MicrostockGroup

2011 was good for me: http://www.veoelmundo.com/reflections-2011-numbers

December ended up being a BME - almost 10% better than the previous bests on both download numbers and $$$

Hope everyone has a great start to 2012!

Curiously, I did slightly better this year than in 2010 despite all the turmoil. Alamy was up, so was SS, the combined IS+PP was only a few percent down on the previous year's tally, and a few new revenue streams made a contribution. I think I need to try to work on developing those streams more this year, otherwise the loss of FT, likely slump at iS and unremarkable performance at 123, DT and CanStockPhoto will probably drag me down.

iStock: port growth c35%;  
                     $$ up c5%;
                dls: down c6%.
Obviously considerably down in $$ than I would have been had they not cut commission rates.

Doubt if I can sustain this port growth next year: I had a 'false boost' by being able to add older files when editorial was introduced. On the other hand, not having a studio or lights, I was hindered from working through my shoot list by the wettest year on record (and heavy overcast days for a lot of the time it wasn't raining).                                                                                                                                                               Maybe I should learn vectors  

Alamy: port growth: c35%
                $$ down: c5%
                    dls up: c95%
2010 average Alamy sale: $136.90 gross;  2011: average Alamy sale: $59.51
Conclusions: clearly micros are continuing to drag down prices.
                   it's a buyer's market.

My overall sales were down from 2010 because I dropped istock. But sales increased slightly at SS, with the last quarter rocking. DT was down slightly and BigStock was almost exactly the same as last year. Considering I only uploaded less than 50 new photos last year, I am pleased that sales are holding.

100 % increase in income, 100 % increase in pictures. Statistics are fun when the data volume is small.

Very good for me, although I am still in the growth phase. I've just written about it on my blog: http://www.backyardsilver.com/2012/01/annual-review-of-microstock-activities-in-2011/, but here are the overall numbers for the year:


I've focused on adding images during the year, and hopefully improving their quality and saleability, and have now passed the 2000 image point on Shutterstock. iStock still lags way behind because of restrictions on uploads. What is interesting is that my earnings per image per month has increased during the year - I like to think it is because I am taking better images, but it will be interesting to see if it continues:


New and smaller sites are still a bit of a gamble. Photodune has been good, Stockfresh not so good. Allyoucanstock shows promise. iSignstock (new to me) is pretty consistent. Crestock, Cutcaster, Zoonar are dead as far as I'm concerned.

Steve

I guess that's roughly in line with the drop suggested by the istockcharts data. This year is going to be critical for Istockphoto __ they can't afford another drop of that magnitude.

My experience is similar. My income went down by about 20% (don't have exact numbers). FT, my income leader lost quite a bit and I dropped Istock in August. I also only uploaded about a 100 images to my port as I focused on getting my degree finished. So considering all that, I am quite pleased with what I had. I am not sure I'll invest too much energy into microstock in the next year, am considering going a bit into fine art/ print on demand. But we'll see.

2011 was a transition year for me - first half as an iStock exclusive, second (from June 4th) back to independent. As such comparisons are not straightforward, but bottom line is that I had 28% lower income in 2011 than 2010. Downloads were up 70% but that's the bias of lots of subscriptions.

There are positive signs in the growth at some sites, but so far there's nothing other than SS that's big enough to make up for the massive drops at iStock (FT has banned/banished me so I am possibly hampered by only having 3 of the 4 top tier sites).

For those who see negatives in some of the low pricing at newer sites, I would note that my average sale price at PhotoDune in December  was $1.05, versus $0.95 at DT and $0.84 at 123rf (volume obviously lower at PD). If they can get the volume up, it may become a decent earner.

I would also note that in looking at the overall return per download by agency for the year, there's only one that has dropped since I was last independent (first half of 2008). That's DT which dropped from $1.07 for the first half of 2008 to $0.85 for the second half of 2011. Everyone else is up. In terms of total $$, DT is marginally up from 2008 whereas SS is almost double. You'd expect comparing first half to second half that the second half would be higher, but still SS's performance is really good.

BigStock has been a huge disappointment - they used to be about 10% of my totals and they netted me $92 and change this year (to be fair, I didn't give them all of my portfolio, but I netted more than that at Veer with only a few hundred online and for less time). To go from 10% to so small you're not even 1% is pretty sad. Someone who'd been selling well there said that it was mostly older stuff that was selling at BigStock, so perhaps that's why things have been so dead for someone uploading new stuff (it's a brand new account, not a holdover account FWIW).

For some reason I thought 2011 was down from 2010.  I was surprised when I tallied the totals and found that I was 1% up from last year.   I guess the reason it seemed like less is that it came in dribs and drabs from many smaller sites I joined, rather than in big chunks from the top 4.  Portfolio growth = 700 files, which is a bit over 10%. 

Both FT and Istock lost a lot of ground for me, while DT stayed even and SS picked up considerably.  Although Alamy isn't a micro, they doubled in income for me over last year.  

Details below, along with % gained or lost from 2010:

ISP   32%  (-19%)
PP   4%   (=)
SS   22%  (+31%)
DT   13%  (-27%)
Fot   15%
Big   4%
123   3%
Can   2%
Alm   4%

You can ask, but I can't give you much in the way of detail for an answer. I deleted all my files at FT when I went exclusive with iStock but left my account open. Some months later when I went to log in to look at some data - probably because of a forum thread here discussing some recent action at FT - I found my account was no longer there. When I contacted them to see if I could keep my old account (and thus level) when returning to independence, I got an initial yes  but then a  no "...Fotolia would not be interested in re-establishing a business relationship with you".

I believe that some of my activism in the MSG forums (and a predecessor group on Yahoo) trying to organize contributors to get better terms when agencies were starting to cut contributor royalties played a part, as well as being critical here about the way FT treated contributors. They had said they reserve the right to close accounts of anyone who speaks ill of them anywhere (i.e. not just in their own forums). While I was still independent they warned me via e-mail that my suggestions to have contributors hold off uploads until they got better terms from FT on subscriptions might lead to them closing my account if I didn't back off.

You can see that once FT was all glowing here. But no longer

have done this table a few minutes ago based on my stats from March 2009

smallest portfolio at IS with around 1100 pics and biggest in MP with around 4800