Welcome to the August 2022 detailed monthly report focusing on my overall earnings for the month. If you’re at the northern part of this tiny rock in the galaxy, hope you’re enjoying your summer, I sure am!
If you missed out or would like to catch up on previous monthly-earnings reports, you can see them here.
Before we get started…
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August Highlights
Little rest for me during this hot month as happy to report six highlights!
- Interview with George Cairns, Photo Fixing and Creative Tutorial Writer
- Book Cover Photography – Thinking like a Designer about Text Placement
- Is EyeEm Heading for Closure?
- Brutally Honest Interview with Alexandre Rotenberg
- DALL-E 2 – Glimpse into the Future of Artificial Intelligence Image Creation
Feedback on my Drone Footage by OverflightStock
Back in May, just after being accepted at OverflightStock, I asked their Director, Peter Chigmaroff, a few questions about which types of clips they’re looking for and proposed him this question.
Question: I see in your home landing page screenshots from various US TV serials that are popular. What kind of content sells there?
Answer: “A local city aerial, or something generic like a day to night time lapse, or a top river, a green forest? Or whatever else I could shoot? Do these serials buy urban or rural content? A lot of the aerial transitions that you see in shows is stock. Good nature locations is as popular as cityscapes. And when you are by a road, get a shot or two car tracking. Just follow a car for a few seconds. Any angle that is comfortable in an urban or rural setting. Keep it smooth and it is okay for the car to enter and leave the frame. Small towns are a good idea to include. Industry. Homes close up if you can get a property release.”
Useful and very specific so a few months later I was in the mood to capture one of these ideas, notably the “just follow a car”…well here it is in low-resolution…
I sent the link over the Peter and he kindly gave me this feedback:
“I just had a look. Really well done. That’s pretty much perfect. I love the way you let it enter the frame without chasing it. Some idea in any situation.”
So, let’s hope it will sell! Meanwhile, I’ll try to execute of the other ideas he mentioned.
Now let’s move onto the usual detailed earnings report.
Detailed Earnings
As always, starting first with stills:
| Agency | Number of Images in port (images added Aug) | Net Revenue for Aug (US$) | Avg Return Per Download (US$) |
| Alamy | 13,813 (66) | 55 | 5 |
| Arcangel (RM-exclusive) | 1,710 (72) | ~1,000 | ~1,000 |
| Adobe Stock | 3,777 (62) | 58 | 0.82 |
| Creative Market | 1,604 (10) | 1 | 1 |
| DepositPhotos | 7,173 (66) | 10 | 0.33 |
| Dreamstime | 7,296 (37) | 11 | 0.41 |
| EyeEm | 356 (0) – Partner Program only | 1 | Crap |
| Freekpik | 424 (327) | 22 | 0.07 |
| Fine Art America | 373 (0) | 0 | 0 |
| iStock (July 2022) | 7,508 (79) | 71 | 0.46 |
| Robert Harding (Q2 2022 monthly average) – exclusive | 388 (0) | 24 | 8 |
| Shutterstock Editorial | 898 (0) | 0 | 0 |
| Shutterstock | 10,926 (59) | 102 | 0.35 |
| Pond5 | 1,809 (2) | 0 | 0 |
| Photo4Me | 355 (1) | 0 | 0 |
| SignElements | 1,288 (5) | 3 | N/A |
| Wirestock | 1,839 (25) | 13 | 1.10 |
| Total | 1,371 |
Clip earnings
| Agency | Number of clips in port (added Aug) | Net Revenue for Aug (US$) | Avg Return Per Download (US$) |
| Adobe Stock | 511 (32) | 0 | 0 |
| Pond5 | 1,741 (36) | 0 | 0 |
| iStock | 310 (31) | 5 | 0.80 |
| OverflightStock – exclusive | 85 (13) | 0 | 0 |
| Shutterstock | 1,263 (24) | 23 | 8 |
| Wirestock | 97 (9) | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 28 |
Totals: $1,399 in August vs $504 in July
Thoughts on the month – $1,399 earned
Other than the huge more or less $1k one-off sale at Arcangel (more on this later), it’s been a quiet month all-round, which August is traditionally as many people on holiday. So can’t really make any meaningful conclusions and we’ll have to pick up where we left off in Sept.
Overall, I’m very happy with the number of assets uploaded so it’s a win for my business. Also happy about the number of posts published this month. September to December tend to be the busier parts of the year with more sales so let’s see if we can finish the year in great stride! Now I’ll discuss the highlights from some of the agencies.
EyeEm finally paid up!
After a two-month wait, contributors finally got some good news with EyeEm finally paying up, but they aren’t out of the woods yet as all the red flags are there that they may be heading for closure, with the scoop also featured at Petapixel.
No such good news for me as pending sales showed up and made me depressed for the rest of the day…
Alamy: Slight improvement but still struggling
Alamy continues it’s downward spirral towards microstockland prices with a quite poor month at net $55 with 11 sales. Average of $5 just isn’t going to cut it as a self-declared midstock agency.
Elijah is doing even worse on there and has asked Alamy to help him understand how he may improve his sales. He has kindly shared the exchange with Alamy Customer Relations.
No major sales to report or worth reporting.
Adobe Stock: Bad Month
After a promising July, August turned into quite a poor month at just $58. no major sales to report.
iStockPhoto: Another month deep in the TurdZone
Not sure whether to laugh or cry but my first-ever drone footage sale finally sold….at iStock for 96cents. This clip was captured during my first week as a drone pilot so perhaps newer and ideally high-selling sales will occur soon.
Other than that, I see no hope in that agency as volumes are diminishing month-on-month and return per image downloaded is stubbornly low. The 20th of every month is one day I don’t look forward to anymore. No major sales to report.
Shutterstock: After some decent months, quite disappointing
I’ll forgive Shutterstock this month as August, as previously stated, tends to be quiet. Just over $100 on any other month would have been deep in the turd-zone. Let’s hope things pick up in September, including much-needed footage sales of which I’ve had few as of late. No major sales to report.
Super Sale + a strong 72-images accepted Images in Arcangel!
Out of the blue, I received a pleasantly surprising e-mail form AC that I’ve sold a book cover that I captured just six months ago. Regardless of the price, it’s a good result but when I saw that I would earn a net around just under $1,000, it was super sweet. Note: I’ve been kindly instructed to not give the exact sale amounts.
Without further ado, here’s the original and final image (use the slider).
Here’s the link to the book on Amazon to be released early next year with the following excerpt:
In this novel of escalating fear and suspense by Washington Post and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Minka Kent, a secret from a woman’s past unearths a lifetime of lies. How long can she run from the past?
On her fortieth birthday, Celia Guest has reason to celebrate. She has a loving marriage, a beautiful Connecticut home, and treasured friends. Celia has everything she’s ever wanted. But among the cards and well-wishes, she discovers a disturbing note: You don’t deserve any of this.
Who could be so cruel, so resentful, so…knowing? Then, in the early morning hours, Celia vanishes without a trace.
As suspicions and concerns rise among Celia’s friends, her sister Genevieve, with whom she shares a fractured and troubling bond, starts to piece together a shattered life that Celia fled from once before. As a foundation of lies begins to crumble, a terrifying childhood secret Celia thought was dead and buried comes to light.
And this time, there’s no getting away from the truth.
What the fk, this much for bokeh lights night background?
Yeah, those were my thoughts precisely, but there are many more considerations going on behind the scenes. For sure I’ll be sure to shoot more of those with a model walking away.
Accepted images in August
As usual, here they all are as accepted this month – warning some pretty graphic! 😀
Swimming pool shoot
Part of knowing what will sell in the book-cover industry is researching existing book covers currently on sale. Then trying to improve on them with my own style – important to never copy literally. Therefore, this month I arranged an empty swimming pool and my beautiful model here in Portugal to carry out the shoot.
You can see below I selected some existing book covers and next are my shots which I summitted to AC. Not all were accepted though so I must try again soon!
Hey, that’s my pic !
Spotted the following 7 pics this month in use this month!
Hope you had a good month and until next time!
About Alex
I’m an eccentric guy, currently based in Lisbon, Portugal, on a quest to visit all corners of the world and capture stock images & footage. I’ve devoted eight years to making it as a travel photographer / videographer and freelance writer. I hope to inspire others by showing an unique insight into a fascinating business model.
Most recently I’ve gone all in on submitting book cover images to Arcangel Images. Oh and also recently purchased a DJI Mavic 2s drone and taking full advantage.
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
Alexandre Rotenberg's Brutally Honest Guide to Stock Photography & Footage 
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