Welcome to the November 2023 Brutally Honest Report, where as usual I’ll be discussing my happenings for the month as I write this from literally the middle of the Atlantic Ocean! Let’s get started!

What about the YouTube Report?

Unfortunately, no YouTube earnings report this month as internet connection too slow on the cruise plus I have a huge backlog to process. Will create an epic year-end YouTube video at the beginning of 2024 though!

Monthly Highlights

Four highlights this month on the blog:

• Top 5 Reasons Every Travel Photographer should Consider Booking a Cruise
• Detailed Microstock Earnings Statistics Analysis since 2014-Present
• Review of PhotoTag.ai – Keywording Your Images Automatically using AI
• Are Artificial Intelligence Developments Making Photographers More “Lazy”?

Uploading again to Wirestock

I’m forced to admit that I was quite upset at Wirestock’s management after they suddenly decided to introduce a paywall to their services on top of their 15% commission on sales. Although it was predictable behaviour since they were being flooded with poor images and couldn’t keep up.

Since I have hundreds of generic commercial microstock images from my current cruise I’m willing to give their services a try and have signed up to save myself time while I focus on creating book covers and editing clips which have a much greater potential return on investment.

Interestingly, Wirestock’s services now include some AI tools, using Midjourney, which I’m playing around. Great fun.

If you wish to sign up to Wirestock would appreciate if you use my referral link.

Sorry Robert Harding, we’re breaking up (again)!

Another Robert Harding quarterly report and yet another major disappointment. Even the minnowest of minnows are looking better in the past two years than Robert Harding which ironically has some of my best travel work, including aerial panos, such as this one I shot at the beginning of the month in Braga.

Robert Harding reports in quarters and for Q3 I earned an insignificant $14. See below the pathetic microstock prices. On top of that they’re super picky and reject upwards of 80% of batches.

So that’s it, I’m done with them once and for all. I won’t be deleting my port there but I won’t be uploading anymore content unless I see a dramatic turnout.

Why have Robert Harding’s average sale prices crashed so much?

The answer appears to be quite simple…their market segment consists of distributing to the top-end of the stock agencies, notably: of Adobe Premium, Offset and Getty, etc. and those segments have become almost all “microstock”. Take Getty for instance, they don’t even offer Rights-Managed options anymore.

I can only feel really sorry for those contributors on there that have invested thousands of hours with thousands of exclusive assets and have little to show for it now (I’m assuming). One such contributor is Frank Fell with an impressive 7,998 image portfolio and even more impressive 23,444 clips. I do wonder if he’s also earning microstock prices for his assets.

So, from now on I’ll just upload to those that would have gone to Robert Harding to microstock agencies instead to probably earn more or not but doesn’t really matter.

Detailed Monthly Earnings Breakdown

Image Earnings (US$)

Agency	Number of Images in port (images added Nov)	Net Revenue for Nov	Avg Return Per Download
Alamy	15,664 (21)	27	8
Arcangel (RM-exclusive)	3,531 (262)	500*	250*
Adobe Stock	4,451 (48)	67	0.66
DepositPhotos	8,903 (40)	13	0.32
Dreamstime	8,872 (52)	14	0.55
Eyeem	Not sure anymore how many “Partner”	0	0
Freekpik	934 (6)	14	0.07
Fine Art America	373 (0)	0	0
iStock (Oct 2023)	8,662 (25)	73	0.42
MotionArray	5 (46)	3	0
Robert Harding (Q3 2023 monthly average) – RM/RF exclusive – discontinued uploading from Nov	472 (4)	4	0.40
Shutterstock Editorial	955 (0)	0	0
Shutterstock	11,960 (33)	117	0.43
Photo4Me	391 (0)	0	0
SignElements	1,406 (2)	1	N/A
Vecteezy	757 (25)	1	N/A
Wirestock	3,008 (15)	5	N/A
Total		839

*Due to the sensitivity of reporting exact book cover licensing prices, from this month onwards I’ll use my historical average of net $250 per book cover license as the base. As this month there were two sales I’ve reported $500 net.

Clip Earnings

Agency	Number of clips in port (added Nov)	Net Revenue for Nov	Avg Return Per Download
Adobe Stock	1,028 (15)	5	2.50
Pond5	2,464 (23)	66	33
iStock (Oct 2023)	797 (0)	2	Pathetic
Shutterstock	1,834 (20)	5	2.50
Total		78

Net Grand Total: $917

Thoughts on the month

Other than the two book covers at Arcangel* (more on this below) it’s been a disappointing month overall with Shutterstock, Adobe Stock and iStock reporting well below average prices, particularly for a what is traditionally a historically strong month (November). The only “surprise” was at Pond5 with two sales as normally there are none as the bears is usually hibernating but still nothing to get excited about.

Is it worth it? Not really

To be completely honest (as always), I’m completely fed up with the lack of consistency in micros and have written about this ad nauseum. This isn’t a real business when the fluctuations in earnings are so huge, which makes any planning almost impossible since I don’t know how much I’m forecasted to be earning even in a years’ time. Although seasonal oscillations are normal (July/August and January are more quiet), results are all over the place for the major agencies.

High risk / low reward business model

Usually businesses that have such a high risk premium also offer a potentially high return on investment. Not in this case, it’s high risk for the contributor with a low return on investment.

I feel like I just want to give up on the microstock photos part of the business and I probably will soon. I keep on shooting for micros (don’t know why, stubbornness I guess) because it feels like “low hanging fruit”. It’s just easy for me as I’ve been doing this for a long time. My workflow is super fast and I have a bunch of tools to help me such as Stocksubmitter, Topaz and PhotoAi.

However, I know that most assets added now probably won’t ever sell and those that do it will be for peanuts especially if you account for inflation during the past three years.

The writing is on the wall as I analysed on Detailed Microstock Earnings Statistics Analysis since 2014-Present.

Plans for 2024

Is it possible for me to just shoot for book covers and drone videos (4K)? Sure! This is the direction that I want to go down from now on and upgrade my drone next year to probably the Air 3. Ideally you’ll see from next year almost no new micro photos uploaded in those (X) columns, with the exception of aerials, and double-digit assets being added to each video columns. Let’s see!

Let’s now discuss each major agency in more detail.

Shutterstock

Quite poor month at Shutterstock at a combined $122. Particularly disappointing were clips at just shy of $5. Seriously wtf?!

Only one highlight for the most as the following image sold for $12.60 of some surfboards on a beach.

Alamy

Also super disappointing month at Alamy at just $27 with just one image earning over double-digits, but Alamy have been quite decent past few months so it’s OK if they take the month off.

Adobe Stock

Extremely disappointing month at only $72. Nothing to report and no clips selected for the $8 upfront payment for free usage even though 10 were shortlisted.

Pond5

Two decent sales at Pond5 in November earning me net $66.

And secondly, one of my first-ever clips uploaded from back in 2017! Nice to see that these still have a shelf-life even in HD.

iStock

After a fantastic October where I earned net $182, November was back to normal at just $77.35. Only one major sale to report from a badly taken picture of a billboard wall in Milan uploaded in 2016 earning me $14.43. Different times I suppose…this image nowadays would probably never sell.

Some clip sales in Oct…and the prices speak for themselves…FML…

Arcangel

Now onto the great news which is that after a two month wait I sold two book images with Arcangel.

If you’re curious this is the original image up at Arcangel (not much difference).

I just happened to be in Barcelona at the start of the cruise and keen to go into a bookshop to find a copy for a shameless brag!

Huge coincidence (or not) another image from the same shoot also sold, this time in Poland…perhaps for another trip!

Here’s the original drone image.

Both of these were captured in May 2022 on a windy day in Guincho beach, Portugal. I uploaded some clips from the shoot at Overflightstock which you can see here:

How long does it take on average for Arcangel book covers to sell?

I’ve been looking at my own dataset from initial acceptance on the site to being sold after 28 sold images and my average is about 16 months. So if you’re frustrated that you’re not getting any sales, you need to be patient and wait at least this long.

Record 261 accepted images in November

As I’m experiencing so many new places in a short period while on the cruise and I was in northern Portugal for a few days, it’s only natural that I would be able to exponentially increase my submissions to Arcangel.

Therefore, happy to report a RECORD 261 images accepted. The previous record from August of 226 was smashed! Hopefully I’ll report more sales in December’s report.

As this was a particularly great month instead of my favourite 20 images here are my top 30 images on a slideshow.

@brutallyhonestbookcovers

Record 262 accepted #bookcover images in November! Here’s a selection of my fav 30.

♬ Lonely Angel – Jack DT

Back to Brazil soon!

I’m reaching the New World soon and will be at my birth city of Rio on December 5th. I don’t really have major plans while I’m there, perhaps will just relax for the remainder of the year…oh and of course try to burn off some of the excess cruise calories! I miss flying my drone so will try to check out some new spots to explore.

In the meantime, I’m carefully putting together a comprehensive year-end review and plans for 2024 blog post +YouTube version of the report.

Until next time, amigos!

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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 flying a DJI Mavic 2s drone regularly.

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