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Microstock results for March

This month was quiet on the submissions side – most of the month was spent with either myself or one of my kids sick.  Also the weather at the end of the month reduced the amount of time I was able to shoot.  Nevertheless, I still had a record month thanks to some extended sales at the beginning.  I exceeded the $350 mark for the first time and I am slowly approaching my goal of $1000 a month.

The following are some details I noticed about each site this month.

StockXPert (2.95%) – I now have most of my portfolio submitted to this site.  They are they most paranoid site in terms of potential rights issues and as a result most of my best selling shots were not accepted.  As this is the easiest site to submit too, I will likely continue to submit here even though my sales are low.  Still, this site has improved somewhat from the last two months.

Dreamstime (6.41%) – This was a rather standard month on Dreamstime, which had respectable but not outstanding sales.  It is certainly worth the effort to submit here, though I don’t pay attention to which shots are accepted/rejected.

Fotolia (7.37%) – Fotolia started out the month quite strong and at the beginning of the month was close to Shutterstock in sales.  However, after the middle of the month sales slowed considerably and it came close to being overcome by Dreamstime.  Of the Microstock sites, I still think this is the least professional site among them.  Right now obviously new buyers are coming in at a faster rate than sellers (displayed by the fact that my sales increased without submitting).  However I suspect some day that will end and Fotolia will be one of the first ones to go.

IStockPhoto (40.82%) – For most of the month IStockPhoto was in the distant lead over Shutterstock.  However, as with most months, sales at IStockPhoto remained erratic while sales at Shutterstock were steady.  The reviews at this site are still the most helpful and I like the fact that resubmission is encouraged.  However I still disagree with those who go exclusive with IStockPhoto – as you can make a lot more by diversifying.

Shutterstock (42.45%) – There has only been one month so far where Shutterstock was not top in sales and this was not the month.  In some ways I was glad that I did not have time to submit much this month as they were plagued by a rogue reviewer that rejected the majority of shots as “No commercial value”.  A number of the most popular photographers there were hit with this and were more than a little upset.  I’ll see soon whether this has been fixed, as I plan to submit a number of the pictures I have posted here recently – and I find that a flip of a coin is more helpful in determining whether they will be accepted on Shutterstock (not so on IStockPhoto, where they are accepted as long as there are no technical issues).

In terms of new sites, I applied to Lucky Oliver and was rejected.  I don’t really care much though, as after reading about others’ experiences this is more of a circus than a web site to sell pictures.  Ironically the major flaw of this site is favoring photographers too much over buyers.  They seem nice, but I don’t want to waste my time if the sales aren’t worth it.

I was accepted at several new sites – 123RF and a few others.  Perhaps this month I will take the time to finally get my portfolio up there.  I also tried out a new tool called ProStockMaster – but I found it unusable.  If I had the time I would write my own tool, but for now I will manually submit my shots – which once you have a system isn’t too much work.

 

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Tags: dreamstime, fotolia, IStockphoto, microstock, photography, shutterstock, StockXPert