Author Topic: 5 years of microstock by Robert Kneschke - monthly income and numbers (Read 6858 times)

cobalt · « **on:** July 22, 2013, 04:11 »

You will have to run this through google translate, but the numbers speak for themselves: After doing 5 years of microstock Robert has reached an income of over 13 000 dollars a month. The majority of his income is from Fotolia and Shutterstock.

He works extremely hard and has a portfolio with over 10 000 files.

The article is in German, but the numbers are easy to understand.

Fünf Jahre Microstock – Meine Umsätze und andere Zahlen | Alltag eines Fotoproduzenten

http://www.alltageinesfotoproduzenten.de/2013/07/22/fuenf-jahre-microstock-meine-umsaetze-und-andere-zahlen/

Petr Toman · « **Reply #1 on:** July 22, 2013, 06:44 »

Quite motivating

Quote

This figure also shows that discipline and patience is necessary to have the success Stock Photography.

Have to work on this

EmberMike · « **Reply #2 on:** July 22, 2013, 07:09 »

Impressive numbers. The guy has a solid work ethic. He's consistent and those charts and graphs reflect that. Shockingly steady growth in a business that is known for volatility.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #3 on:** July 22, 2013, 07:14 »

actually its 10524 EUR average from last 12 months (from the usual top5 agencies), that is 13855$ per month

cobalt · « **Reply #4 on:** July 22, 2013, 07:18 »

Thanks Luis, I just edited my post.

lucato · « **Reply #5 on:** July 22, 2013, 08:32 »

Thanks Cobalt for linking to this! I hope to get to say the same or more about recieving such income five years ahead. :0) Now a days I can just cry. :0(

RT · « **Reply #6 on:** July 22, 2013, 17:05 »

Good for him, all down to his hard work - I wonder if he's seeing his RPD/RPI drop like some of us due to a certain agencies actions.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #7 on:** July 22, 2013, 17:21 »

Quote from: RT on July 22, 2013, 17:05

Good for him, all down to his hard work - I wonder if he's seeing his RPD/RPI drop like some of us due to a certain agencies actions.

don't think he is worried with 2.3% (242 EUR) of his income, believe he is more focused at FT (61%)

pancaketom · « **Reply #8 on:** July 22, 2013, 22:02 »

Impressive. He certainly does do better on FT than most. Getting paid in Euro instead of $ by them probably helps too.

Donvanstaden · « **Reply #9 on:** July 23, 2013, 01:01 »

I would be interested to know what his overheads are... You have to spend money to make money.

He talks about sales and revenue but not about how much he has to spend to produce his images... that would be a much more 'realistic' report. Also interesting that although his portfolio is increasing in size his sales haven't increased since Nov 2012. Is that a trend of the industry?

sharpshot · « **Reply #10 on:** July 23, 2013, 01:39 »

It might be a trend of the industry but its also probably the wall. With a big portfolio and after doing this for 5 years, most people hit the earnings wall and find it very hard to increase earnings, compared to the early days when it was easy. I think that's because it gets harder to come up with new ideas, older images get dated and become less commercial (especially people photo) and it takes a lot more images to make an impact on a big portfolio. Buyers can look through a small portfolio but they're less likely to look through 100 pages.

MichaelJayFoto · « **Reply #11 on:** July 23, 2013, 02:00 »

Quote from: Donvanstaden on July 23, 2013, 01:01

I would be interested to know what his overheads are... You have to spend money to make money.

He talks about sales and revenue but not about how much he has to spend to produce his images... that would be a much more 'realistic' report.

If you care to translate his blog, you will find a lot of information from the last five years about his production as well. He is no Yuri Arcurs with lots of production staff, mostly working on his own with very few assistance, only sometimes trying out outsourcing services. He is also "only" uploading a bit more than 2,000 images per year which many other full time microstockers seem to manage on their own as well.