Welcome to this special YouTube/Blog October 2023 Brutally Honest Report, where as usual I’ll be discussing my happenings for the month! See below my first-ever YouTube version of the blog which I’ll be working hard every month to make it more as interesting / useful for you as possible (I have a lot to improve, I know).

Note: The earnings in the video are slightly less than as reported below as I had to record it on Oct 29/30 as traveling early Nov.

Getting out of my comfort zone

I’m still getting used to this new medium and will be making technical improvements along the months. Plus getting out of my comfort zone…I’ll gain confidence as the months go by, no doubt.

Before we proceed to the earnings, I kindly ask for your support…

Support the blog!

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 help you to focus on making money. If you feel that the information below and throughout the blog is useful I kindly ask you to buy me a coffee.

-> Support the Brutally Honest Blog! <-

Keep in mind that I’ve put in many many hours of my time to compile these comprehensive reports and interviews when I’m not chasing the sun!

Now onto the monthly highlights, followed by my earnings broken down by the major agencies.

Monthly Highlights

Four highlights this month on the blog:

• Interview with Dmitry Rukhlenko, Veteran Travel Microstocker with over $500k in Earnings
• Interview with Victor Torres, CEO of Addictive Stock
• My Five Book Cover Photography Achievements this Year
• Beginner Tips to Piloting a FPV Drone – Guest-Post by MEPS
• My Top 5 Stock Photography & Footage Regrets and Their Lessons

Stock Industry News – EyeEm is back!

The resurrection of EyeEm surely came as a surprise for everybody especially to receive some notifications about past sales. In the end, Freekpik came to the rescue and purchased them out, here’s the Press Release.

They gave me some 26 sales earning me $40, cool, as I wrote them off completely like most people. Now these are old sales from months ago that they’re just reporting now so I don’t expect much more to trickle from November onwards.

Now onto my monthly earnings…

Detailed Earnings Breakdown

Image Earnings (US$)

Agency	Number of Images in port (images added Oct)	Net Revenue for Oct	Avg Return Per Download
Alamy	15,643 (62)	151 + *82	14
Arcangel (RM-exclusive)	3,276 (123)	0	0
Adobe Stock	4,413 (90)	74	0.70
DepositPhotos	8,862 (74)	16	0.29
Dreamstime	8,818 (68)	7	0.35
Eyeem	Not sure anymore how many “Partner”	40	1.54
Freekpik	928 (3)	12	0.07
Fine Art America	373 (0)	0	0
iStock (Sept 2023)	8,637 (35)	162	0.45
MotionArray	5	0	0
Robert Harding (Q2 2023 monthly average) – RM/RF exclusive	468 (3)	5	Negligible
Shutterstock Editorial	955 (8)	0	0
Shutterstock	11,927 (35)	149	0.46
Photo4Me	391 (1)	0	0
SignElements	1,404 (2)	2	N/A
Vecteezy	732 (153)	1	N/A
Wirestock	1,960 (0)	9	N/A
Total		710

*DACS (Designers and Artists Collecting Society) is an annual scheme supported by Alamy that distributes the money owed to visual artists or artists’ estates by various collective licensing schemes, such as TV broadcasts and educational recording.  Every year DACS will collect a share of these royalties for secondary use of your images, such as photocopying, and pay it to eligible artists who’ve signed up to the DACS Payback scheme. More info here.

Clip Earnings

Agency	Number of clips in port (added Oct)	Net Revenue for Oct	Avg Return Per Download
Adobe Stock	1,013 (39)	18	4
Pond5	2,441 (44)	0	0
iStock (Sept 2023)	784 (36)	20	3
Shutterstock	1,814 (40)	33	5
Total		71

Net Grand Total: $781

Thoughts on the month

I swear it was by complete accident that I chose this particular month to finally begin publishing my earnings on YouTube and it just happened to be an overall strong month overall especially at Alamy and iStock…even EyeEm brought in surprise sales.

However, clip sales were super depressed at only $71 and if only I would have had a decent month there it would have been a fantastic month overall easily above $1,000 but the show must go on. Or a book cover.

Israeli pics are in demand

One factor towards a decent month is that my images from that iconic 2017 one-week trip to Israel started selling more regularly…below I wrote about my experience.

A Week in Israel: Top 5 Places to Experience

Now, I sell images from Israel every month but on average earning only about $10. However, due to current events this month I’ve earned $42 net. The reason why is quite clear…because of the ongoing war between Israel/US and Iran + proxies. It’s impossible to look at this conflict as anything but a wider battle between larger players.

Shutterstock

Quite average at a combined $182 with again Israel featuring heavily among the best-sellers.

In terms of clips, volumes were good but average priced were quite low at just net $4.80. The best-selling clip was captured about a year ago in Guincho with my drone.

Alamy

Despite some monthly inconsistencies during the past year, I’m on pace for my best-ever year at Alamy. October proved to be a strong month at $151 net with half the earnings coming from just one image that I captured some 6 years ago in Italy and not one that I’m particularly proud of since I didn’t do any perspective adjustments.

The cherry at the top was receiving DACS payment in the amount of $82 – here are details on what the DACS payment is all about by Alamy’s FAQ.

Adobe Stock

Quite average with no sales above $3.41 for pics and $8 for clips earning me a total of $92.

However, the good news is that I’ve had 10 clips nominated for the upfront payment scheme earning me potentially $8 each.

I’ve checked which ones they’ve selected and many have never sold (although some are are as little as 6 months old).

I’m a little conflicted about whether to nominate them or not but I think that this industry is dying anyway so I’ll take the money now and overlook the potential lost revenue which is purely hypothetical at this point.

Pond5

iStock

Out of all the agencies I’ve probably been the toughest with iStock as they have one of the worst royalty structures in the business, combined with inconsistent sales. But this month they really surprised earning me $182 with strong volumes.

The iStock Rollercoaster, as I like to call it, goes on but it’s finally got off the dumps and heading into the stratosphere (maybe it’s Space Mountain). Earnings are finally back to 2019 levels (even if inflation has diminished the value of $ by some 30% but that’s another story):

MotionArray

I’ve decided to apply to MotionArray as heard some promising things about them. Uploaded some 40 or so travel images and let’s see. They have a kind of weird tagging workflow where the titles are super short and a max of 20 keywords so it’s a bit of a pain to go through each image and adjust. Like signing up to any new agency, I have little to no expectations.

Arcangel

No sales to report in Oct, but the show must go on…I’ve pretty much written this year off as a consolidation year and will hope/pray for sales next year.

123 accepted images

I’ve created a slideshow with my top-20 favourite images of the month, on my monthly YouTube report starting at the 6:32 minute mark.

Depressing New Segment, “Hey, that’s my Pic + How much it earned” – 5 pics

Transatlantic Cruise coming up!

Next report will be brought to you from the middle of the Atlantic inshallah/oxala/god-willing! Will be a fun experience to go on a 20-day transatlantic from Barcelona to my birth-city of Rio de Janeiro with loads of stops in the way.

Hope the video won’t be shaky!

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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 and perhaps a Mavic 3 soon.

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