Author Topic: How much has your best selling image made you? (Read 9284 times)

Firn · « **Reply #25 on:** October 07, 2020, 01:18 »

Quote from: maunger on October 28, 2006, 07:52

Quote from: sharpshot on October 28, 2006, 07:23
How do you work out how much a photo has made on istock? I have stats for sales but can't see how much individual photos have made.

Go to http://www.istockphoto.com/my_uploads.php and it is in the far right column called "royalties"

The link gives me an error message (probably because istock tries to redirect me automatically to the German version of their site, even though that's not even my language setting) Can you tell me how to navigate there from the Contributor dashboard? I don't see any option called "my uploads" there.

eyewave · « **Reply #26 on:** October 07, 2020, 02:16 »

Quote from: leaf on October 07, 2020, 00:49

I guess I should change my vote then??

Change the amounts in the poll first

Gannet77 · « **Reply #27 on:** October 07, 2020, 02:30 »

Quote from: eyewave on October 07, 2020, 02:16

Quote from: leaf on October 07, 2020, 00:49
I guess I should change my vote then??

Change the amounts in the poll first

Yes, should be higher... my best image currently at over $2000 and still regularly tops my monthly sales. But it's been there since 2009. So not quite as long as this thread...

MarekM · « **Reply #28 on:** October 07, 2020, 02:34 »

The photo was taken more as a test and casually uploaded for sale.
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/beautiful-sky-with-white-clouds-gm182412483-11765469 [nofollow]
I don't know how much it earned exactly because there is no such data anymore, but something like $ 30,000

Fred · « **Reply #29 on:** October 07, 2020, 05:39 »

My best seller has earned over $500 since 2010 ($452 with 883 DL's on Shutterstock alone and a few hundred on 5 other sites). A simple picture of a fluttering plain white flag against a blue cloudless sky. Used the same image and changed the color of the flag to yellow, blue, green, red, and black. If I included sales of those images it would be well over $1,000.

fred

gameover · « **Reply #30 on:** October 07, 2020, 14:36 »

deleted

ShadySue · « **Reply #31 on:** October 07, 2020, 15:04 »

I didn't retain the amounts at iS before they went to ESP, but I know that before the change, my top earner there had earned more than the entire cost of taking it. I live in Scotland and the photo - an iceberg - was taken in Newfoundland, so the cost incuded flights, two weeks' accommodation, food, day trips etc. However, tellingly, although still my 'best seller' (equal) since ESP, it has only netted $230.96 in the ESP era (since Jan 2017), which really shows how much the average rpd has decreased as well as the number of sales. The ESP rpd on that file is £2.22, I don't remember exactly what it was before, it was around $7.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #32 on:** October 08, 2020, 10:06 »

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on October 06, 2020, 18:32

Quote from: markrhiggins on October 06, 2020, 16:57
Over $4000 on Shutterstock. I haven't checked the other sites. It was rejected the first try at submitting it. It has been in since 2012

Is a 16 year resurrection of a thread a record?

Records are made to be broken!

Quote from: leaf on October 07, 2020, 00:49

I guess I should change my vote then??

Yes, $500 isn't high enough any more.

I just noticed I haven't answered in this version of myself.

Microstock only, I started in 2008, since 2012 one image = over $2,000 the next best is around $400, but keep in mind I'm an unmotivated, underachiever.

For amusement, an image from my original 20 to get accepted at SS: 209DLs $95.03 Uploaded 1/18/08, IS 10.01$ 19DLs since ESP Pretty Exciting?

Asthebelltolls · « **Reply #33 on:** October 08, 2020, 13:17 »

Way back in the 1840's when Marconi invented the first digital camera I started uploading to Dreamstime, 123RF and Depositphoto. Ever since, almost since day one, I started selling a cow grazing in the meadow. Nice shot. A little different. Low angle and close. The image has sold steadily ever since. Never a big 3 or 4 digit sale but consistently throughout the years (yes, even during the Civil War

). All told, a little over $2000 and still counting. Second on the list was close on a special electric pavement saw. About $1500.

MotionDesign · « **Reply #34 on:** October 08, 2020, 13:56 »

i have two images (3d render) at about $2500 each one
upload date: 2010 and 2016

I have videos uploaded last year with the same amount of earnings...

Roger Mitsom · « **Reply #35 on:** October 08, 2020, 20:19 »

I just started in April (I know, perfect timing right?). I went months on Alamy with absolutely zero sales with modest and consistent sales at other agencies. I'd even started considering not even bothering to upload to Alamy anymore.

Then a few weeks ago I checked in and had a single sale for $30 (actually $99 but after their fee).

So that's my biggest so far. And surpasses sales on any image I have on other sites.

Roger Mitsom · « **Reply #36 on:** October 08, 2020, 20:34 »

Quote from: mj007 on October 06, 2020, 17:17

I like this question. As I have not figured out yet what sells best. These two pictures I posted on stock about the same time which would be around 15 years ago. If you ask my neither one is really a good photo but with said the Octopus has made me on 12 different sites a total of $ 6000 dollars and the leopard skin has made me $25,000 total. I have a lot of photos that I think are good and have made very little money. i guess it is just all about luck and timing.

For someone having just been doing this for a few months this is very encouraging. I consistently see these simple, elegant pictures that resonate and apply to so many different things being top sellers.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #37 on:** October 09, 2020, 07:44 »

Quote from: Asthebelltolls on October 08, 2020, 13:17

Way back in the 1840's when Marconi invented the first digital camera I started uploading to Dreamstime, 123RF and Depositphoto. Ever since, almost since day one, I started selling a cow grazing in the meadow. Nice shot. A little different. Low angle and close. The image has sold steadily ever since. Never a big 3 or 4 digit sale but consistently throughout the years (yes, even during the Civil War ). All told, a little over $2000 and still counting. Second on the list was close on a special electric pavement saw. About $1500.

Sorry to correct you but everyone knows that Alhazen invented the digital camera. "He was a scientist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, he wrote the Book of Optics and, among other things, he invented camera obscura and pinhole camera. At about the same time, Chinese scientist Shen Kuo experimented with a camera obscura." How someone invented the pinhole camera in the 11th Century is another mystery, because photography hadn't been invented yet?

Then people put a pencil in their hand and using their digits traced an image.

I'd be surprised if everyone here, didn't have one of those images, where we just took some fairly ordinary shot and it somehow sells over and over. Just like the image that has one sale and it's an EL or high value single. Always welcome.

SS - Sunset over corn field with glowing orange and yellow clouds reflecting the sun light. 1DL $84.00 Sunset over field, really? I thought it was a filler.

True this kind of one off deal, for an image that has never sold on any Microstock site, is more likely to happen on Alamy. I have a dozen of those.