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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: WarrenPrice on March 30, 2011, 10:58

Title: Supplemental Income
Post by: WarrenPrice on March 30, 2011, 10:58

All news is not bad news.  I'm starting to see my microstock income actually supplement something ... our retirement income.  If this keeps up, my wife may be able to quit ONE of her jobs.   :P
 ;D

Title: Re: Supplemental Income
Post by: steheap on March 30, 2011, 11:24

Warren

That's exactly how I look at this business - I'm still working part-time (mornings) which leaves the afternoon for stock photography and I keep the images flowing to the sites. I had a good $52 sale on iStock this morning which is almost guaranteed to make March my best month so far. I probably missed the golden days of microstock (this is my fourth year now), but I'm still enjoying it and it is starting to go some way towards paying some bills!

Steve

Title: Re: Supplemental Income
Post by: steheap on March 31, 2011, 07:46

Although one day up and one day down... I came in this morning to see all my 47 images of the Cherry Blossoms in Washington DC rejected by Fotolia for a combination of Technical problems mainly. The same images that have been accepted on Canstock, Bigstock, Shutterstock, Zoonar etc. I generally take this in my stride, but every one of them.... :'(

Steve

Title: Re: Supplemental Income
Post by: digitalexpressionimages on March 31, 2011, 07:59

I've seen a 450% increase in both sales and income since last year at this time. Mainly because I've started taking it seriously.

Of course a 450% increase on $20/month is not even supplementary income yet but it may one day become so. I want to branch away from the graphic design and earn money without the inclusion of the dreaded "client".

Title: Re: Supplemental Income
Post by: steheap on March 31, 2011, 08:05

I've doubled in the past 12 months from around $250. Not enough to retire on, but it all helps! This month will be very good because of $125 worth of Pond5 video sales. I've written a lot about building up stock photo income, but that video stuff seems to come out of the blue and make a big difference to the month. I can feel another blog article coming on about how to make money from video  ;D

Steve

Title: Re: Supplemental Income
Post by: louoates on March 31, 2011, 11:23

Quote from: steheap on March 31, 2011, 07:46

Although one day up and one day down... I came in this morning to see all my 47 images of the Cherry Blossoms in Washington DC rejected by Fotolia for a combination of Technical problems mainly. The same images that have been accepted on Canstock, Bigstock, Shutterstock, Zoonar etc. I generally take this in my stride, but every one of them.... :'(

Steve

Next time upload a few at a time of each subject so as not to tax one inspector too much. But 47 images of the same subject? Begging for rejection as too similar?

Title: Re: Supplemental Income
Post by: steheap on March 31, 2011, 14:31

Quote

Next time upload a few at a time of each subject so as not to tax one inspector too much. But 47 images of the same subject? Begging for rejection as too similar?

Maybe - although there are a lot of things to photograph in Washington DC around Cherry Blossom time - and I did get there at dawn to start with some sunrise shots. I think 47 probably was too much all in one go, but Fotolia had been reasonably good to me in the past few months in terms of acceptance ratio and so I just went with the lot. Oh well - their loss... ;)

Steve

Title: Re: Supplemental Income
Post by: WarrenPrice on March 31, 2011, 15:44

Steve,
I've also found that problem at FT.  They seem to reject anything to do with nature.   >:(