Illustration Info
Passive Income and Microstock Earnings for November 2011
Posted on December 9, 2011 | Category :Business of Illustration | 5 Comments
November was the worst month of year as far as earnings. I guess ditching iStock, Fotolia and others finally caught up with me. Clipartof had another solid month, but nowhere near where it was last month. Other than that, not too much to report.
I guess I’ll have to reevaluate my position about limiting the agencies I upload to for next year. I haven’t uploaded to Dreamstime or Shutterstock at all this year. They’ve had pretty stable earnings, but obviously aren’t growing. I’m still holding out hope that my own site makes up the difference at some point. I guess only time will tell though.
Hi Cory, I’ve been a fan for a while now, and receive with interest your monthly earnings updates via an rss feed. I have come across your work in a number of places, and am even beginning to recognise some of it by your style. I currently dabble in microstock, selling a few photos on iStock. I really enjoy illustrating too, and have been wondering if it would be worth setting aside time each day and just slowly but steadily building up a little collection for sale online. How much time do you dedicate to drawing, and do you do it every day? How long have you been going?
Dave,
That’s a tricky question. I’m probably drawing something most days whether it’s stock, some doodles or sketches, or work for clients. I freelance full time, so I work on those jobs when I have them. In between, I work on stock art or I just lazily lounge around (happens more than I like to admit).
As far as the payoff, that’s hard to say. Everybody’s results are different. I usually just recommend that people do it because they enjoy it. Hopefully, the money will go along with that. It’s definitely not a get rich quick scheme.
I just try to create things I like and hopefully others will find them useful enough to purchase. It’s been around 5 years since I joined my first stock site and so far it’s gone OK.
-Cory
Hello Cory,
I would just like to ask you (as a veteran of microstocks) for a technical question : do you always send your vectors with your jpeg images on every microstocks ? Because I do not so. For example on Shutterstock, i do not send vector eps files, but I however have pretty good sales on it…
Would my sales be better if I put the vector eps files each time.
thanks and best wishes
I try to sell just vectors. I tend to think that the cheaper jpeg versions undercut vector sales, but that’s how a lot of sites work. So, there isn’t much you can do about it. On SS, they are the same price, but the vectors usually sell better.
Thanks for answering
OK i’ll keep working the same for the moment. Impossible on SS to upload the eps version for each jpeg after it is online, and without deleting and then reupload.
Or maybe I could try to upload all files in eps version, but I guess SS won’t admit to have twice the same portfolio…
Best