I've been producing stock video for a few years now and I've been generating a bit of extra income to invest in camera gear. Non of my stock footage features people or talent - but I'm starting to consider hiring models to produce more content.

How many of you out there produce stock footage featuring hired models? and do you find those clips sell better (and make more money) than those with no models or people?

I have just over two years worth of sales data now and I was hoping to start seeing a pattern in sales month on month - but actually, it couldn't be more random.

My lowest was Sept 2017 with only $30, whereas my highest was Apr 2018 (same port) at $600. Quite a jump.

I was curious to know just how big a gap most people experience in sales from month to month or if your sales are quite balanced on average?

Anyone else seeing a dramatic fall in video sales this month? The longest I've gone before is five days. Fifteen is unusual.

I think when an agency returns your work for resubmission because of  keyword meanings (that'll be disambiguation) so unbearably stupid, it's time to stop uploading.

I'll clarify (disambiguate).

I uploaded several video clips of salt pouring and they were returned for revision. The keywords that required clarification (disambiguation) are... Salt, Pour, Studio Shot, Pouring, Baking, Granulated... etc. etc.

This is totally potty! I'm Getty out of here...

I�ve been at this for about five months and had decent stock footage sales on top tier sites. But I�m yet to have a single sale on 123RF.

What are your experiences out there with footage sales on 123RF? and how long do most of you go without sales before deciding to no longer upload content to a site?

I only started selling stock about four months ago and I now have three months of sales data to analyse. I�m going to share my stats in the hope that it might give other new uploaders an idea of what might be achievable in the first few months and to hopefully get some feedback from stock selling stalwarts out there who might have their own ideas and opinions on what to expect during the first few months of selling in the current climate.

I decided early on to test the water by uploading all of my 80 video clips (a wide range of footage from city shots, to studio stuff) to seven stock sites, namely: Shutterstock, Pond5, VideoBlocks, iStock, VideoHive, 123RF and Adobe.

Using Microstockr Pro to analyse my sales over the last three months there have been some surprises based on my expectations, for example I thought Pond5 would have been a much strong performer (based on what I�d read), but has only given me three sales to date. VideoHive on the other hand has provided consistent earnings across each month (because they�re cheap I assume). 123RF has produced zero sales to date and I probably will save my time by not uploading to them in the future.

So, to the earnings breakdown.

Month 1 (Sept) - $282 from 17 sales.
Month 2 (Oct) - $290 from 18 sales
Month 3 (Nov) - $354 from 23 sales

Total sales for 3 months - $926.00 with an average return per download (RPD) of $16 across all agencies.

Here�s how it breaks down per agency across the three months with the average return per download for each agency.

Shutterstock - 9 sales � RPD $17.82
Pond5 - 3 sales � RPD $22.38
VideoBlocks - 8 sales � RPD $40.08
iStock - 13 sales � RPD $5.74
VideoHive � 23 sales- RPD $11.66
123RF � 0 Sales
Adobe � 2 sales � N/A

Going forward I will probably keep uploading to all the agencies except 123RF. I�ve also recently uploaded to MotionElements so I�ll be interested to see how things move along over there. Adobe I�ve only done for a month, but the couple of sales I�ve had there have been reasonably high compared to some of the others (iStock for example).

Based on my experience I�d suggest anyone starting out should post their content to all the major agencies and see for themselves where the best sales comes from and even what types of content sells best at certain agencies. For example almost all of my sales at iStock have been for city shots.

So there you have it. I�d be interested to hear other people�s experiences of starting out and what the prospects might be? Do sales keep on growing? Are there ways to promote content?

I�d love to hear from others out there...

Keith.