Hey Guys,

Newbie here. I got 3 downloads for my first 20 days in shutterstock, I just started last June 20, 2018. Is this a good indication that I will have a brighter future like....I desire to earn at least $300-500 (monthly) from shutterstock alone. My photos are consist of travel, landscape, people (editorial), nature, and some underwater soon. For now I have already 95 pictures in shutterstock since I started last week. I am going to upload more until I reach a thousand. Thanks a lot in advance for your ideas.

CHEERS!

Travel, landscape, nature....
Out of my own experience I�d say for an expectation of $300-500 better plan for 10.000 photos. You may have exceptional work and do better, or you may do worse...
Good luck!

if you don't have superb portfolio, with places uncovered by the library, or unique photos, is a total waste of time...maybe you can reach 100 200 , but the work you have to put on this will be heavy and time consuming.

That's an extremely ambitious target you've set you will need to work very hard and very smart to get there.  You need to be amongst the top few % of contributors to get there.

You'll need only 19905 CV files to achieve your goal ($300-$500) Good luck

You say you are looking for sales of $3-500/month, not sure what the bulk of your sales are, but 25 cents seems to be the norm for myself, so given that, to get $300/month I would have to sell  a total of 1,200 photos! So I think you would need to rethink the size of your portfolio unless you are confident that you have shots that are a cut above the rest.

Hi natureshooter,

Like you, I shoot mainly travel, landscape and nature images.

My annual RPI on Shutterstock is $0.75. So, I would need to have at least 5000 images on Shutterstock to get $300 per month.

But, half of my revenues come from my 1% bestselling images. So, If you have only awesome images, you can get $300 per month with 100 to 150 images

Newbie here. I got 3 downloads for my first 20 days in shutterstock,

I'll say it again, I really admire the optimism and tenacity of newbies nowadays. I'd likely have given up with 3 dls in my first 20 days.

Still, I was excited with my early sales (iS, never SS) and doing sums on the backs of envelopes to work out a projection, which seemed good then. The reality (more than you're talking about, on average, but on iS, after I passed 3k photos) matched my excitement - for a short time. I kept uploading, (reluctantly) changing my style to more closely match micro style, and the sales followed. Then all manner of sh*t happened, most of which (e.g. drops in prices and royalties, changes in policy) were totally out of my control. Now earning c1/3 of what I was back then. Today is a totally different reality.

You need to see what you can do which is better for your subject matter than what's already out there (but know that it's not always the 'best' pic which is chosen, but the image which best suits a layout), be shooting what buyers actually want (you may well have the only photo of the Lesser Blotchy-backed Twitchy bird, but buyers likely won't be looking in SS to buy it, and the one sale in a decade netting you 25c isn't going to pay your accountant's fee), and you need to be lucky with search positioning. This latter is far more important than I initially believed. I've had two photos go from selling every day on average to selling fewer than once a month overnight because of sinking to the bottom of the Best Match algorithm (both files for years in the top five in the best match for their main keyword). Neither file has recovered best match or sales since.

Keep realistic - with your subject matter (which is also mine),  you'll find it hard to earn that amount of money nowadays. However, if you switched to producing the high demand images (model/property released), you'd be competing with a LOT of very experienced producers, and you'd likely have a lot of outlay (totally different equipment needed).

Based on my own stats as a travel photographer, you'll need 75,000+ plus photos to achieve your goal

75000 to make 300 500 dollar months' better check the quality ad interest of your content really...with less than a 10 of photos i make much more at months.

Gibberish.

Quote from: namussi on July 09, 2018, 07:26

Quote from: jonbull on July 09, 2018, 06:44

75000 to make 300 500 dollar months' better check the quality ad interest of your content really...with less than a 10 of photos i make much more at months.

Gibberish.

maybe yours. loser.

No idea what that means, either.

Your posts don't make sense. They are badly written.

Quote from: jonbull on July 09, 2018, 07:30

Quote from: namussi on July 09, 2018, 07:26

Quote from: jonbull on July 09, 2018, 06:44

75000 to make 300 500 dollar months' better check the quality ad interest of your content really...with less than a 10 of photos i make much more at months.

Gibberish.

maybe yours. loser.

No idea what that means, either.

Your posts don't make sense. They are badly written.

keyboard warrior.

I got 3 downloads for my first 20 days in shutterstock, I just started last June 20, 2018.

I got 35 downloads for my first 20 days in shutterstock, I just started last April, 2009.

Back in 2009, 35 downloads in the first 20 days wasn't worth a forum post.