Welcome back to the March 2021 detailed monthly report during these increasingly strange and desperate times! Finally there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel, as the vaccines are (slowly) being rolled out.

Seems like most of us will be able to travel relatively freely from summertime, I’m already making plans! But some prayer is in order as nothing is certain these days…

Busy Brutally Honest Guy – Many Articles & Interviews Published in March!

March was a very busy month for me, not so much in terms of photography / video but article publishing, as well as interviews with Stock Industry Wizards. This blog, through sheer hard work and determination, has become an important source on the pulse of this dying industry.

Being brutally honest as always, turns out that there’s considerably much more money to be made writing about stock photography and travel (on guest posts*) than actually selling stock photography. Perhaps it’s my destiny to be a writer as I watch my stock earnings gradually collapse over time as seen in my January and February earnings reports. Anyway…

The following are some of pieces published in March, starting with interviews:

• Interview with Emeric Le Bars, Timelapse Photography Specialist (originally Guest-post @StockStudio)*
• Interview with Dmitry Budnikov, Co-Founder of StockSubmitter
• Interview with Mikayel Khachatryan, Co-Founder and CEO at Wirestock
• Interview with Taras Kushnir, Founder of Xpiks

As for Articles:

• 7 Reasons Why Microstock Photography is (Probably) a Waste of Your Time and discussion at the MicrostockGroupForum *
• Analyzing popular past & upcoming films / series to create profitable Microstock concepts (Guest-Post at Xpiks) *
• Selling Smartphone Photography and Videos at Microstock Agencies (Guest-post at StockStudio) *

Many more articles and exclusive interviews on the way…including with Mat Hayward, Adobe Stock Artist Evangelist.

Buy me a Coffee (or better yet, an European Union Passport)!

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). In addition to the risk of those corporate clowns at Shutterstock shutting down my account for disclosing my sales on there.

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:

Support the Brutally Honest Blog!

Detailed Earnings Breakdown

First for stills….

Agency	Number of Images in port (added Mar)	Net Revenue for Mar (US$)	Avg Return Per Download (US$)
123RF	5,021 (0)	3	0.3
Alamy	12,585 (43)	94	9.4
Arcangel	996 (8)	0	0
Adobe Stock	3,549 (9)	49	0.71
Bigstock	3,870 (0)	1	0.27
Creative Market	1,519 (2)	5	5
DepositPhotos	6,623 (23)	17	0.44
Dreamstime	6,867 (25)	13	0.65
EyeEm	277 – (Partner)	0	0
Fine Art America	690	2	2
iStock (Feb)	6,909 (23)	66	0.3
Robert Harding	384 (0)	19	2
Shutterstock Editorial	829 (0)	0	0
Shutterstock	10,723 (10)	184	0.54
Pond5	1,738 (2)	0	0
Picfair	5,632 (0)	0	0
Photo4Me	325 (1)	19	19
SignElements	1,213 (0)	2	2
Wirestock	559 (87)	3	1
Direct Sales	N/A	0	0
Total		434

As for clips…

Agency	Number of clips in port (added Mar)	Net Revenue for Mar (US$)	Avg Return Per Download (US$)
Adobe Stock	385 (0)	0	0
Pond5	1,485 (1)	0	0
iStock	180 (3)	2	2
Shutterstock	1,143 (2)	39	10
Total		41

Total: $518 (vs $540 in February)

Looking at the long-term (major agencies):

Another New Normal Average month at Shutterstock

All things considered, I can’t complain, at least this month, on $223 earned at Shutterstock (combined stills and clips), which was somewhat bountiful.

A late month-sale earned me a sweet $41.28

Better news on videos

Slightly happier days on the video side with 5 sales for a combined $39.44, with the following three as best-sellers:

Average month at Alamy

Some late-month sales produced an average month at Alamy with net $94 from 10 sales. Some of the best-sellers were…

Adobe Stock continues to struggle

Another disappointing month at Adobe Stock at $49 from 69 downloads, so a disappointing (for AS’s standards) RPI of 71cents/download. No sales above $3 as you can see from my top 3 earners. They are starting to enter the dangerous Turd-Zone…

Very poor month at iStock

After a few respectful months at iStock, bucking the general downward trend, February (they report one month behind) was a real stinker deep in the Turd-Zone in the at only $66 on 230 photos sold, which comes to a pathetic average return per download of 30cents. No single image sold for more than $2.50 (one-off) as you can see below:

Print-On-Demand – Photo4Me

One sale for $19 on Photo4Me for the historic central square of Cascais, Portugal. Will look great in someone’s wall.

Keep telling myself that I need to dedicate more time/energy into POD….

Total of 8 Arcangel accepted images

No book cover sales to report for March.

As for new uploads, frustrating whole batches consisting of dozens of images, including the below (on a recent day-trip to Torrelodones), have been rejected by Arcangel, which means back to the drawing board.

Those 8 that were accepted:

As well as a pic of yours truly…

Hey, that’s my pic!

As usual, I’ve spotted the following 6 images. Always an interesting exercise to know the end-usage of my images to create more sellable work (or challenge infringements). I often get asked how I find these…well it’s simple…go to Google and type in your name and within last 24 hours / week / month. I happen to have a quite unique name so it’s easy…not so lucky for the John Smiths out there.

Golden Nugget of the month

None deserve any praise whatsoever.

Golden Turd of the month

Golden Turd of the month this month goes to Pond5 for giving me 0 in sales on 1,485 clips.

Time to explore the region on two wheels!

Friend of mine recently lent me his bike and I’m excited to explore some of Spain + burn some excess lockdown calories.

Good news is that my time in Madrid, working full-time in a relatively dull corporate office job, has been extended for a few more months and just in time for better weather conditions. Technically I can’t leave the greater Madrid region due to Covid regulations but there’s enough to explore within Madrid itself…

About Alex

I’m an eccentric guy, currently based in Madrid, Spain, on a quest to visit all corners of the world and capture stock images & footage, when things go back to normal (mid-2021??). I’ve devoted eight years to making it as a travel photographer / videographer and freelance writer (however, had recently go back into full-time office work to make ends meet). I hope to inspire others by showing an unique insight into a fascinating business model.

I’m proud to have written a book about my adventures which includes tips on making it as a stock travel photographer – Brutally Honest Guide to Microstock Photography