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.

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...

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I know this is an old thread, but it's a continuing question...and since it got me reviewing which files are still doing well, and which new ones are moving, here is my all time best seller, uploaded in 2011, earning over $1,200 in license fees: ($768/338 DLs on ss).

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/marshall-point-lighthouse-sailboat-sailing-on-68879227

Ironically, although I generally did well in photo critiques, a judge blasted this photo for poor composition. It may not be fine art, but it's done great editorially and has even been used on the cover of a Nora Roberts mystery (EL): https://tinyurl.com/3pvkzju4

Since reinstating my files on ss this summer, it's started licensing again there and continues to show up in sales elsewhere so past sales seem to be keeping it in the mix though not earning what it used to.

I've had fewer than ten stock photos that made it to the $1,000-dollar mark and a handful more that topped $500.

I'm awed and encouraged by people here who've earned $4,000-25,000 for a single image and who have single images that license thousands of times, not hundreds, and who'd see my best selling stats as quaint.

Interesting, made me dig through my portfolio stats. Across easily trackable agencies (some don't even tell you how much an image makes) approx:

best $8600+
second: $7800+
third: $7500+

Top 160 images are $1000+

Top 2800 $100+

Bottom 2500+ (10% of portfolio ish) zero $ (of course includes recent uploads)


Suprised to see that several of my top twenty were uploaded since 2014 and one since 2018.

Image $1350

Image $1350

That's the way to go.

SS only, top image:  $1,964.17  I'm sure it sells other places, but too hard to do all that adding and finding. I wouldn't know how to find my top image on Adobe, IS or DT?

Over $2,000 is an easy answer.

Don't quit your day job.

Mine has brought me over $6,000 and I did the analysis how fast the sales dry up: https://xpiksapp.com/blog/earn-6314-usd-single-photo-shutterstock/

Basically the estimate is that sales will reach zero in approximately 10 years after the start. And they have clear seasonal peaks, at least for me.

But this and other images have brought in significantly more, because some of the images run very well at several agencies. But I have no idea how to determine the right numbers, because you can't get the necessary information from some agencies.

However, it must be said quite clearly: today, this will be far from possible. This was only possible with images that were uploaded many years ago.

So true, those dimes just don't add up as fast as the 38� did. Then there were ODs and ELs and others which have vanished.

Mine has brought me over $6,000 and I did the analysis how fast the sales dry up: https://xpiksapp.com/blog/earn-6314-usd-single-photo-shutterstock/

Basically the estimate is that sales will reach zero in approximately 10 years after the start. And they have clear seasonal peaks, at least for me.

Fantastic Photo, it deserves to sell and something that you aren't going to have a bunch of copycats. There's one big positive to unique and interesting images. Less competition.