Microstock report for August 2012

This is our microstock report for August 2012:

It was a much better month!  In July we saw a sag in all of the sites - none more disappointing than Istockphoto which was at an all time low of $5.38 - but this month many of the sites rallied back with high(er) numbers.

Shutterstock, as always, led the way with.  It helped to have 2 EL sales (that's a $32 download).  And it continues to sell the most on a daily basis.

One big surprise was Istockphoto - we used to have sales of almost $100 a month on this site - and it waned slowly lower and lower, until last month we only had $5 in sales.  Well this month it finally beat Dreamstime (which has been a consistent second place).

Overall it was a nice month - several sites reached their payout amounts and overall we reached $302!  Here's to hoping September continues to treat us kindly.

Microstock Report for June 2012

Here's the microstock report for June, 2012:

It was a best month ever for 123rf!  After about two years on this site (which is the same as most of the other sites) we're still getting downloads...which amounted to $36.64 - and it snuck past BigStockPhoto on the lifetime earnings (the chart above doesn't reflect this because I already saved the jpg before I switched them around.

Shutterstock still remains the only site to consistently earn above $100 every month.  We've also been on this site for over two years and there's only been one month that we didn't meet the payout amount (which is a hundred).  It's crazy to have the same images on every site (mostly) and somehow Shutterstock outpaces everyone else - even if they combined their totals! 

I didn't have time to add any new stock images this month, but it still kept pace with the previous month...we'll see if July brings us any more time to create new illustrations...

microstock report for May 2012

Here's another exciting installment of our microstock report for May!

Shutterstock is terrific.  If it wasn't for them, I don't know if I'd be paying as much attention to the whole microstock business.  This May I ended up posting a lot more files - but apparently I'm terribly out of touch with what sells these days...so I'm going to have to keep stretching that creative muscle and see what I can do for the month of June.

Istockphoto made quite a lot of  money for quite some time...but they changed their licensing payment plan to favor exclusive contributors...and the downloads have slowed to a crawl.  One good thing about the company is that they approve the files in record time.  When I started three years ago it took almost a week to get approved, and now it's within hours.  Too bad none of the files get downloaded.

The rest of the sites had small boosts this month.  I'd like to think that'll continue...but the summer months are very slow...so we'll see how it goes.

Microstock Report for March 2012

Here's our microstock report for March of 2012:

We were busy working on other projects once again, so we didn't add any new files this last month.

Shutterstock is still the best at consistently selling our illustrations.  A couple of months ago I decided to start posting the lifetime earnings of each of the sites.  I feel like it's one thing to tell people you can make money creating stock images, and another thing to actually state the numbers.  I've uploaded my illustrations to have this be a passive income (meaning that I don't really actively create and upload new images on a consistent basis), so it's fantastic to make between 200 and 300 dollars a month on something I'm barely paying attention to. 

On the other hand, some of the sites are suffering because of it.  Istockphoto used to reach almost $100 (if not more) each month.  That's reflected in the lifetime total earnings, but also in the fact that it now makes less than Dreamstime each month.

Some of these sites continue to make money...others, such as Crestock, have yet to get off the ground and probably never will.  In March I signed up for a new site called DrawShop.  I've heard the sales aren't the best, but they have the possibility to do custom jobs, so I wanted to see how that would play out.  I've only uploaded 65 files...

November Microstock Report

This is November's Microstock Report:

Shutterstock led the pack once again.  Along with Istockphoto, they're one of the biggest agencies that deal with licensing photographs and vector illustrations.  It's strange that all this time Shutterstock has maintained an average over $100, whereas www.istockphoto.com (which had a couple of months with the century mark about a year ago) has faded, and was overtaken by Dreamstime last month.

Vectorstock is a site that a few vector artists don't care for - the reason why is that the payouts are very low per image.  I'll have a ton of sales each month (which i like because I visit each site at least once a day, and it's a lot more fun when the dollar amounts change, even if it's just a little), but it only amounts to just over $20.  I like to stick with them though because sales are sales - and Vectorstock is one of the more consistent selling sites I'm affiliated with.

There are a bunch of other sites that I signed up with that aren't really doing much of anything.  Crestock is one of the original sites I joined and it's made zero monies in four of the last five months.  Some other dud stock sites (for me) are Stockfresh (which just started, so I'm waiting to see if that changes) and Veer (another new site, but another one that doesn't sell much).

With that said - I think it's better to have a portfolio of illustrations across a variety of microstock agencies.  It means that more businesses and people in need of images have a better chance of finding your stuff and purchasing the license.  If you're thinking of selling your own vector artwork (or photographs) - I'd say start with Shutterstock - it's one of the easier sites to get into (you have to have 10 images approved, but their approval process is lax compared to an agency like Istockphoto).  But once you get going, I'd suggest at least signing up with the big three (Shutterstock, Istockphoto, and Dreamstime) and then think about the rest.

Microstock report for October 2011

This is our microstock report for October 2011.  We uploaded a couple of new images, but they were for Halloween and I wasn't able to finish them until the end of the month...so there wasn't enough time for them to get accepted and be available for people to download...

The thing is, if you're going to make pictures for a particular day, you should probably have them up and ready to go at least a month before.  And it might be better if you have it 2 months before that holiday.  My illustrations weren't available until the week before Halloween, so we only got a couple of downloads and now everyone is focused on thanksgiving (and the big one) or Christmas.

Here's the October breakdown:

Shutterstock is the only site that seems to keep delivering month after month.  Since we started doing microstock in February of 2009, we have only had one month where we didn't make the $100 minimum to get paid (If you make less than a hundred dollars, it just rolls over to the next month and so on until you do reach a hundred).

I might try to put some Christmas images up in the next couple of weeks, so we'll see if that helps spark more interest in the rest of the portfolio across the different microstock sites....

123rf and Vectorstock are both doing fairly well too.  Those are two smaller sites that seem to stay very consistent each month.  We had our best month ever on 123rf this month...and Vectorstock seems to hit around $15 each month.  Both totals are kind of on the small side, but it's nice to check every couple of days because they always have sales.

Microstock report for September 2011

Another step backwards in the licensing world.  It's only microstock licensing, so no big worries.  We haven't put any new files into the sites this month (and really only two illustrations since spring)...so it's to be expected that there won't be big returns.  With that said we still are averaging above $200 a month without having to do any more work.

Shutterstock is the best microstock site out there.  From the very beginning (when we started in February of 2009) we uploaded 10 images and they immediately started making money...and it has stayed consistent ever since.  We've just crossed the $5,000 since our start with this site.

Istockphoto changed their rates for people who aren't exclusive with them and it's really hurt our numbers.  Istockphoto started to net over $100 a month for a time, but it now fails to bring in anything worth being proud of.

Dreamstime is a site that I was starting to think would pick way up.  They have a contest every month with a theme that you can upload to...and so any new illustrations usually went into that.  Not to win, but because each illustration would be worth more if downloaded.  Now the majority of our downloads on this site are from our contest illustrations, but they're still not selling too frequently and Dreamstime still finishes behind Istock...

Everything else stays in the $10-$25 range for the other sites...they're small, but you can usually count on them to bring in some loose change.

I signed up with two new stock sites a few months ago - Veer and Stockfresh.  Neither one is selling terribly well...we've had a total of two sales on Stockfresh and are averaging one download per month from Veer...so I lump them into the same category with Thinkstock (another site that doesn't produce much) and together they combined for $13.80 in sales.

So that wraps it up!  Go sign up with Shutterstock, it's worth the time!

Microstock Report for July 2011

This month took another hit...a lot of our regular companies, like Dreamstime and Istockphoto, just did not sell.  Shutterstock remained consistent.

Also - two smaller companies that we upload illustrations to (Vectorstock and 123RF) have both done nicely the last few months - with 123RF having achieved our best month in sales for the site.

We uploaded several files to each of the sites, so it was nice to see a little spike in activity after that, but we're still missing that big illustration that'll jump start the selling back to where it was just over a year ago...

IF: Stay

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "Stay."

This is a rough I did in Adobe Illustrator

Then I added a new layer and redrew and colored it:

I decided to do the entire drawing in Adobe Illustrator so I could upload it to the microstock sites I sell art on.

What are microstock sites?

Shutterstock is the best of the best - as far as return on the time invested.  I've been on the site for over 2 years now and I've always made more than $100 a month - and most months I don't even upload any new images!  You start by uploading 10 images for them to review (they have to be high quality photographs or vector art).  Once that's approved you can start uploading any and all images you want to sell!

Dreamstime: This site doesn't sell nearly as many images as Shutterstock, but what it lacks on volume it makes up for in the amount each sale is worth.  And they run monthly contests for illustrators and photographers, much like Illustration Friday, only instead of just showcasing your work, you can also potentially win money.

Istockphoto:  This site is one of the classiest sites, but since the sales have slowed in recent months, it's not at the top of my list.  Each sale is around $3 and they really scrutinize each illustration.  I have over 700 images on Shutterstock, but only 112 on Istockphoto (because the cheaper stuff gets turned down).  The other thing too is that Istockphoto doesn't have a referral program.  If you sign up by clicking on one of these links, I'll get a taste of your success - and it's not money that comes out of your royalties, but extra icing on top!  It's tasty for all involved.  Except Istockphoto.  They don't care about referrals or people.

There are many more sites, but those are the top three.

Microstock report for June 2011

This last month I was able to work on a couple of new illustrations.  They were really quick and small, but it was nice to upload something after a few months with no new images.  Some of them sold on Shutterstock, but so far they really haven't taken (at least not yet):

 It was a series of variations on these two kids (smiling, arms open, handing each other gifts).  I thought they were cute.  When I have time, I'll probably try and draw some more with these characters.

Anyway - on to the report!

Shutterstock continues to pull in more than a hundred dollars a month.  In June we had our first EL of the year - that's an extended license and it sold for $28.  So while we had some microstock sites netting less, Shutterstock stays pretty consistent.  It helps also to have a referral who is currently more successful than our own site because we get 3 cents for every download he gets (we made $15.63 from that alone, which, if you think about it, means he had over 500 sales/downloads for the month while we had 286).

The EL was the entire sign language alphabet

A huge upset came in the form of Dreamstime which finally made more money than Istockphoto.  Sadly it means that Istock is losing steam these last few months and Dreamstime is staying fairly consistent.  Dreamstime also had two really big sales (one for $9 and another for 5.50) at the end which helped push it over $40 for the month.

All the other sites continued to make their pennies, but every bit counts!  And they're really just sitting around slowly collecting money, so I like to keep them around.  I have a couple of new files in the works, so we'll see if next month works out any better!

And if you want to start selling your own artwork on these sites - sign up through one of my links!  You have to upload a couple of files which they'll decide whether or not you're good enough, and then you can just start uploading to your heart's content!  It might sound daunting, but it's rather easy.  And vector files sell better than regular files, so warm up those illustrator skills!

Microstock Report for March 2011

This is our microstock report for March of 2011.

Shutterstock had the biggest upturn this past month.  For the last few months it seemed to be hanging around the $120 mark...and then suddenly the ODs (about $3 downloads) and even one EL (a $28 sale) rolled in.  So we ended up with $172 exactly for the month.  This site is also the only one where I have a referral also making money...referrals are nice because they get their money...and because you referred them, you get three cents for every one of their downloads.

Istockphoto continued it's run as the second biggest money maker - there were a few months where this site also topped the hundred dollar mark...but it's settled into the 70-80 dollar range...and that's where it's stayed.  On this site baseball caps and the chocolate covered strawberry are illustrations that sell well each month.

Dreamstime took a big drop off from the month previous.  But $30 is about the range that I expect from this site.  What's weird is that we had almost 13 more downloads this month, but each one sold for less...

And then there's Vectorstock.  It has the second most downloads per month next to Shutterstock (although we usually average around 300 downloads on Shutterstock - Vectorstock usually comes in second with around 50 downloads...but in March we had 80 downloads!).

Microstock report for February 2011

Microstock sales were up this month:

Shutterstock, once again, led the way with 39% of the total sales.

And it was a best month ever for Vectorstock - which finally broke the $20 mark for a single month!

Microstock Report for January 2011

This is the first Microstock report for the new year...and it's doing quite well as apposed to last month:

Shutterstock continues to account for 41% of our entire earnings.  And we actually had several of our illustrations taken out.  I while ago I was doing a series of celebrity illustrations (one of George Clooney, Natalie Portman, Diablo Cody, and Zach Braff)...and since that went nowhere, I put them on the microstock sites.  They should have been only available for editorial licenses...but after almost two years online they were all pulled from the site...citing possible copyright infringement.  And it's not like they illustrations were, but Shutterstock likes to be careful...and it doesn't matter that much because they weren't big sellers anyway.  But that's what accounts for the portfolio going from 702 to 700.

Istockphoto sold a lot less this last month...it's been very spotty as of late...I feel that with baseball season coming back it should start doing much better.  I have a series of baseball caps that sell very well during the spring months.

Dreamstime made a strong showing of it this month...and I'm hoping for even more in the coming months as I'm going to try my hardest to make time for their new contests as they come up.  I have one illustration already approved for this month's contest (the fireman, which I posted last week on this blog) and another one that's still a rough drawing.

The rest of the sites were alright.  Vectorstock sells decently considering it's a smaller site with less customers.  And, as I said before, it's nice to continue to make over $200 each month without having to spend much, if any, time creating new illustrations for these sites...I mean, more money could be had if I spent more time at it, but making money and spending no time sounds pretty good too...

Shark faces...

I did a shark illustration for Dreamstime last year.  I've separated out the shark from the rest of the drawing and added a variety of expressions for the different stock illustration sites.

These are vector drawings done in Adobe Illustrator
for Shutterstock, Dreamstime, Istockphoto, Fotolia, and Vectorstock

Microstock report for December 2010

This is our microstock report for December, 2010.

Shutterstock led the way again.  It was the first time in a while where it came down to the last couple of days whether or not we would cross $100 for the month.  But then two ODs were sold on the 29th (ODs are worth $2.70 each)...and all was right.

It's been the same story as the last few months - we haven't had time to upload many, if any, images for the stock sites - and so our numbers are slowly going down.  We uploaded a couple more images this month, but they were really a combination of older vector illustrations.

Veer has our smallest portfolio (only 2 downloads this month, but each was worth $7.00) - but only because 20 images were turned down this summer due to open shapes and I haven't wanted to spend the time uploading them again.  Cory Thoman, who got me into selling stock illustrations, has recently signed up with a couple of newer agencies, so I'm probably going to sign up with them as well...but only if I can find the time.

If you see the rest of my blog, I've been working on my proprietary projects, so making generic illustrations hasn't been a priority...

But maybe in the new year - I've missed watching an illustration take off and sell like booze and hotpants.

Microstock report for October 2010

It was an up month for microstock.  Shutterstock was slightly better this month than last, and we had quite nice improvements to the #2 and #3 agencies we upload to - Dreamstime and Istockphoto.

I still have two agencies that I signed up with over the summer that have yet to record more than one sale (Freshstock and Veer)...so I haven't added them to the list yet.

September 2010 Microstock report

This is the microstock report for the month of September of 2010.

It's been a nice source of extra cash each month...last year around this time we were really trying to develop the microstock illustration portfolios on the different sites, but most recently (almost all year) other illustration projects have taken our focus and interest.  That means that the portfolios, which were growing by tens of uploads a month (on average) have shrunk to just a couple, and only if there's time, and only if the uploads are really easy to draw, clean up and color in Adobe Illustrator.

Even without much care Shutterstock continues to rise above $100 each month.  That's important as $100 is the payout minimum for a month.  We haven't had an EL in a couple of months, but we continue to get regular downloads per day (between 2 and 25) and 8 ODs ($2.26 downloads).  I've been focusing on putting my illustrations for Squaremania on products, but I was able to adapt some of those templates to upload to the stock sites (the pencils and cards, and this weekend I'm going to upload the backpack templates).

Istockphoto is a big second on the list.  While we don't get a payout every month, it is fairly consistent.  But unlike Shutterstock, the illustrations that are downloaded are at a slower rate, but each one sells for more (which almost makes up for it, but not quite because of the small portfolio size).

Dreamstime was really slow this month.  There was a huge run of downloads at the end of the month (within the last week) to raise the total to $17, but it was rather a disappointment considering it's the third largest microstock company.

Vectorstock has turned into a very consistent earner.  While the downloads are only about 1-5 a day, there always seems to be something selling on the site.  And slowly, but surely we're heading towards our next raise (a couple of months ago we finally crossed $100 total for the site, and while it took a year, it meant that the downloads are now worth 30 cents as apposed to 25 cents.)

I've decided to start including the various other sites that I've either recently signed up for (Veer and Stockfresh) and an older one (Thinkstock).  Thinkstock gives a big lump sum randomly during the month (on Aug 26th it was $3.25 for 13 downloads) and this month it was $8.25 for 33 downloads.  Stockfresh has yet to yield any monies, but the site is from the creators of Stockxpert, so I expect it to happen soon enough.  And Veer got me to sign up earlier this summer with promises to pay for any files they accepted (the offer is now over), and since then we have had one sale for $7.00.

The other sites are kind of disappointing and make it hard to want to spend the time to upload new images...but I'm going to keep chugging along, because you never know what image people might come across and want to download lots of.

microstock report for August 2010

This month was a little bit down in some places, but big in others...

Shutterstock rebounded from a slow July to once again take first place (which it's been every month since we started Stock illustrations).

In second was Istockphoto with $79, but we finally broke 100 images.  This is the site where you want to have more illustrations on because they sell very well, but they are also very critical and turn away quite a lot.  But once you get them up, it's worth it!

Dreamstime almost lost out to VectorStock this month.  I couldn't believe how few sales we had on Dreamstime.  But this month they did their contest with a subject matter that most of us illustrators didn't think we could be a part of...so I really didn't add any new images this month.

VectorStock has come on pretty strong (for being one of the bottom feeders for so long).  It's had a best month ever - and can be counted on to have at least one sale a day.  We also just recently got a raise on the site (from 25 cents a download to 30 cents)...so that definitely helped.

And the rest were pretty standard - Fotolia and Bigstockphoto both just inched into double digits and Crestock pulled in the rear with 75 cents.  Ridiculous.  Crestock also took almost 5 months to approve the last nine images I uploaded to the site (which is a big reason why I stopped uploading).

All in all - it was still another $300 haul in Microstock.  That's pretty low, but since I've been on hiatus I've been focusing on licensing for real and not this small time stock image licensing (and it's only small time because I'm not investing more time into it).  But it's nice to still be pulling in as much money considering we really haven't added anything to our portfolios, and the images are still getting downloaded.  And I added a couple of new stock sites that still haven't recorded sales, but I have images on them!  Veer and Stockfresh...so we'll see how they do in the coming months....

IF: artificial...

Something that sells well on stock image sites are realistic looking vectors.  The artificial reality is quite good for the buyers as, unlike the real thing, it allows for scaling (without losing image quality) and they're easily edited.  So far we've created realistic baseball caps, desserts (like one of our most popular pieces, a realistic chocolate covered strawberry),

and yesterday i finally got around to creating an artificial corkboard:

What's nice about this is that I can use this piece, and add more paper or different types of paper or even add words to add a variety of different stock image choices for perspective buyers.
You can find these and many more on stock image sites such as shutterstock, istockphoto, dreamstime, and fotolia.

And it's nice to do these every once in a while because they're completely different from the children's book illustration stuff I usually do.

Microstock Report for July 2010

It was a bit of an off month for microstock.  There were a couple of reasons though - most people agree that the summer months are very slim (just like the bit of time right after Christmas)...so it's to be expected to have a drop off from the spring numbers.  We made almost $400 last month (which was still a little bit down from the month before) and for July we only pulled in $323.

But I'm not terribly disappointed because the second reason is that we really didn't invest any time into uploading new images.  And you HAVE to upload new images consistently if you want to see your numbers go up.

Our number one site since we started this whole stock image venture is Shutterstock.  What's nice is that we've passed another 'raise' on this site - after you make a total of $500 lifetime on Shutterstock, you go from making 25 cents an image to 33 cents - and in July we crossed $3000 which means we now make 36 cents an image.  It doesn't sound like a lot - but it adds up since we average somewhere between 350-500 image downloads per month.

Second on the list, once again - is the powerhouse of Istockphoto.  It's a site that should be a bigger seller, but we just don't have enough images on it.  And I submitted several new images (the same ones I submitted to the other sites) and they were declined.  It's the struggle one goes through to work with Istockphoto...but its definitely worth it.

Dreamstime was our 3rd place finisher (yet again).  The top three seem to always fall in line.  What's nice is that Dreamstime finally had some life this month and recorded a respectable number for the first time in a few months.  $40 still isn't where I want it to be, but it's getting there.  As the portfolio grows, so will the numbers.

Fotolia surprised me with a 4th place finish - it's the second month in a row that recorded decent numbers (decent for Fotolia).  I used to be able to count on this site, but have been very disappointed in the last year or so.  And since this is where our second highest portfolio is (with almost 300 images), we should definitely be getting more downloads.

The rest of the field is pretty small potatoes.  Vectorstock looks like it'll regularly come in with double digits in earnings...but the rest is just too hit and miss.  I signed up for a new site called StockFresh - it's by the same people that created Stockxpert (which they then sold, and it was subsequently shut down)....so we'll see if anything happens there.  Oh - and I also signed up for Veer - they offered some duckets to just upload images, so I made about $11 putting about 40 images up on that site - and while there have been a couple hundred views, there has yet to be a sale...but the site just relaunched, so, while I don't know what to expect...it should sell something soon.