A great month all-around

https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2025/07/01/june-2025-brutally-honest-earnings-report-all-in-on-drone-mapping/

Great stuff as usual Alex.  I also travel a lot & enjoyed this cruise narrative.  Missed each other in Santa Cruz de Tenerife for couple of months.  There is actually quite of different things to photograph in the waterfront, incl.  Castillo de San Juan Bautista and Auditorio de Tenerife Adan Martin.  I got lots of shots, still waiting to be processed.

Did you have time for Teide hike?  I went Teleferico up, but hiked down via Montana Blanca & it was the awesome day.  Canary Islands panorama from 3718m summit is stupidly beautiful!

($45.57 from Nov '23 cruise?  Maybe you should ask TikTok Jade for advice how to make 5-6K instead ;=)

Thanks! Will def be back in Tenerife (with the drone of course this time), wasn't there for long and was mainly doing shopping looking for a VR headset which in the end I didn't purchase. Cruises can be frustrating since I only got a few hours at land before heading back.

haha my first cruise was a disaster (financially speaking), not holding out much hope for the second one.

Loved Madeira too, next on my list to explore.

There are a lot of "influencers" in RRSS like TikTok, Instagram and Youtube, selling e-books giving advices how to earn a lot of money selling photos and videos with you smartphone in microstock web sites! And the most hilarious, they never have sold a photo or video o very few! Expose all of them!
Never let this thread die!

Gladly! Please link me to some and I'll expose them

Quote from: Brasilnut on May 22, 2025, 21:09

what sells are on there are mainly editorials of specific places/landmarks/businesses, as well as newsworthy content.

Yes, but not always true.  Couple of weeks ago this sold for 3-digits (attached)



It's remote back-country of Banff National Park in Canada.  Takes 2 days of hiking just to get here.  Camped by these lakes in the valley, had all this to myself.   Who needed this kind of photo I am not sure, but apparently there is a market for mountain landscapes on Alamy

That's a great shot. On my list of places I want to visit for sure.

Would be interesting to track down the usage.

I still upload pretty much everything to Alamy that I upload to micros but not vice-versa. Some very generic boring commercial shots have sold for me at Alamy and for nice prices, such as this dartboard. Funny that it doesn't really sell on micros (has only earned me $5).

Quote from: stocky on May 22, 2025, 16:25

I guess it depends on a number of factors, like portfolio size. I just know I'm earning substantial more money per year since this was introduced.

Same here.  It really comes down to how to best manage your assets. This type of discussion comes up on Alamy Forum frequently.   

Alamy "exclusives" argument is "Why would you give away your photo for pennies on micros  when it could earn you 100s of dollars, if it was available only on Alamy"

Opposite argument is "Upload only on Alamy and it never gets sold.  At least it will make something if it's available on micros"

At the end everyone has to decide for themselves and one size doesn't fit all.

Both arguments are correct. What works for me is that some images are only supposed to be at Alamy and other images are only supposed to be at micros (they can be at Alamy as well but probably will never sell). I've sold close to 1000 assets at Alamy and can that what sells are on there are mainly editorials of specific places/landmarks/businesses, as well as newsworthy content.

For me I'm seeing such a rapid decline in my average royalties (while inflation has been rampant out in the real world) that I'll take $10 perpetually per asset to cash in their value while they still have some. 

This type of dumpster fire shenanigans makes me even more committed to put more of my images on Alamy as exclusive RM, especially the more premium ones.

Was there just before xmas in 2021 for a few days, so the light wasn't great. Enjoyable town.

As most places, the results were very poor with few sales, but I was mainly focused on book covers.

Was before I had a drone so probably would have been a cool place to shoot from above.

Finally above $1k thanks to some Arcangel book covers and Pond5 clip sales.

https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2025/04/01/march-2025-brutally-honest-earnings-report-finally-above-1k/

Quote from: cobalt on March 29, 2025, 03:37

Thank you for the article. I am teaching a class tomorrow will add that to the link list.

I anyway warn people about the scammers and that earning money from stock is a slow and steady process.

"earning money from stock is a slow and steady process" for me more like slow and not a steady process lol!

For me it's a get less poor slowly scheme!

Huh.

Interesting article - quickly reviewed the accounts - I'd be inclined to agree.

a) They don't appear to actually share/talk about any actual photos, just make bold claims. (Incidentally, one girl is rather ugly - but - if she's taking advantage of people - could be why. The 2nd one while a little 'better' looking, also looks a bit ugly in a way - probably for the same reason).

b) They do seem to have similar scripts, including have a small # of videos, and even being so lazy as to not even change the tiktok tagline (i.e., "captured by jade" vs "captured by charlotte").

c) I've personally witnessed people making bold claims to sell stuff - only to reveal in private groups/forums/etc that they were making a fraction of the sales and instead were just hawking e-books. I've also (in the past) purchased stuff which turned out just to be pure recycled garbage.

(d) Lol - I also agree with your comment that their bold claims of making $400, or $10k from "just one photo!" - unless they somehow built a time machine and went back to 2005 to upload to shutterstock - are greatly exagerrated, if not even non existant.

(e) It is interesting reading the comments - people do seem to be a little wiser nowadays basically saying 'okay, show me the proof', or 'sounds like you are full of dogpoo'.

How did you come across these accounts?

a) I think their looks have a lot to do with what they're trying to portray. They want to come across as just "average" young women to appeal to a broad audience. Even the name Jade (doubt it's her real name) and Charlotte are quite average names. Candid camera angles with natural lighting, also little use of make up.

b) Def

c) Nothing wrong with bold claims but people need to back it up with actual proof and legitimate screenshots.

d) I went through quite a few of the videos and one made me laugh, went something like "I uploaded this image on Friday and on Sunday I earned $1k), it's too outrageous and how do people fall for this crap.

e) Jade deletes negative comments. Charlotte is newer to the game and has left some up. There was someone who asked Charlotte for a link to her portfolio (completely legitimate request) and she replied that she got hacked and won't give it away lol.

Was scrolling through some stock photography TikToks and came across Jade a while back and Charlotte only this week.

Strangely, iStock is now having no issues accepting my Topaz sharpened/noise-reduced images.

They probably eat sub(way) for lunch everyday. 

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Shutterstock-Reviews-E270840.htm

Upload small batches is the way to go