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Author Topic: December 2010 earnings thread  (Read 18439 times)

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« on: January 01, 2011, 05:54 »
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How was your December?

and as always... here is the monthly polls link
http://www.microstockgroup.com/pollsvote/


ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2011, 06:26 »
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On iStock (exclusive) - grim.
$$$ Down 23% compared to December 2009, and down 45% compared to Dec. '08.
Downloads less than half of Dec 2009. (down from 289 in 2007 to 121 this year)
Third worst month of the year, when previously it's been 3rd or 4th top.
On the positive side, I didn't get any of these fraudulent downloads to be sorted out.
And for the first time, my month at Alamy, if cleared (4 sales), is better than my month at iStock, though I understand that my big sale is very unusual these days, so can't hope for many more of these.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2011, 08:09 by ShadySue »

« Reply #2 on: January 01, 2011, 06:47 »
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Exclusive at IS
177 downloads, 512$ for december.
Down 11% from November 2010
Hope 2011 will be better...

Is december suppost to be a good or bad month because of Xmas / years end ?

« Reply #3 on: January 01, 2011, 07:59 »
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Shutterstock   59%
Fotolia 18%
Dreamstime 8%
123 7%
CanStock   4%
GLO  2%
BigStock 1%
(Print on Demand Excluded)

December was about the same as October - i.e. better than I expected.

« Reply #4 on: January 01, 2011, 09:54 »
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Shutterstock 46%
iStockphoto 38%
Dreamstime 13%
Fotolia 2%
Bigstockphoto 1%
123RF, Canstock, GraphicsLeftovers, Veer all <1%

December definitely confirmed for me that independence is far more profitable than exclusivity for my portfolio.  I took a 10% haircut for going independent, but I only uploaded about 1/3 to 1/2 of my portfolio to DT,FT,BigStock, etc.  If I get off my lazy @&^ and upload some more, I'll see a nice pay raise.  Add in the projected 15-25% in commission reduction coming this month for most of us at IS, and independence is a no brainer for me.

My uploads were very strong at iStockphoto after giving up exclusivity.  This confirms for me that the best match sort does not favor exclusives very strongly anymore.  In fact, I checked my best match placement before and after exclusivity and found basically no change on my top images.  It also suggests to me that buyers are getting price conscious and are looking at the non-exclusive portfolios more and more, since they are significantly cheaper per image.

« Reply #5 on: January 01, 2011, 10:30 »
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Shutterstock 46%
iStockphoto 38%
Dreamstime 13%
Fotolia 2%
Bigstockphoto 1%
123RF, Canstock, GraphicsLeftovers, Veer all <1%

December definitely confirmed for me that independence is far more profitable than exclusivity for my portfolio.  I took a 10% haircut for going independent, but I only uploaded about 1/3 to 1/2 of my portfolio to DT,FT,BigStock, etc.  If I get off my lazy @&^ and upload some more, I'll see a nice pay raise.  Add in the projected 15-25% in commission reduction coming this month for most of us at IS, and independence is a no brainer for me.

My uploads were very strong at iStockphoto after giving up exclusivity.  This confirms for me that the best match sort does not favor exclusives very strongly anymore.  In fact, I checked my best match placement before and after exclusivity and found basically no change on my top images.  It also suggests to me that buyers are getting price conscious and are looking at the non-exclusive portfolios more and more, since they are significantly cheaper per image.

Glad to hear that going independent has been successful for you. That is great news to start the new year!

steheap

  • Author of best selling "Get Started in Stock"

« Reply #6 on: January 01, 2011, 11:18 »
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December wasn't great for me - after a run of $500 months, I am back at $430 even after two $25 downloads from Pond5.

Stats:
Shutterstock: 40%
iStock:23%
Dreamstime: 11%
Pond5: 11%
123RF: 4%
Fotolia: 4%
BigStock: 2%

I've started posting a graph of earning each month on my blog - the biggest change this year has been the focus on getting more images on-line. I have probably gone from 400 to 1300 on Shutterstock as the year went by. http://www.backyardsilver.com

Steve

« Reply #7 on: January 01, 2011, 15:50 »
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... Is december suppost to be a good or bad month because of Xmas / years end ?


Rather depends upon your portfolio and the seasonal image content. Historically for me (but not this year) December is the second best earner (November is best, followed by December or October and then September or March - that has varied).

As I'm an IS exclusive, their idiotic decision to roll out a broken search engine in early December hurt the month's sales. It was marginally up over December 09, but was the 7th best month of 2010, not the 2nd as I'd have expected.

Overall for 2010, income was up 72% and downloads up 6.5%, so it was a good year

« Reply #8 on: January 01, 2011, 16:25 »
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... Is december suppost to be a good or bad month because of Xmas / years end ?


Rather depends upon your portfolio and the seasonal image content. Historically for me (but not this year) December is the second best earner (November is best, followed by December or October and then September or March - that has varied).

As I'm an IS exclusive, their idiotic decision to roll out a broken search engine in early December hurt the month's sales. It was marginally up over December 09, but was the 7th best month of 2010, not the 2nd as I'd have expected.

Overall for 2010, income was up 72% and downloads up 6.5%, so it was a good year


Thank you for your input. we indeed had 2nd BME and Nov was our BME so your data is consistent with ours.
(for your "normal" years)

« Reply #9 on: January 01, 2011, 16:48 »
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dec2010  | dec2009 | +/-x%
is 26% | 47% | -21%
ft 27% | 13% | +14%
ss 24% | 18% | +6%
dt 12% | 12% | +/-0%
stinksock/StockXpert 0% | 5% | -5%
other 11% | 4% | +7%

so, getty -26% and all the others +27% = +1%
2010 = 2009 + 15%

« Reply #10 on: January 01, 2011, 17:24 »
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^^^ Wow! Those 2010/2009 comparisons are somewhat startling.

I'll try and knock my December numbers out tomorrow.

« Reply #11 on: January 01, 2011, 19:15 »
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A very poor month for me.  I wonder if it this will be the tendency now, after 2 years without uploading to micros, except now to SF (but same images I have in others).

A very good month at Zazzle, a new sale at ABC.  I'm starting to believe these may be the best outlets for my micro images, in the end.

« Reply #12 on: January 01, 2011, 21:21 »
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increasing until this Dec (drop into Nov).. looking forward to 2011 :)

wish u all a great year not just into stock but all around

« Reply #13 on: January 02, 2011, 02:31 »
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If I don't count macro/midstock I had exactly the same sales as last year's December, which was a good month.  So I'm not complaining.  Shutterstock did very well and covered the loss at Istock. 
As for the non micro sites :  Rodeo did VERY bad, but that's understandable, since they have not been adding any images since summertime.  It's rather difficult to have successful sales of my newest holiday photos if the site just puts them in the freezer instead of showing them on their site  ;D

RacePhoto

« Reply #14 on: January 02, 2011, 04:02 »
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Honestly without the figures from all sales on IS, I won't be able to answer accurately until about mid-month. From past experience, I will add that nothing has changed. Boring and consistent throughout the year.

50/50 SS and IS earnings. Earnings are what I count, not letters and statistics.

SS averages 30c per download, IS averages $1.58 per download. The assumption is, that will be changing downward for IS, in 2011.

If I wanted to increased my RPD or DPI or RPI or, make up some letters here, I could just remove the non-selling shots and make it look much better. Any statistic that I can manipulate, isn't worth watching or tracking. Bottom line is the bottom line. How much did they collect for me last month? Statistics don't put gas in the car or food on the table.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2011, 04:31 by RacePhoto »

« Reply #15 on: January 02, 2011, 04:27 »
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Honestly without the figures from all sales on IS, I won't be able to answer accurately until about mid-month. From past experience, I will add that nothing has changed. Boring and consistent throughout the year.

50/50 SS and IS earnings. Earnings are what I count, not letters and statistics.

SS averages 25c per download, IS averages $1.50 per download. The assumption is, that will be changing downward for IS, in 2011.

If I wanted to increased my RPD or DPI or RPI or, make up some letters here, I could just remove the non-selling shots and make it look much better. Any statistic that I can manipulate, isn't worth watching or tracking. Bottom line is the bottom line. How much did they collect for me last month? Statistics don't put gas in the car or food on the table.
No they don't, they do help you decide what to shoot, how much to invest in it (and gear) and make future predictions.
For example I know what I will reach my break-even point, how many photos are needed for that etc' etc'.

RacePhoto

« Reply #16 on: January 02, 2011, 04:42 »
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No they don't, they do help you decide what to shoot, how much to invest in it (and gear) and make future predictions.
For example I know what I will reach my break-even point, how many photos are needed for that etc' etc'.

So if you have 1000 photos and make $1500 then you can calculate that if you have 2000 photos (based on rpi or rpd or some other fantasy number) you are going to make $3000? (hypothetical numbers for an example)

Then you are amazing, because it seems no one else can calculate that? :) There's no direct relationship between the number of images and sales, from what I've been reading? In fact I just read where someone has about 200 photos and makes over $300 a month, and another person uploads 1000 photos a year (has 3000 online now across multiple agencies) and makes under $500 a month.

If RPI was anything more than a measure of what has happened, and had anything to do with predicting the future, I'd be all for it. But all that stat does is tell me what has happened. It's like a weather man telling us if rained 15 days last month, which has nothing to do with what will happen tomorrow. Maybe a little, but it's all after the fact. That and the problem that RPI doesn't coincide with the number of images, 1 for 1.

What you pointed out that does make much more sense is What is selling and how many times that image or that type of image has sold. That's important and meaningful. RPI is nearly usless because it doesn't take into consider "What Image Was It".


« Reply #17 on: January 02, 2011, 04:47 »
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earnings 21% up on last december with 27% bigger portfolio.

This month % total earnings
IS 34% 
SS 28%
DT 17%
FT 6%
The Rest = the Rest %

« Reply #18 on: January 02, 2011, 05:13 »
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No they don't, they do help you decide what to shoot, how much to invest in it (and gear) and make future predictions.
For example I know what I will reach my break-even point, how many photos are needed for that etc' etc'.

So if you have 1000 photos and make $1500 then you can calculate that if you have 2000 photos (based on rpi or rpd or some other fantasy number) you are going to make $3000? (hypothetical numbers for an example)

Then you are amazing, because it seems no one else can calculate that? :) There's no direct relationship between the number of images and sales, from what I've been reading? In fact I just read where someone has about 200 photos and makes over $300 a month, and another person uploads 1000 photos a year (has 3000 online now across multiple agencies) and makes under $500 a month.

If RPI was anything more than a measure of what has happened, and had anything to do with predicting the future, I'd be all for it. But all that stat does is tell me what has happened. It's like a weather man telling us if rained 15 days last month, which has nothing to do with what will happen tomorrow. Maybe a little, but it's all after the fact. That and the problem that RPI doesn't coincide with the number of images, 1 for 1.

What you pointed out that does make much more sense is What is selling and how many times that image or that type of image has sold. That's important and meaningful. RPI is nearly usless because it doesn't take into consider "What Image Was It".

I don't know about other peoples statistics. regarding ours, yes they make things very predictable and our data is consistant the more data you have (portfolio size for example) the more acurate it will be.

« Reply #19 on: January 02, 2011, 08:53 »
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No they don't, they do help you decide what to shoot, how much to invest in it (and gear) and make future predictions.
For example I know what I will reach my break-even point, how many photos are needed for that etc' etc'.

So if you have 1000 photos and make $1500 then you can calculate that if you have 2000 photos (based on rpi or rpd or some other fantasy number) you are going to make $3000? (hypothetical numbers for an example)

Then you are amazing, because it seems no one else can calculate that? :) There's no direct relationship between the number of images and sales, from what I've been reading? In fact I just read where someone has about 200 photos and makes over $300 a month, and another person uploads 1000 photos a year (has 3000 online now across multiple agencies) and makes under $500 a month.

If RPI was anything more than a measure of what has happened, and had anything to do with predicting the future, I'd be all for it. But all that stat does is tell me what has happened. It's like a weather man telling us if rained 15 days last month, which has nothing to do with what will happen tomorrow. Maybe a little, but it's all after the fact. That and the problem that RPI doesn't coincide with the number of images, 1 for 1.

What you pointed out that does make much more sense is What is selling and how many times that image or that type of image has sold. That's important and meaningful. RPI is nearly usless because it doesn't take into consider "What Image Was It".

I don't know about other peoples statistics. regarding ours, yes they make things very predictable and our data is consistant the more data you have (portfolio size for example) the more accurate it will be.
[/quote

I'm with aeonf on this.  My RPI has been consistent, well into my third year at this, so it's a very useful number to track.  I forecast adding a certain number of shots per day to my port, and the money it will generate, and it's been spot on since the beginning.  Sure, I could manipulate the number by removing images from my port, but that would be idiotic and beside the point.  I track RPI for my own forecasting and insight into whether I'm on the right track, not for bragging rights.  It's my belief that if your RPI is falling, you're doing something wrong, and no one has been able to convince me otherwise since I have a ton of data that doesn't lie.

lisafx

« Reply #20 on: January 02, 2011, 10:38 »
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I am down 20% from last month (Nov), and down 10% on last December.   Not very cheerful statistics.  Portfolio growth was 17%.

On year end stats, 2010 was down 10% overall from 2009.  Judging from the last half of the year, I had thought that would be even worse, but the first 1/3 of 2010 was pretty good.  Things started to slide badly the second half of the year.  

I suspect that the main reason for my decline was that I rely heavily on Istock sales and those have been dropping steadily for me.  
« Last Edit: January 02, 2011, 11:29 by lisafx »

lagereek

« Reply #21 on: January 02, 2011, 10:59 »
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Im the same in Micro, hardly any change at all. On the RM side, Im noticing a really big increase, both in sales and monies. Then again in RM, it seams people buy for their Annuals and Corp profiles, etc and before X-mas.

« Reply #22 on: January 02, 2011, 11:21 »
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^^^ Quite similar for me.

I was down 14% from November and down 8% compared Dec 2009. But for a very strong showing from Shutterstock it could have been a lot worse. Like Lisa the drop was largely due to the decline in my sales at Istock. Percentages as follows (with 2009);

SS    35.1% (20.8 )
IS     30.4    (36.2)
FT     21      (19.1)
DT     10.2   (14)
BigStock    2.6    (1.8 )

Shutterstock now firmly established as my #1 earning agency with IS in steady decline.

The change in actual earnings at each agency compared to Dec 2009 were as follows;

SS    +54%
IS     -23%
FT      0%
DT    -33%
BigStock  +37%

I'm not overly optimistic about what 2011 will bring. The projections from my data do not make comfortable viewing. I've got a feeling that many of us with mature portfolios will have to work much harder (in what will eventually prove to be a hopeless attempt) to maintain our incomes. I work in a lot of niche subjects and many of those now are effectively 'full'. There are already far more images in some subjects than the world actually needs and yet more and more are still being approved every month. It's not really worth my time and effort to add to them so inevitably my sales will be squeezed yet further. In my view what can be easily seen in niche subjects is just a reflection of the greater market and what is happening everywhere else. I've had six good years from microstock but I'm not sure how many more are left before every subject is virtually swamped.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2011, 11:23 by gostwyck »

lisafx

« Reply #23 on: January 02, 2011, 11:47 »
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I agree with your assessment, Gostwyck.  Looks like the long term outlook for those of us who have "hit the wall" is not too promising.  I am still relatively satisfied with my income, but if it were to continue this decline for a couple more years I would have to think of some other line of work...

I did my change in earnings for my year end stats, and also for December only. 

             all year     Dec. only
Istock       -11%        -17%
SS            =              =
DT            +2%        -10%
FT            =              =
BigStock          +8%         +53%  (I excluded the fraud sales from the Dec. totals)

As you can see, Istock is down for the year, but that drop accelerated quite a bit by the end of the year.  Dreamstime is up for the year overall, but I had a drop in December.  Part of this may be because I didn't upload anything in Dec.  I think the lack of new uploads may have had an impact at DT, but not at IS, where new uploads weren't showing in the search anyway. 

Shutterstock and FT numbers were statistically dead even from year to year. 

BigStock showed a big jump in the last quarter of the year. That is not because of the fraud sales, since I deducted those from the totals. 

« Reply #24 on: January 02, 2011, 16:22 »
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I agree with your assessment, Gostwyck.  Looks like the long term outlook for those of us who have "hit the wall" is not too promising.  

While I wish you were still increasing your earnings, there is a bright side.  How many people, let alone photographers, can say they pay their bills by doing something which they love...on their own time, at their own leisure, and with no boss or clock to answer to.  I envy your position.   ;)

« Reply #25 on: January 02, 2011, 17:59 »
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This is my stock photography sales statistic for December 2010. You can find a complete list of stock photography agencies that I work with here.



These are for me the best 4 performing stock agencies for December 2010:

   1. Shutterstock
   2. iStockPhoto
   3. Fotolia
   4. Can Stock Photo

Surprisingly the income remained constant in December compared to November. I expected to have a big decline in December, the same as the years before.

2010 was a good year for me. The income in 2010 climbed by 60% compared to 2009. This was way above my hopes. My goal for 2011 is to achieve a gain of 20%.

It was for none of the agencies the best month in December, but it was a good month for Shutterstock, Zazzle, iStockPhoto, Can Stock Photo.


RacePhoto

« Reply #26 on: January 02, 2011, 18:02 »
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I'm with aeonf on this.  My RPI has been consistent, well into my third year at this, so it's a very useful number to track.  I forecast adding a certain number of shots per day to my port, and the money it will generate, and it's been spot on since the beginning.  Sure, I could manipulate the number by removing images from my port, but that would be idiotic and beside the point.  I track RPI for my own forecasting and insight into whether I'm on the right track, not for bragging rights.  It's my belief that if your RPI is falling, you're doing something wrong, and no one has been able to convince me otherwise since I have a ton of data that doesn't lie.

I guess you two are different from everyone else here because for three years I've been reading how more photos doesn't mean more money per image and RPI drops. There's no direct relationship 1:1 between number of images and income from those images.

Unless you are saying all the rest of those people aren't telling the truth?

Which is it?


lisafx

« Reply #27 on: January 02, 2011, 18:08 »
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 It's my belief that if your RPI is falling, you're doing something wrong, and no one has been able to convince me otherwise since I have a ton of data that doesn't lie.

I guess you two are different from everyone else here because for three years I've been reading how more photos doesn't mean more money per image and RPI drops. There's no direct relationship 1:1 between number of images and income from those images.

Unless you are saying all the rest of those people aren't telling the truth?

Which is it?

Option #3.  We are all doing something wrong ;)

« Reply #28 on: January 02, 2011, 21:59 »
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i had a sudden drop of downloads in shutterstock from the date of 22 dec till now.. I thought it could be due to the christmas and new year holidays? anyone had similar trend?

so the december for me is bad..

RacePhoto

« Reply #29 on: January 03, 2011, 01:29 »
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 It's my belief that if your RPI is falling, you're doing something wrong, and no one has been able to convince me otherwise since I have a ton of data that doesn't lie.

I guess you two are different from everyone else here because for three years I've been reading how more photos doesn't mean more money per image and RPI drops. There's no direct relationship 1:1 between number of images and income from those images.

Unless you are saying all the rest of those people aren't telling the truth?

Which is it?

Option #3.  We are all doing something wrong ;)

And my mistake is trying to point out that RPI is a vague nearly useless statistic. I should just STFU and leave it alone. Kind of like pointing out that aliens don't fly light years across space, just so they can find a poor farmer, and tell him the secrets of the universe and how they have come to save mankind. They can defeat science and psysics but can't drop a calling card on the White House lawn or send someone to speak to the UN? LOL

Anyone who watches sports betting or any gambling, knows that some people watch the "trends" for an indication of the future. Trends in football only tell what has happened and 99% of the time don't predict what will happen in the future. Watch a roulette wheel, it comes up 14 times in a row on Red, what are the chances the next time it will be Black or Red. Well, the same as every other spin, because the wheel doesn't know what color came up last, only us humans do!

RPI only measures what has passed, what happened last month or last year, and not only do demands change, but the prices and commissions change and so do the markets. RPI doesn't account for any of that.

Now you know why I feel the way I do about RPI. It's nice to know, it's a way to measure sales and success and see how the hard work is paying off. In a very broad sense, it does show earnings and can project potential for the future, but after one months data, the RPI doesn't change in any significant way or show something interesting?

RPI drops as someone works harder, and it makes the returns look like they are diminishing based on more and more work or effort put in. When in fact, income is going up, while the RPI goes down! I might as well track how my sales are, based on the day of the week the photo was taken. There's bound to be some useless statistic I can come up with, like Sundays are best, but using that information doesn't produce more sales or do anything. It just measures what has already happened. If I shoot more on Sunday, because it's the best day for earnings, then other days will start to improve. Silly as it seems, the best way to improve RPI is delete old non-selling images!

« Reply #30 on: January 03, 2011, 03:36 »
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 It's my belief that if your RPI is falling, you're doing something wrong, and no one has been able to convince me otherwise since I have a ton of data that doesn't lie.

I guess you two are different from everyone else here because for three years I've been reading how more photos doesn't mean more money per image and RPI drops. There's no direct relationship 1:1 between number of images and income from those images.

Unless you are saying all the rest of those people aren't telling the truth?

Which is it?

Option #3.  We are all doing something wrong ;)

And my mistake is trying to point out that RPI is a vague nearly useless statistic. I should just STFU and leave it alone. Kind of like pointing out that aliens don't fly light years across space, just so they can find a poor farmer, and tell him the secrets of the universe and how they have come to save mankind. They can defeat science and psysics but can't drop a calling card on the White House lawn or send someone to speak to the UN? LOL

Anyone who watches sports betting or any gambling, knows that some people watch the "trends" for an indication of the future. Trends in football only tell what has happened and 99% of the time don't predict what will happen in the future. Watch a roulette wheel, it comes up 14 times in a row on Red, what are the chances the next time it will be Black or Red. Well, the same as every other spin, because the wheel doesn't know what color came up last, only us humans do!

RPI only measures what has passed, what happened last month or last year, and not only do demands change, but the prices and commissions change and so do the markets. RPI doesn't account for any of that.

Now you know why I feel the way I do about RPI. It's nice to know, it's a way to measure sales and success and see how the hard work is paying off. In a very broad sense, it does show earnings and can project potential for the future, but after one months data, the RPI doesn't change in any significant way or show something interesting?

RPI drops as someone works harder, and it makes the returns look like they are diminishing based on more and more work or effort put in. When in fact, income is going up, while the RPI goes down! I might as well track how my sales are, based on the day of the week the photo was taken. There's bound to be some useless statistic I can come up with, like Sundays are best, but using that information doesn't produce more sales or do anything. It just measures what has already happened. If I shoot more on Sunday, because it's the best day for earnings, then other days will start to improve. Silly as it seems, the best way to improve RPI is delete old non-selling images!

I think this argument is futile.
No where did I say my goal is to up my RPI. Its just one of the statistical
tools I use to try and give a bussiness forecast of our project.
The buttom line goal is obviusly to make more income with the least expenses.
If you dont find it helpfull by all means, don't use it!
For me its just another line in my excel sheet.

« Reply #31 on: January 03, 2011, 07:48 »
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RPI drops as someone works harder, and it makes the returns look like they are diminishing based on more and more work or effort put in. When in fact, income is going up, while the RPI goes down! I might as well track how my sales are, based on the day of the week the photo was taken. There's bound to be some useless statistic I can come up with, like Sundays are best, but using that information doesn't produce more sales or do anything. It just measures what has already happened. If I shoot more on Sunday, because it's the best day for earnings, then other days will start to improve. Silly as it seems, the best way to improve RPI is delete old non-selling images!

After one month at microstock, my daily RPI was 11 cents.  After two and a half years, my daily RPI is 11 cents.  Yes, there was fluxuation... in the summer, it hung around 10 cents, and in the best months like March and November it was steady at 12 cents.  Draw all the comparisons you want to a roulette wheel, saying nearly a thousand days of roughly the same RPI is mere coincidence.  Since your experience is different from mine, I must be wrong, right?   I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, since it seems one of us must be doing something right.

« Reply #32 on: January 03, 2011, 08:13 »
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Race, I get what your saying!  At least one does

Shank_ali

    This user is banned.
« Reply #33 on: January 03, 2011, 08:16 »
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Exclusive at Istock.December was my 2nd worst month of the year.However the money earned for  2010 was 4000+ which is kinda cool for a hobby IMO.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #34 on: January 03, 2011, 08:19 »
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Exclusive at Istock.December was my 2nd worst month of the year.However the money earned for  2010 was 4000+ which is kinda cool for a hobby IMO.
Indeed, Shankie, you're still My Hero. But I saw you posted on the 'loser' forum over there that you're still quite a way from making Gold RCs, which just shows how ridiculously high the bar is.

« Reply #35 on: January 03, 2011, 08:30 »
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After one month at microstock, my daily RPI was 11 cents.  After two and a half years, my daily RPI is 11 cents.  Yes, there was fluxuation... in the summer, it hung around 10 cents, and in the best months like March and November it was steady at 12 cents.  Draw all the comparisons you want to a roulette wheel, saying nearly a thousand days of roughly the same RPI is mere coincidence.  Since your experience is different from mine, I must be wrong, right?   I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, since it seems one of us must be doing something right.

Therefore from assessing your RPI, apparently daily, over nearly 3 years, you have learnt ... precisely what?

How have you utilised this 'valuable' information to hone your craft, target your buyers' needs, reduce your costs, improve your profitability, make investment decisions, determine your markets, etc, etc.

Or do you just have a pretty graph to look at?

« Reply #36 on: January 03, 2011, 10:07 »
0
After one month at microstock, my daily RPI was 11 cents.  After two and a half years, my daily RPI is 11 cents.  Yes, there was fluxuation... in the summer, it hung around 10 cents, and in the best months like March and November it was steady at 12 cents.  Draw all the comparisons you want to a roulette wheel, saying nearly a thousand days of roughly the same RPI is mere coincidence.  Since your experience is different from mine, I must be wrong, right?   I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, since it seems one of us must be doing something right.

Therefore from assessing your RPI, apparently daily, over nearly 3 years, you have learnt ... precisely what?

How have you utilised this 'valuable' information to hone your craft, target your buyers' needs, reduce your costs, improve your profitability, make investment decisions, determine your markets, etc, etc.

Or do you just have a pretty graph to look at?

Let's be clear here.  RPI alone can't do the things you describe.  What it can do is help you project, IF it is a consistent number.  And RPI can be one indicator of whether you are on the right track or wrong track.  For instance, if it was steady for a year, then started to drop, I would look for the point of the drop and try to assess if I started to do things differently at that time, if suddenly there was increased competition, changing market tastes, etc.  In my case, however, the number has stayed the same, which is an important piece of feedback suggesting I am meeting buyers' needs and have a good handle on my market. 

When I started in microstock, I wanted to guess how much I could make if I maintained steady output and a consistent RPI.  After a month, seeing .11 as a daily RPI, I created an Excel graph that assumed a regular daily output and .11 RPI over several months and years.  I called this the goal line on my revenue chart.  I enter my total sales every day, and after more than two years, my revenue has been riding the goal line pretty reliably, dipping around holidays, and vaulting over it in great months like March and Nov.  Averaged out, my revenue trend line is almost exactly overlaying the goal line which is based on RPI.  It's a pretty graph to look at indeed. 

It's been said before, this argument is futile.  I'll shut up after one last point: If your RPI is falling consistently, you can stick your head in the sand and say it's not important.  But if you truly want to be successful at this, you'll see this measurement as an important indicator of the health of your portfolio, and if you see an unexpected drop or rise, you'd be wise to dig deeper to look for possible causes.


« Reply #37 on: January 03, 2011, 10:45 »
0
^^^ But everything you've stated there can be assessed just from your monthly (or weekly/yearly) revenue.

The point you (and all the other newbies who get excited about RPI) are missing is that simply dividing your revenue by the number of images in your port doesn't actually give you any more info than the revenue figures on their own.

I've been doing this over 6 years. What became clear over the first few years is that growth (in revenue) was actually being achieved as much by price increases at the various agencies as it was by portfolio growth __ if anything more so.

Here's an example for you. In 2006 I had almost exactly the same number of sales at Istock as I did in 2010. The revenue from those sales however has almost trebled as indeed has my portfolio over the same timescale. Therefore my 'RPI' over that period should have remained relatively constant. So what? That doesn't tell me anything at all. If anything this 'constant RPI', if I were to take any notice of it, would actually be disguising the underlying issues that are really going to affect my future income. Namely the ever-increasing competition.

Needless to say my experience, technical knowledge and therefore the quality of my images has improved immeasurably too as indeed has my understanding of the industry. Just as well. Although I have increased my port by about 3x, the Istock library has probably increased by at least 6x although the number of buyers will also have increased hugely too. 'RPI' tells me none of that. My constant RPI tells me that I should just continue to do the same thing and then everything will be alright. It won't be. The data and projections that I do rely on tell that I'm looking  right into the eye of a catastrophic collapse in earnings unless I find a way of doing things differently. By the time RPI flags up the issue it will be too late __ much, much too late.

RacePhoto

« Reply #38 on: January 03, 2011, 17:00 »
0
Interesting and nicely consistent. Is that RPI per month? I'm guessing it is. Which would mean that your type of material and the sites you sell on, you get about $1.20 a picture, on average per year? Nice.

Using the football betting example, some people will say this team does better on turf than grass. They have a 10 and 6 record on turf vs grass. And I say... Who did they play? Is the home field grass or turf? That's what counts.

Since you have a nice level RPI and it produces a nice respectable return of $1.20 per year per image, my next question would be - what sites do you sell on to get your 10c RPI. That's a good piece of data for someone to read.

One person here might say their RPI is 20c and they are an exclusive on IS. Another might find they are making 5c and they never passed the test for IS or SS. Someone might have 100 really good pictures and their RPI is $3. It always comes back to What Pictures Are they, not a broad, how much per image, because everyone has different pictures. But as a general measure the 10c is a good number.

Your 10c sounds very reasonable and normal. What sites?




RPI drops as someone works harder, and it makes the returns look like they are diminishing based on more and more work or effort put in. When in fact, income is going up, while the RPI goes down! I might as well track how my sales are, based on the day of the week the photo was taken. There's bound to be some useless statistic I can come up with, like Sundays are best, but using that information doesn't produce more sales or do anything. It just measures what has already happened. If I shoot more on Sunday, because it's the best day for earnings, then other days will start to improve. Silly as it seems, the best way to improve RPI is delete old non-selling images!

After one month at microstock, my daily RPI was 11 cents.  After two and a half years, my daily RPI is 11 cents.  Yes, there was fluxuation... in the summer, it hung around 10 cents, and in the best months like March and November it was steady at 12 cents.  Draw all the comparisons you want to a roulette wheel, saying nearly a thousand days of roughly the same RPI is mere coincidence.  Since your experience is different from mine, I must be wrong, right?   I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, since it seems one of us must be doing something right.

lisafx

« Reply #39 on: January 03, 2011, 17:20 »
0
Interesting and nicely consistent. Is that RPI per month? I'm guessing it is. Which would mean that your type of material and the sites you sell on, you get about $1.20 a picture, on average per year? Nice.



I believe he said it was .11 a DAY.  Which is quite outstanding IMO.  That equals out to $40.15 per image per year.  With, say, 5k images, he would be making over 200k annually.  That would probably put him among the very top elites in the country. 

« Reply #40 on: January 03, 2011, 17:34 »
0
I believe he said it was .11 a DAY.  Which is quite outstanding IMO.  That equals out to $40.15 per image per year.  With, say, 5k images, he would be making over 200k annually.  That would probably put him among the very top elites in the country. 

Well spotted! I thought you said you didn't do math?  ;)

lisafx

« Reply #41 on: January 03, 2011, 17:35 »
0
LOL!  You got me!  

I can do basic computation.... with the help of a calculator that is :)

As for Stockmarketer and his stats, I am guessing he has a fairly small portfolio, otherwise he would be sunning himself on his yacht instead of bothering to post in here with us losers ;)
« Last Edit: January 03, 2011, 17:39 by lisafx »

RacePhoto

« Reply #42 on: January 03, 2011, 18:26 »
0
Interesting and nicely consistent. Is that RPI per month? I'm guessing it is. Which would mean that your type of material and the sites you sell on, you get about $1.20 a picture, on average per year? Nice.



I believe he said it was .11 a DAY.  Which is quite outstanding IMO.  That equals out to $40.15 per image per year.  With, say, 5k images, he would be making over 200k annually.  That would probably put him among the very top elites in the country.  

Caught that when I read it later, and now I see you have caught me, not catching it. ;)

WOW, 11c a day RPI? I'd retire from my day job and the part time weekend work and concentrate on micro 100% of the time. That number is fantastic to say the least. It's astronomical!

With 200 pictures it would be over $8000 a year. Let me make that an even bigger - WOW!

stockmarketer I see the meters, how about a link to what you shoot. You are amazing!
« Last Edit: January 03, 2011, 18:28 by RacePhoto »

« Reply #43 on: January 03, 2011, 18:48 »
0
I saw the 11cents and though geeze even I'm going better than that, then I looked at the istock dial pointing towards the top and went hang on, re-read and saw the per day.

um not going quite that well, maybe if I deleted all but about 5 of my portfolio.

That's pretty good going.





 

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #44 on: January 03, 2011, 23:17 »
0
<snip>I've been doing this over 6 years. What became clear over the first few years is that growth (in revenue) was actually being achieved as much by price increases at the various agencies as it was by portfolio growth __ if anything more so.

I've noticed this too. Revenue growth is outpacing download growth. So even if you increase your portfolio by 25% and you see an increase in revenue by 25% it's misleading. The revenue growth may have come from price increases while year to year download totals are flat. You're running in place. What happens if/when the price increases are less frequent or stop?

What's the cause? Are price increases causing sales volume to drop overall? Are individual sales volumes stalling from competition?

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #45 on: January 03, 2011, 23:23 »
0
Interesting and nicely consistent. Is that RPI per month? I'm guessing it is. Which would mean that your type of material and the sites you sell on, you get about $1.20 a picture, on average per year? Nice.

I believe he said it was .11 a DAY.  Which is quite outstanding IMO.  That equals out to $40.15 per image per year.  With, say, 5k images, he would be making over 200k annually.  That would probably put him among the very top elites in the country. 

Yeah, I measure monthly RPI and that's around $3.30 RPI per month which has got to be at the high end of the performance scale.

« Reply #46 on: January 04, 2011, 01:39 »
0
Interesting and nicely consistent. Is that RPI per month? I'm guessing it is. Which would mean that your type of material and the sites you sell on, you get about $1.20 a picture, on average per year? Nice.

I believe he said it was .11 a DAY.  Which is quite outstanding IMO.  That equals out to $40.15 per image per year.  With, say, 5k images, he would be making over 200k annually.  That would probably put him among the very top elites in the country. 

Yeah, I measure monthly RPI and that's around $3.30 RPI per month which has got to be at the high end of the performance scale.

VERY high indeed.


rubyroo

« Reply #47 on: January 04, 2011, 09:42 »
0
Finally got my figures done:

Across the year 2010 saw an increase in sales of 55%

December wasn't so rosy - down 16% on 2009.  iS performed relatively badly for
me in November and December.  DT the surprise winner this month, due to the
volume of PPDs I had there.

DT - 28%
SS - 19%
iS - 15%
Veer - 12%
FT - 9%
BigStock - 8%
123RF - 6%
CanStockPhoto - 3%

« Reply #48 on: January 06, 2011, 12:48 »
0
December 2010  was  9% up compared to 2009.
Shutterstock still 1st but Fotolia not too far behind. Veer number 3 this month ahead for Istock.
A bit more stats on my blog: http://microstockexperiment.blogspot.com/

Regards
L

« Reply #49 on: January 06, 2011, 13:09 »
0
It's been said before, this argument is futile.

I hear you and all the other people in the million other arguments about RPI that happened before. I'm not sure why people love to hate RPI, but they do.

« Reply #50 on: January 06, 2011, 14:12 »
0
Interesting and nicely consistent. Is that RPI per month? I'm guessing it is. Which would mean that your type of material and the sites you sell on, you get about $1.20 a picture, on average per year? Nice.



I believe he said it was .11 a DAY.  Which is quite outstanding IMO.  That equals out to $40.15 per image per year.  With, say, 5k images, he would be making over 200k annually.  That would probably put him among the very top elites in the country. 


Haven't checked back on this thread in a while, but it looks like a few questions have come up about my figures and port.  Here are some details, though I won't be sharing my port since I'd rather not open myself up to copycatting... not that the posters here would do so, but folks with unoriginal minds are lurking everywhere in the shadows.

Yes, my RPI is .11 a day.  I don't have anywhere near 5K images, but I hope to get there in a few years.  That 200K annual income number is certainly a goal, and one that would only be attainable if my RPI holds up... which is why it's such an important number to me.  After all the explanation from prior posts, I can understand why RPI is in some regards a problematic number to watch, and as time goes on it's difficult to maintain, but so far it's been a reliable factor in my forecasting, helping me set goals and giving me incentive to maintain my daily and weekly quotas, and I hope it remains so for a while.

But back to my port and my results.  I'll say this... I've found that stuff sells when it has a clear message.  And the messages that sell best are those with business applications.  If I can't immediately envision a buyer using a new pic in a sales brochure, presentation, blog post, etc., to help make a powerful point, then I don't waste time on it.

« Reply #51 on: January 06, 2011, 14:27 »
0

[/quote]


Anyone who watches sports betting or any gambling, knows that some people watch the "trends" for an indication of the future.
[/quote]

Some say that people who gamble simply aren't very good at Math.  Then again, we could all say the same about Microstock!   ;D

« Reply #52 on: January 10, 2011, 07:37 »
0
Ok, I'm a little late to this party but here is my earnings finally



Interesting points for me this month were that iStock and Veer took a larger part of the pie (3% more total for both), while Shutterstock and Fotolia went down (2%)

Earnings up 18% from last Dec. Portfolio size up 8%
« Last Edit: January 10, 2011, 08:49 by leaf »


 

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