Illustration Info
Passive Income and Microstock Earnings for January 2011
This was definitely a strange beginning to the year. My overall total was decent, but how I got there was a little different. Most of my normal high earners were down, but all my up-and-coming agencies had record months. Congrats to Canstock for kicking down the door and saying I’m here.
Here’s the breakdown:
| Company |
Portfolio Size
|
% Income
|
Earnings
|
| Shutterstock |
6230
|
20%
|
$531.35
|
| iStockphoto |
2330
|
17%
|
$430.32
|
| Can Stock Photo |
2825
|
15%
|
$384.31
|
| myStockVectors |
3055
|
13%
|
$350.00
|
| ClipArtOf |
2777
|
13%
|
$332.50
|
| Dreamstime |
3048
|
7%
|
$194.57
|
| Fotolia |
1
|
3%
|
$77.92
|
| VectorStock |
1190
|
3%
|
$75.90
|
| Veer |
1356
|
2%
|
$56.35
|
| 123RF |
1511
|
2%
|
$49.81
|
| Affiliates |
-
|
2%
|
$46.27
|
| Big Stock Photo |
2385
|
1%
|
$39.00
|
| Graphic Leftovers |
2792
|
1%
|
$26.00
|
| Zazzle |
274
|
0%
|
$7.16
|
| Stockfresh |
1007
|
0%
|
$1.00
|
| Crestock |
104
|
0%
|
$0.25
|
|
Total: $2602.71
|
I made the decision to delete my portfolio at Fotolia. After 3 years in a row of lowering royalty rates, it just didn’t seem to be a place I wanted to be partnered with anymore. I’m not too pleased with the recent trend of agencies cutting into the royalty rates of contributors. Hopefully, they will figure out that it isn’t in their best interest to shaft their suppliers. Anyway… feel free to post a link to your results in the comments.
This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2011 Cory Thoman. This post contains affiliate links. Please read the About & Policies for more information.
Hi there, I am very interested in working as an illustrator but am not quite sure how the ropes work. I see here on this post that you sell stock illustration to various company’s. I was wondering, say you do 10 illustrations one week, are you able to sell those same 10 illustrations to multiple company’s? Or does it work so that once you sell it to one company its in there hands… and you don’t have the right to sell it to other company’s?
I was planning on starting out with iStockphoto since i already have an account with them but do you suggest working with multiple company’s to make more of an income?
Is this your full time job or do you just do this on the side?
and just for interest sake so i can get an idea… based on the amount of money that you’ve made on this post (approx $2600) how many illustrations do you do approximately/ month. Don’t mean to bother you with so many questions. Im just really interested in doing this myself and am not sure how it all works. Thanks
Daniella,
Yes, you can sell the images on multiple agencies. There are also exclusive agreements too if you’d rather just sell at one place, but that is a decision and not mandatory. Testing the waters at multiple agencies isn’t a bad idea. But, you may find exclusivity works better for you. It really depends on your stats.
My uploads each month vary. I freelance, so it really depends on how much work I have. I usually produce around 1000 images in a year, but how much you make really depends on what you are selling. I know others make more with a lot less.
hello Cory,
i’m into illustrating and i found your site very helpful.
i’m quiet amazed by the nice income that you get from selling images online. i didn’t know that it was possible!
i submit my images mostely to Shutterstock, but i never got more than 30-40 dollars a month -_-.
i see in your chart that at fotolia you have a portfolio of only 1 image, can this be right?on the other hand at Affiliates your portfolio is zero?? 0_0 maybe i missunderstand it.
i’m trying to get a clue about how big should my portfolios be in order to increase my sells
and here is something interesting: i looked at your images and noticed they were familliar. until not so long ago i worked at the israeli Disney magazine as a deputy editor, and i remember your images were used in it several times (we had Shutterstock subscription).
maybe it’s a nice thing to know…
I deleted my portfolio at Fotolia this month because of the changes they made recently and in the past. I mentioned it above. My portfolio used to be around 3000. Affiliates are just the various affiliate and internet programs I’m involved with. It’s basically what I make running this website (which isn’t much).