Quote from: cthoman on July 26, 2014, 08:57

Quote from: Ed on July 25, 2014, 21:46

1,415 image portfolio * .50 per month on average = $16,980
$16,980 divided by 1,523 images licensed (based on your landing page on Dreamstime) = $11.15 per licensed image at Dreamstime?

So between Dreamstime and Shutterstock, your gross earnings over the past year has been $21,192?  Good for you!  That's just shocking to me.

You lost me here. Where did the $.50 per image at Dreamstime come from?

Rob indicated he averaged .50 per month on average just as 'charged' did....maybe I misread that and I should only consider that being applicable to Shutterstock?

I said only on Shutterstock.

(Edit the rest to send to you in a PM).

Depends on the content, if you produce creative fresh content it could be as low as 10 images.

If you copy best selling images from high end contributors, you might have to produce 400, because everyone and their cousin are producing Yuri knockoffs.

+1
lol, well said. but i append as i am sure Yuri, JSLocke,etc.. will say
everyone and their cousin ... and their cousin's cousin's cousin...are producing Yuri,JSL,etc knockoffs

 Hi Bgbs,

 Here is a basic response that will hold true most of the time but unfortunately does not answer your question specifically. I look at what I spend and what I need to make back per shoot. I find following sales of shoots rather than individual images helps narrow down what to focus on with each location next time out. So say just for giggles, we want to spend no more than 10 dollars per image on production and we want to make back somewhere around 75 dollars per image over their life. This cannot happen successfully unless you are paying close attention to what sells and what doesn't.
  We also follow a very loose rule that 20% of our content is going to result in 80% of our revenue but the more you shoot the more you can adjust this number by small margins. Remember when you move that 20% to 22% you have actually increased your revenue be a large margin so don't look for big swings just keep dialing in what sells and what doesn't and try to move that gauge with small steps.
 My best advice to any stock photographer is to stop thinking about what you like and what looks " Cool to you " and start thinking like a buyer. We are in a business to produce widgets here folks this is not art. The more you start looking through your camera and thinking about " is there a story being defined for the buyers needs " and " does it read clean and clearly as a thumb nail image " as that is the size your image is in competition, the stronger your sales will become.
 This business is so much about prep and pre-production and having a clear road map before you start your days work. Try to plan out your shoots down to the very detail in your mind and on paper. You can deviate from the route when you are shooting and see something that you didn't anticipate but for the most part treat your job like a job and you will start to see strong growth. Nothing wrong with shooting stock for fun on the side but if you want to make this a business you need to have a strong game plan and I believe your asking the question you did shows you are approaching this business from the right perspective.
 Yes, there is a very clear and distinct model to shooting stock successfully. Keep shooting and keep copious notes every day and you will start to see the model you are looking for. Best of luck to you.

Cheers, Jonathan

The numbers may depend on how you do the calculations.  For me, I divide the total I make on every agency every month by the number of images online at that agency at the end of that month to give me the RPIPM for that agency, then sum them over all agencies to get the monthly total.  I take a mean of the monthly totals every year and then took a mean of those values from 2009-2013 and came up with $0.52 RPIPM.  Therefore for me the average number of images to make $100 per month is 192, but that is over more than a dozen agencies.  Since I mainly shoot landscapes/travel and isolations of whatever in my back yard is slow enough to be caught (and stays still long enough to photograph), I assume my numbers are low and others do much better.  My RPIPM peaked at $0.64 in 2012, dropped to $0.46 last year and is more like $0.43 so far this year.  Sales were much easier in 2009-2012 so I think someone starting out now would need quite a few more to earn $100 per month.

I think the best advice here is to keep track of what sells for you and how quickly you make back the cost of a shoot so that continued licensing is pure profit. I'd also say keep track of what sells best where.

I've heard that 50 cents per image per month on the micros is a good average, and I've also heard that in traditional stock the average was $1 per image per year, and then I've heard people say they make about $30 per image per year just on Getty alone ... so it's hard to know what to expect until you see how your own images do.

Remember, if you're shooting lifestyle and spending a lot on props, location or models, or if you are traveling solely to shoot stock, you need to make more to see a profit than if you are shooting isolated objects you have around your home, using friends as models in exchange for prints, etc.

I shoot a lot of travel and generally anticipate that it will take about 2 years for me to recoup the cost of a trip from stock photo sales alone, though I sold two prints that completely covered the entire cost of a 6-day trip a couple years ago (driving, so gas, parking, hotels, food). Over time, I've realized that some destinations are better sellers than others, and am planning to return to those locations that give me the best return so I can further develop the breadth of my portfolio.

I shoot editorial and commercial work too, so stock photography is just part of my income, although direct stock photo sales have become more important to me, and I spend a lot of time contacting editors, etc, much as I would for assignment work, in addition to the "passive" income I make selling stock directly from my website and through the various agencies. When I shoot travel, I plan ahead of time, do lots of research, and spend hours getting the shots I believe will sell. I love traveling, but do look at it as a job and not a holiday. I also shoot when I'm on vacation, but set aside specific times or days when I will be shooting stock, and don't just hope for some lucky grab shots. I expect a few of my shots from each trip to earn hundreds and others thousands over their lifetime, and know others will earn pennies, with the average return per photo heavily dependent upon the location. Some may sell many times and others just once or twice, and I try to distribute them accordingly.

Looking at a one-day trip I took in late 2010 (not my best-selling location, but a good seller and I was shooting specifically for stock), I made an average of $58.66 per image per year on those images in 2013 (some made me $0 last year, some made me $300+) I shot about 300 images that day and have about 30 available as stock, and added together the earning from all of them, divided by the number online. Comparing that to a similar seaside location on the opposite coast, shot with the same camera in much better weather, I averaged $14.40 per image per year in 2013. In both cases, half my images are RF and on the micros, and half are RM, I've just included the average for the micros, if I average both micro and macro my return per image per year drops to $28.66 shoot 1/$10.14 shoot 2, though overall earnings increases significantly (greater earnings, but more images with no sales in 2013 dilute the RPI for the year). The difference? One set screams out the location in nearly every shot, while the second set is more generic. Beautiful beach shots, popular tourist location, more "stock-y" shots and less successful.

So, as you can see, even similar photos taken by the same photographer can give you varied returns, so it's tough to say how many photos you need to make $100 per month. 20 images that do as well as Shoot #1 will earn me $100/month since they average $4.88/month per image, but I'd need nearly 100 similar to those in Shoot # 2 ($1.20 RPIPM). As they say, about 20% of your images will make you 80% of your income, but until they are online, you won't know which ones are your best sellers.

Got to love how some innocent person wonders into the forums, asks a newbie question and gets hammered for it.

not goober, not everyone 
as u can see, most of us are giving OP our own insights to our own experience.
so, the newbie is not getting hammered.
in every forum there will always be someone who likes to hammer anything u say that is sour to their mouth. but one or handful of  personal assassin(s) is not everyone

An awful lot of chatter over a coffee bill....