It has been a great month! Does it have anything to do with my recent YouTube promotion?

In May, I have sold 10 prints through my prints site charlinex.com https://www.charlinex.com/. One print was sold at a discount but I still got over US$560.

A few weeks ago, I started to link my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@charlinex5186) to charlinex.com, and vice versa.

I don't know if the sales were linked to the promotional efforts, but it certainly does not hurt.

Really good! Besides the sales you mention in your post, do you make regular sales? And is your website powered by Shopify?

Quote from: Orchidpoet on May 27, 2025, 12:16

but I still got over US$560.

So, what I read about the author.
"Charline Xia. One of her exhibitions was sponsored by and held at Steam Whistle Art Gallery in Toronto. Her photos have been published by many major public and private entities including the United Nations, Parks Canada, Forbes, The Globe and Mail, Linux, Canadian Geographic Magazine and many many others globally."

I apologize, of course, but for a photographer of this level, an income of $ 560 is very little. And as I understand it, you usually earn less.

 

I'll give you some advice, ditch your photography, shoot videos, you'll earn more dollars.
 

It doesn't say she was hired by those organisations/companies to do a shoot but only that they have published her photos. Myself, and probably many others out here, have all seen our photos bought and being used/published by big organisations and companies worldwide. But maybe my interpretation is wrong.

$560 is my net for a single print sale. The hosting company prints, frames, and ships at no cost to me. I sold 10 prints at various prices from my website in May. You set your own prices. Sometimes I get $$$$ when the buyers buy multiple prints.

Once I got $700 (half of 1400) from Alamy for one digital download for a print many years ago. But I haven't made anything nearly as much for a single download from the stock photo/video agencies since then.

My point is, perhaps promotion through my YouTube channel is helpful to my print site.

I sell videos through various agencies, but none of my single video download was close to $560.

Quote from: stoker2014 on May 29, 2025, 05:37

Quote from: Orchidpoet on May 27, 2025, 12:16

but I still got over US$560.

So, what I read about the author.
"Charline Xia. One of her exhibitions was sponsored by and held at Steam Whistle Art Gallery in Toronto. Her photos have been published by many major public and private entities including the United Nations, Parks Canada, Forbes, The Globe and Mail, Linux, Canadian Geographic Magazine and many many others globally."

I apologize, of course, but for a photographer of this level, an income of $ 560 is very little. And as I understand it, you usually earn less.

 

I'll give you some advice, ditch your photography, shoot videos, you'll earn more dollars.
 

It doesn't say she was hired by those organisations/companies to do a shoot but only that they have published her photos. Myself, and probably many others out here, have all seen our photos bought and being used/published by big organisations and companies worldwide. But maybe my interpretation is wrong.

$560 is my net for a single print sale.

Then it is unclear what your prices are for one photo. As I understood from your website, the price for a photo does not exceed $250. If you receive a net profit of $560, it is obvious that the buyer paid more than $560 for your photo.
Now nothing is clear from what you write, and it is also unclear how much you earn on average per month from selling your photos in all agencies (including stock).
Of course, talking about video does not make sense yet. If your monthly income level has 4-digit numbers, then photography is a profitable business for you and you do not need to waste time on video.

Only way to find out is to try it ourselves

I disagree. The forum was created to share information.

You are not obliged to share your earnings on this forum at all - or maybe I missed it on the Microstockgroup T+Cs. 

And I'm hardly fervently enthusiastic about Shutterstocks free program just keeping an open mind.  If it's peanuts then I'll opt out - you are at liberty to do what you want. 

Maybe Orchidpoet will answer - but I'd like give it a go myself, if I have time.  Everyone's portfolio is different so it is sometimes like comparing apples with oranges. 

No money doesn't lie around on the street.

Good luck 

Charline, thanks for sharing your results here. Your work is beautiful - I especially love the black and white images.
I never thought of using YouTube to promote my fine art work (and TBH, I don't plan to start a YouTube channel) but it's interesting to see what types of promotion work to sell fine art. Thanks for sharing your success here.

We are all photographers here and, while it's not stock, sharing ideas for making money from our work outside of stock is always interesting.

I noticed stoker2014 was trolling you here, criticizing your time spent doing video because it wasn't "needed" if you make $$$$ a month from the rest of your work - if you live where I do, in a NYC suburb, you need several $$$$ a month to live comfortably, and if Charline (Orchidpoet) is in Toronto, she does too - so questioning her earnings because she is looking for more ways to earn makes no sense. Her bio says she is a writer as well as a photographer, and as she pointed out, she made $560 on a single print.   There is nothing that says her top price is $250 - maybe google translate isn't working well for you.

How much you make is a very private matter for most people and how much you need to live on depends on where you live.

I see people selling their work via FAA for drastically different prices (often way too little IMHO) and it's good to see someone who places a value on their work. Thanks for sharing the link to your site. Again, beautiful work!

Charline, thanks for sharing your results here. Your work is beautiful - I especially love the black and white images.
I never thought of using YouTube to promote my fine art work (and TBH, I don't plan to start a YouTube channel) but it's interesting to see what types of promotion work to sell fine art. Thanks for sharing your success here.

We are all photographers here and, while it's not stock, sharing ideas for making money from our work outside of stock is always interesting.

I noticed stoker2014 was trolling you here, criticizing your time spent doing video because it wasn't "needed" if you make $$$$ a month from the rest of your work - if you live where I do, in a NYC suburb, you need several $$$$ a month to live comfortably, and if Charline (Orchidpoet) is in Toronto, she does too - so questioning her earnings because she is looking for more ways to earn makes no sense. Her bio says she is a writer as well as a photographer, and as she pointed out, she made $560 on a single print.   There is nothing that says her top price is $250 - maybe google translate isn't working well for you.

How much you make is a very private matter for most people and how much you need to live on depends on where you live.

I see people selling their work via FAA for drastically different prices (often way too little IMHO) and it's good to see someone who places a value on their work. Thanks for sharing the link to your site. Again, beautiful work!

Agree with all this and there are a number of microstock photographers selling via FAA and similar and do very well. Steve Heap often does updates about his sales in print. Also noticed some of Charline (Orchidpoet) work is featured on the site and receives a lot of praise so very well done.

Stocker2014 criticizes everything. He's previously criticized the use of using drones for microstock which alone has earned me 1000s of dollars. He had a crack at my thread about monetizing a drone YouTube channel - which btw is actually my best performing platform this month. So Stocker2014 should really get back to minding his own, working on his own ports so he can start making a couple of dollars instead of just looking forward to Adobe's next free collection offer or the next elusive data set payout.   

He had a crack at my thread about monetizing a drone YouTube channel - which btw is actually my best performing platform this month.

How many subscribers do you have and how many views does one video have? 

Quote from: stoker2014 on May 31, 2025, 02:46

Quote from: Pacesetter on May 30, 2025, 23:20

He had a crack at my thread about monetizing a drone YouTube channel - which btw is actually my best performing platform this month.

How many subscribers do you have and how many views does one video have? 

Post a screen image of your weekly rank and revenue for Adobe Stock on the 'What's your weekly ranking and how many images' (link below) then I'll post a screen image of my YouTube Channel Analytics for 28 days which includes current numbers of subscribers, number of subscribers added in last 28 days, number of views + watch time (hours) + estimated revenue for the last 28 days. I'll even throw in my weekly rank and earnings on Adobe which is a bit low this week for good measure. C'mon bro, let's see some of that Ukrainian talent.   

https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/what's-your-weekly-ranking-and-how-many-images/msg614407/?topicseen#new

Considering your unfriendly and aggressive tone, as well as your lack of response to the question on the topic you raised, we can conclude that I was right.
 

If your channel can be easily found on YouTube, then I could of course go to your channel, see the number of subscribers and see how many views your drone videos have. But this question is not my area of ​​professional interest, it is also possible that you are hiding your channel, and the lack of an answer from you to a simple question confirms my previous assumptions.
 

I also want to say that you are trolling.
 

The Internet is not the place to disclose your personal data.
A lot is known about me, I shoot videos and a few photos. This information is enough for questions and answers.
I did not suggest that you publish the address of your YouTube channel here (although usually the owners of these channels like to do this).
You were asked a simple question, to indicate approximate figures. Especially since you yourself raised this question.