Ok, so August was exactly what I expected - our busiest month and the least likely to result in any new stock. Other than a couple of trial images to show people how stock works, I didn’t upload one image this month for the first time since March. I feel terrible about how August went and Sept may not be a ton better.

We’re preparing for our trip in Sept. as well as launching a new Picture Infinity website on the 12th. We have a bridal show on the 14th and our trip starts October 8th. Once we get back from the trip, we have one more wedding and then it’s on. If you’re wondering when I’m going to kick it into another gear and start down the road of finding Mil, that’s the time. In the meantime..

Total earnings for August 2008 - $415.82

Simple and to the point this month, like my month of work.

Overall gallery increased from 5777 to 9052 but that was mostly the result of adding YayMicro and 1100 images as well as pending May images finally being reviewed.

Overall income increased to a record $524.84 and 5 agencies had a Best Month Ever despite me doing basically no work.  Not a bad month, but I hope to dramatically improve it in July.  That was disappointing.

Well, the overall did not increase as much as I would have liked, mainly in part to having an amazing Shutterstock last month with one video sale AND one EL in the same month.  That was an extra $26 to catch up just to make the same money with the same DLs.  Best Month Ever on 7 of the 9 (Istock & Dreamstime with no BME but both up from last month.)

Overall feeling this month was fantastic on the slower sites but the words of the day are “wasted opportunity.”  We had a chance to make a REAL push in May and didn’t push up to $500.  We now need to clear $600 next month to be even remotely on track.  That is going to be difficult, but I have hope!  We are crossing the 1k image mark at a few sites - and June should be our biggest portfolio increase EVER.

Best Month Ever - Shutterstock, Fotolia, Bigstockphoto, 123RF, StockXpert, FotoMind, FeaturePics.

Month Total - $448.85

Gross Nil to Mil total - $3715.47

(gain - $98.28, 28%)

March’s portfolio size - 1559
April’s portfolio size - 3839
May’s portfolio size - 5777

May 2008 Earnings
April 2008 Earnings
March 2008 Earnings

When I announced my earnings last month, I heard a lot of feedback about my IStock performance and how it should be MUCH MUCH better.  I agree, but I still can’t get them to accept any of my images!  I have 700+ images on multiple sites.  I have 89 on IStock and have submitted 40 this month.  They took 8.  I’ve done my part for the last 3 weeks - 60 submissions (MAXED OUT) and 21 new images online.  That basically stinks.  It de-motivates me. 

So I’m asking for help.  I know they like less processed, I know they like less saturated.  But short of editing everything twice, what’s the trick?  I would love to get my IStock gallery going - but at this rate, it never will.

Once in awhile I like to post what’s in my queues on various sites so you get an idea of how fast (or not) some sites review and how many images I have just waiting to be seen.

Here is today’s Q-List:
123RF - 38 pending
Bigstock - 139 pending
Dreamstime - 139 pending
Fotolia - 0 pending, 90 uploaded unsubmitted
FeaturePics - 38 pending
FotoMind - 0 pending (lightning fast reviews)
IStock - 10 pending, 10 unsubmitted
Shutterstock - 38 pending
StockXpert - 51 pending

Total pending on my 9 sites - 453
Total uploaded to submit - 100
Total in “upload these” folder - 55 more per site.

What does it all mean? It means you don’t want to ever stop submitting - constant submissions should = constant reviews. The time between your reviews = the time between your last submissions on MOST microstock sites.* It doesn’t matter how long or how terrible the site’s queue is - if you submit from the time you submit your first batch forever forward, eventually you have files coming up all the time on every site for reviews. That is what you want - constant reviews = constant growth.

(* Yes, you have to factor in weekends, holidays & other non-review days as well as “beginning of month” runs from other photographers, but it’s approximately correct.)

Ok, I’m making a few changes this month - I’m dropping my non-earners including Lucky Oliver (RIP), Canstock, Crestock and - likely next month - FeaturePics. 

In their place, I have begun uploading to MostPhotos, Zymmetrical, and YayMicro.  Because I do not have enough data, I have left those 3 off this chart for now although it should be said that MostPhotos is very easy to upload to and I have over 500 images there already.

April was an absolutely fun month!  Increasing my income $160 in one month was thrilling especially when I know I could have gone harder.  If I can make an extra $200-300 per month, we could be really excited about this by the end of the year.  8 more months of earnings = lots of potential for growth. 

Best Month Ever - Shutterstock, BigstockPhoto, 123RF, StockXpert.

Month Total - $349.57

Gross Nil to Mil total - $3266.62

(gain - $159.93, 84%)

March’s portfolio size - 1559
April’s portfolio size - 3839

April 2008 Earnings
March 2008 Earnings

So, you’re using Image Manager to upload to IStock?

1) Shoot yourself in the head because it’s less painful.

2) Go to http://www.deepmeta.com and download the program.

There’s a reason I hated uploading to Istock - it was plain & simple a pain in the butt.  With a 20 per…whatever…limit, you never had a good way to know when to submit more, how many slots you had free, etc.

Deep Meta changes a LOT about the way IStock will work for me.  I can simple add images (not simple in IM - you had to add them one by one!)  Then categorize, add to queue and upload.  Deep Meta will submit as many as you can submit (my limit is 20 right now).  Then, when you get your emails from Istock about those images, simply enter the program, press F5 to refresh data, it’ll update your statuses of those images, and press “upload” again - all the other images you queued are ready to go!  You could have 500 in queue ready to push, all categorized, etc.  VERY simple!

Deep Meta tracks a lot of IStock stats but I’m really mainly concerned with getting my images online and Deep Meta makes that SO much easier.  So thank you to the creator(s)!  I love it!!

Here are my favorite images approved in April, one from each site (easy to find my folio that way too!)  Canstock has not approved one image in April so they can’t play.

April is so far all about the pending images.

123RF - 39 pending
Bigstock - 42 pending
Canstock - 99 pending
Crestock - 65 pending
Dreamstime - 65 pending
FeaturePics - 65 pending
Fotolia - 32 pending
FotoMind - 11 pending
IStock - 20 pending
LuckyOliver - 65 pending
Shutterstock - 48 pending
StockXpert - 109 pending

Here is my current top 5 3 Pet Peeves list:

1) BigstockPhoto is not taking uploads again.  “File uploading has been temporarity disabled to allow us to reduce the number of files waiting review in the Approval Queue.”  Hint - if this happens twice in a week, hire more reviewers.  In fact, I’ll work cheap.  Here’s the problem with stopping the queue - nobody stops shooting.  We don’t all take a break and say “Bigstock wants to catch up, let’s not shoot this weekend.”  So when they resume uploads, we do a mass dump of like 100 pictures on them.  It’s insane.

2) Shutterstock’s “new image feeding frenzy” is out of control.  If you didn’t upload it in the last month, it’s doing about 1/10th the DL of a new image.  Makes me want to delete & re up my entire folio once a month.

3) Long review times.  Yes, I mean you Bigstock, Canstock, Istock and StockXpert!  5 days, max.  That’s gotta be a hard & fast rule by some agency someday.  5 days, review, max.  MAX.  123RF, Fotolia, FotoMind, Dreamstime, Shutterstock - all been blazing quick lately.