For a recap on my August Brutally Honest Earnings Report. Before getting started…

Would appreciate if you could help me out!

Throughout my blog, as you can appreciate, I’ve given quite a bit of my time to help you make sense of this complicated stock industry and focus on making money. I’ve also given away earnings info on some of my best-sellers which will directly lead to those images reducing their value (how much is impossible to say but suffice to say that copycat thieves may be lurking).

If you feel that the information below and throughout the blog is useful I kindly ask you to donate as much as you feel is reasonable, such a price of a coffee, by clicking on the following link below:

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Now let’s get started on the Sept earnings report…

Summer is over, time to earn some (serious) money!

On one hand, I’m a bit sad that summer is over and days in the northern hemisphere are getting shorter and colder. On the other hand, the period between September and Mid-December should traditionally be the “business-end” of the year with stronger sales. In addition, Oct 31st, is the Brexit deadline so I predict that many of my Brexit-related concepts should keep selling regularly…what a mess that country has become….

Time-lag in earnings

So, given that I’ve uploaded some 1,000 images and 100s of clips over the past 6 months, especially since investing in a gimbal, such content should start maturing / selling in this busier period. I’m sure you’ve kept busy as well and have noticed an uptick on some agencies.

Detailed Earnings Breakdown

To make it easier to digest, going forward, I’ve split earnings from stills and clips. I’ve decided to publish it two days early as I’ll be busy preparing for my move to Madrid early next week.

Stills:

*Up to July 2019 (Q2 Report), average of three months

Clips:

Combined total net earned: $1,051 vs August $1,075

Overall thoughts on Sept results

Shutterstock (def not Doom & Gloom)

I came into Sept with high expectations, which is dangerous in this industry since results are so unpredictable (usually on the low-side). Right off the bat, the standout result, which I’m sure you’ve noticed, was a huge result over at SS, easily smashing a Best-Month-Ever status at $678. My previous Best-Month-Ever was $462.

Agencies are constantly tweaking their algos, so whatever SS must have done is very much welcome! I did notice that some never-before-sold images started selling for the first time, so that’s certainly great news. If things keep going this way I’ll have to rename these earnings reports as “Shutterstock and Others Brutally Honest Earnings Report”…

Other agencies

Over at other agencies, it’s been a more balanced and on many occasions, a disappointing picture. Adobe Stock produced an average month at $75. However, Alamy disappointed at net $89, although I’ve spotted at least three sales which are yet to be reported (buyers have 3 months to pay up) – more on this later.

Pond5 continues to disappoint and only managed a pitiful $4 worth of still sales and one lousy $12 clip sale on over 1,000 assets. Other contributors have painted a similarly depressing picture in the appropriately entitled “What’s Up with Pond5” thread over on the MSG forum. Pond5 seem active to address such concerns and have arranged to host a Youtube Town Hall meeting scheduled for October 8th.

Average from CreativeMarket with only $24 (three sales) and a big fat zero from PicUnfair. Sigh.

iStock huge huge disappointment

After an encouraging Best-month-Ever in April, where I earned $189, it’s been going downhill ever since. In comparison, August was pitiful at $73 with some $8 in Canva refunds (more on this later). Normally one would expect to earn more with more images uploaded but this game seems to defies logic at times! To give you an idea, since April I’ve uploaded to iStock 482 stills, bringing my port size to 5,907. WTF?!

Footage

Footage earnings were average with four clips sold at SS for a total of $79 vs August six sales for $87. Not too bothered about this blip (other than the Pond5 drought) since I know that I’ve uploaded loads of quality clips from my recent Iberian adventure, including working with a beautiful young model, so fingers crossed they will be picked up soon and in 4K – blog post on my latest trip here

Some highlights of the clips sold:

Seems like some businesses are already gearing up for Xmas, since a buyer purchased the following Milan Xmas scene for $23.81.

Pleasantly surprised to see one of my airport clips sold for $19.50. Not the best quality with the reflection from the glass and quite wobbly (before my gimbal days). Anyway, a good sale, nevertheless!

The remaining clip was the NYE fireworks in Rio, sold for $18.95 that is so far my best-seller by far! I believe that one has sold 10 times in total at all agencies.

Update: A sale came through on Sept 28 at Pond5 for a whopping $12 and Sept 30 at SS for $16.

Looking at the long-term (majors)

Highlights from individual agencies

Mediocre Adobe Stock

I find my results on Adobe Stock to be mediocre at best (Sept was $75). Although the individual return per image is decent at around the 70cents per image mark for the past few months, volumes are relatively low. With 3,711 images and 315 clips I’m expecting a considerable uptick in earnings.

Only two decently priced sales to report, likely from the same buyer since it was for the same price (around $6 each) and within the same geographical region (Catalonia, Spain). More specifically, Girona on the left and Tarragona on the right respectively.

Stellar Shutterstock

Hit the ball out of the park with SS, earning me $1.22 per download. 53 ODDs at $2.85 (top-tier) earned me $151, although the cherry on top came through as Extended / Enhanced Licenses totaling $284. Subscriptions sales, for the first time in a long time, were a minority of total earned at just $161 (thank fuck for that).

Some highlights of the month include:

More good news from Portugal…

Nostalgia from Milan…

How to find your own images?

This is something I do on most days and if you’ve been following me on Instagram @brutallyhonest_alex, I often publish my stories with images that I find.

Simply search “your name + Agency” on Google + past week or so. Helps if you have a unique name…for instance:

Often a buyer will use an image and not give credit, which can be frustrating to find the image. In these cases, you can simply use the Google Reverse tool to find, for instance, using my Ginja de Obidos example:

Suspicious Personal Use Licenses Strike Again

Frustratingly, two highly suspicious Personal Use licenses (I’ve discussed this at length on another blog post) of the following same image popped up earning me just $12 gross each:

Immediately, I’ve requested the excellent Alamy Contributor Relations Team to investigate (still pending a response), since it seems highly unlikely that someone would want to use this image to frame a print on their wall at home, for instance…or a greeting card to send to friends (4756 x 3150 pixels). To be continued…

iStock =iSuck

Perhaps the biggest frustration of the month were my August 2019 results for iStock for two reasons, firstly the sheer number of refunds, which I’m sure you also noticed. Many contributors were up in arms, with some even threatening to quit over at the MSG forum.

To calm the mood, iStock kindly sent out a memo justifying the adjustments:

“There were a number of licenses from one of our distribution partners, Canva, that were refunded on the August 2019 royalty statements and then re‑reported at a corrected amount. 

There were two reasons for this:

• Some Canva licenses of Essentials images were reported using the incorrect currency (USD instead of AUD). These were initially reported on the June 2019 statement, and corrected on the August 2019 statement.

• Throughout 2018 to July 2019, a number of other Canva licenses were reported incorrectly to us at double the actual revenue. This resulted in an over‑payment of royalties to contributors. These were corrected on the August 2019 statement.

In both examples, contributors impacted by this would see the original license removed and the correct re‑license amount reported, which will be lower than the original license. All refunds appear in red on the royalty statement. 

If you are seeing a number of refunds associated to Canva, we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused and for not notifying you in advance. We’re looking at our processes to try to ensure we can avoid this kind of issue in the future.

iStock by Getty Images 

Contributor Relations”