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Microstock Photography Forum - General => Software => Software - General => Topic started by: S. on November 01, 2012, 10:05

Title: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: S. on November 01, 2012, 10:05

I have an excel file but it's very unprofessional, for each agency I just keep track of the revenue and portfolio size for each month.

How do you keep track of your stats? Excel spreadsheet? Access? Some software?

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: Microbius on November 01, 2012, 10:10

Open Office spreadsheet.
Tried one of the specialized solutions out there but it wasn't working for me.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: ca2hill on November 01, 2012, 10:49

Open Office spreadsheet.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: sgoodwin4813 on November 01, 2012, 11:40

Excel.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: Pauws99 on November 01, 2012, 11:43

Excel you can tailor it to what you need. I keep it fairly simple :-)

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: microstockphoto.co.uk on November 01, 2012, 12:25

Excel.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: John W. on November 01, 2012, 19:39

Excel. Filling in the daily downloads and $ for every site since I started. Producing great charts and graphics.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: dbvirago on November 01, 2012, 19:50

Access. Have a small set of tables, with forms for data entry, a lot of queries and a few reports.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: Morphart on November 01, 2012, 22:22

Quote from: jwolf on November 01, 2012, 19:39

Excel. Filling in the daily downloads and $ for every site since I started. Producing great charts and graphics.

Daily downloads? Isn't this time consuming unless you submit 1 or 2 agency?

EXCEL for me too, currently making my programmer build me a custom MySQL db for this, but that's just for my personnal fun ;)

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: Anita Potter on November 01, 2012, 23:24

Daily download tracking is going to drive you insane and clutter up your worksheet.  Monthly is easier to deal with.

I have mine in Excel.  I keep track of my payouts for taxes and what I make at each agency every month plus what I've made with them for the year. Today I started tracking what I've made with each agency all time since 2009.

Keep your paperwork simple.  Doing it on a daily basis is going to take time away from creating your works.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: THP Creative on November 01, 2012, 23:46

excel, I track monthly earnings, files online, and payouts. It automagically gives me my earnings total for the year for tax, monthly totals for each library, and yearly totals for each library.

More than enough I'd reckon

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: ruchos on November 02, 2012, 02:54

Excel. Track monthly totals from each site - separated for both photo and video sales, and track various stats from that.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: gillian vann on November 02, 2012, 04:19

I'm only a small contributor but a big excel nerd, so I have spreadsheets with image status (accepted, pending, rejected) as well as sale count per site (although it's not 100% accurate for every site), plus monthly sheets & graphs for uploads, downloads, earnings. Love a good, colour coded spreadsheet!

this is only my first real year of stock so I'll have to also add in another chart to compare previous years. I'll save that fun for the xmas hols.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: cobalt on November 02, 2012, 04:35

www.stockperformer.com (http://www.stockperformer.com)

It is really helpful, because I get a lot of data from my light boxes.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: John W. on November 02, 2012, 07:49

Quote from: Anita Potter on November 01, 2012, 23:24

Daily download tracking is going to drive you insane and clutter up your worksheet.  Monthly is easier to deal with.

I have mine in Excel.  I keep track of my payouts for taxes and what I make at each agency every month plus what I've made with them for the year. Today I started tracking what I've made with each agency all time since 2009.

Keep your paperwork simple.  Doing it on a daily basis is going to take time away from creating your works.

It's 15 minutes of work a week. Been doing it since 2009. I'm with 9 agencies and dls and $ are the only data I fill in on 1 row and Excel calculates all the rest to different tabs. Ofcourse I'm the kind of person who likes to play around with Excel and keep track of things. Excel can't drive me insane, creating pictures and photoshopping all day will! :)

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: rubyroo on November 02, 2012, 08:19

For a while, when I first started, I documented every single sale!  LOL  Talk about 'OCD'.

Even daily recording would drive me nuts these days.  I like keeping physical books as a bit of continuity with the past, so I rule up my book and physically write down my earnings at the end of each month - enjoying the more tactile nature of that event.  Then I speedily copy them into a spreadsheet with a bored demeanour for practical purposes.

ETA:  I haven't started doing this by candlelight with a shawl and quill pen yet... but the cold night's are drawing in... and I did buy a shawl last year... so I might start developing a Dickensian vibe...

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: gostwyck on November 02, 2012, 08:45

I just rely on the Stats page at iStock to accurately record my sales and earnings. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: rubyroo on November 02, 2012, 08:46

Hahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa

Seriously almost choked on the grape I was eating then...

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: S. on November 02, 2012, 08:51

Quote from: gostwyck on November 02, 2012, 08:45

I just rely on the Stats page at iStock to accurately record my sales and earnings. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Do you have sales on at iStock? :)

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: gostwyck on November 02, 2012, 09:01

Quote from: Stepunk on November 02, 2012, 08:51

Do you have sales on at iStock? :)

Apparently I do. Woke up this morning to find my recorded earnings for Sept/Oct had gone up by about $250. My Downloads figure had jumped up quite a bit too. Unfortunately there was no more money in my Balance though. It means I feel a bit richer ... but actually I'm not.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: click_click on November 02, 2012, 09:05

Quote from: gostwyck on November 02, 2012, 08:45

... I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

... the captain of the Titanic said.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: RacePhoto on November 02, 2012, 12:22

Quote from: gostwyck on November 02, 2012, 08:45

I just rely on the Stats page at iStock to accurately record my sales and earnings. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Thanks, luckily I wasn't drinking or eating anything at the time. I hate having to clean the monitor so often.

ps when I did, Open Office Free, now I just log cash entries on PayPal and smile.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: gillian vann on November 02, 2012, 17:01

that would be nice, but until I'm earning smile-worthy money I'm content with my coloured line graphs.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: cascoly on November 02, 2012, 17:12

excel spreadsheet - monthly stats on nnew & cum accepted and DL, and income.  and a calc of what % each agency is for the total that month

cum stats track improvement over comparable 3 and 6 mo periods last year

a chart shows monthly income, with a running average overlaid on monthly total to smooth out bumps.  quickly shows which agencies are producing over time and which may have an anomalous blip

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: dbvirago on November 02, 2012, 17:49

Quote from: cobalt on November 02, 2012, 04:35

[url=http://www.stockperformer.com]www.stockperformer.com[/url] ([url]http://www.stockperformer.com[/url])

It is really helpful, because I get a lot of data from my light boxes.

Took a quick look at this, it says, Data From All Agencies
We support iStockphoto, Fotolia, Shutterstock, Dreamstime and 123RF.

Are those the only ones? Not exactly 'all agencies' but I might try the free trial.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: luissantos84 on November 02, 2012, 18:11

Quote from: dbvirago on November 02, 2012, 17:49

Quote from: cobalt on November 02, 2012, 04:35

[url=http://www.stockperformer.com]www.stockperformer.com[/url] ([url]http://www.stockperformer.com[/url])

It is really helpful, because I get a lot of data from my light boxes.

Took a quick look at this, it says, Data From All Agencies
We support iStockphoto, Fotolia, Shutterstock, Dreamstime and 123RF.

Are those the only ones? Not exactly 'all agencies' but I might try the free trial.

you should, its very nice, too bad the free trial ends so fast!

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: Anita Potter on November 02, 2012, 20:21

Quote from: jwolf on November 02, 2012, 07:49

It's 15 minutes of work a week. Been doing it since 2009. I'm with 9 agencies and dls and $ are the only data I fill in on 1 row and Excel calculates all the rest to different tabs. Ofcourse I'm the kind of person who likes to play around with Excel and keep track of things. Excel can't drive me insane, creating pictures and photoshopping all day will! :)

Touché  ;D

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: madelaide on November 02, 2012, 20:54

I stopped tracking this year... Too little money for the time wasted in it.

Anyway, I use an excel spreadsheet. Photo name on the first column, agencies names on each of the other columns. On the crossing cells, I use green background for the accepted images, orange for the rejected ones, white when not submitted (and if not able to submit, due to the minimum size, for instace, a "-" in it). Then I put the number of downloads on each of these cells, and if there are FLs, I add this info as a note. 

In a separate tab, I put the monthly earnings with each agency. This is the only info I still update.

Title: Re: How do you keep track of your microstock stats?
Post by: cascoly on November 03, 2012, 14:24

looks like few if any people are tracking individual images.  like you i started out this way, but it was too much hassle, especially since so many agencies don't keep our filenames.

plus, there's often not a lot i can do - if my india pictures really take off, i can't unfortunately, immediately go make more!