and they are quite strict with what they approve...