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Well, it is that time again. Time for another monthly passive income update. April was the best month of the year so far, and my 5th best month ever. It was only about $20 better than March, but I’ll take it. Here’s the breakdown:

Clipartof led the way again with 30% of passive earnings. Shutterstock clung to 2nd with 16%. It was followed closely by MyStockVectors (16%) and Toon Vectors (14%). Dreamstime was 5th at 8%. Can Stock (4%), GL (4%), and Big Stock (3%) trailed the pack. And the rest were 1% or under.

Everything still seems to be growing, so I can’t really complain. It would be nice to add another agency or two to the ones I regularly submit to, but everything is working now. So, I guess I’ll just keep plugging away.

Up next, May. May was my best month last year, so I hope I can repeat its success this year.

My best month of the year so far, and my 5th best month ever. Also, my highest earning month since last May (Narrowly beating last August). Here’s the breakdown:

Clipartof crushed the competition with 32% of my passive earnings. Shutterstock showed some of its old life with 20%. MyStockVectors was a strong third at 15%. Toon Vectors continued its rise with 11% of earnings. Things were a little slow after that. Dreamstime was sluggish at 7%. Can Stock didn’t even break $100 at 3%. GL and Big Stock were both 2% and Drawshop was 1%. Everybody else was under 1%.

Other than that, there is not too much to report. RPD seemed to slip a little this month. Some of that could be the increase in sales at SS though. Also, it seemed like Big Stock’s subscription sales were building this month. I’m not too pleased about them adding those, so they probably won’t be one of my partners for too much longer.

It was a decent month. I needed a couple more days to make it a good month, but that’s February. Here’s the agency breakdown.

Clipartof was my top agency again with 29% of my passive earnings. My own site, MyStockVectors, barely edged out Shutterstock with 15%. Shutterstock was 15% as well. It really only came down to a few dollars difference. Toon Vectors jumped up to 4th place with 12%. Dreamstime was next with 10%. Can Stock was 6% and GL was 3%. Everybody else was 1% or under.

As George Peppard (Hannibal from The A-Team) would say,”I love it when a plan comes together”. It’s nice to see the three agencies I’ve been concentrating on lately (Clipartof, Toon Vectors & MyStockVectors) becoming my top agencies. Hopefully, the trend continues. I also started uploading more to Drawshop, but I haven’t seen much growth yet.

On a side note, it was a very strange month. The changes at Google (specifically Google Images) halved traffic to my site, but sales were still strong. I’m not really sure what to make of it, but I’m glad it didn’t destroy everything I’d built so far. It’s kind of scary that Google has that much power. I guess that’s the internet though.

The first month of the year is in the books. January made my top 10 best months as far as earnings. It came in at number seven. January can be a hit or miss month, so it was nice to see the year start out great. Here’s the breakdown:

Clipartof led the way again with 27% of earnings. My own site, MyStockVectors, dethroned Shutterstock, the reigning number 2, with 22%. Shutterstock slipped to third with 15%. It was followed by Dreamstime (8%), Can Stock (7%), GL Images (6%) and Toon Vectors (5%). Big Stock showed a little life this month at 3%. The rest were 1% or under.

I’d like to say that one month in I already hit one of my goals for the new year. I wanted to earn over $500 in a month at my own site. Mission accomplished!

Overall, I’m excited about this year. Things seem to be shaping up for a good one. Hopefully, things don’t stall out too bad in a short February that starts with a weekend.

Since I did a half way report earlier, I thought I’d revisit this and see how it turned out with the whole year of data.

Just a recap, I chose these 6 agencies because they typically earn me over $100 a month, so that seems like as good a bar as any to judge them all by. Also, I eliminated 123RF from the results because I deleted most of my portfolio there. My over 100 bucks micro sites include: Clipartof, Shutterstock, MyStockVectors, Dreamstime, Can Stock Photo and GL Stock Images. Now that I’ve introduced all the players, it’s time for the stats.

Top Earners (% of Total Earnings)

1. ClipArtof  (27%)
2. Shutterstock  (20%)
3. MyStockVectors  (12%)
4. Dreamstime  (10%)
5. GL  (7%)
6. Can Stock  (7%)

The percentages changed a little, but the order pretty much stayed the same. GL ended up jumping Can Stock, but not by much. These agencies ended up at 83% of my micro income. That fell a little bit from the 90% I had at the half way point, but 123RF probably accounts for some of that.

Most Downloads (% of Total Downloads)

1. Shutterstock  (55%)
2. Dreamstime  (11%)
3. Can Stock  (6%)
4. ClipArtof  (6%)
5. GL  (3%)
6. MyStockVectors  (1%)

Not much change here either. Shutterstock was still the big winner as far as number of downloads. But, number of downloads still didn’t translate into the biggest earner. I guess that’s why I’m a big defender of keeping track of RPD.

RPD (Average Royalty per Download)

1. MyStockVectors ($16.73)
2. ClipArtof  ($7.94)
3. GL ($4.32)
4. Can Stock ($1.91)
5. Dreamstime ($1.81)
6. Shutterstock ($0.70)

No too many changes here either. Everybody stayed in the same spot.

Well, I don’t know if anything new was revealed in adding the last half of the year numbers. I suppose my numbers are skewed too because I have way more files on sites like MyStockVectors and Clipartof than the rest. But, that has been my strategy over the last 2 years. Basically, the idea was to build up at sites that reward me the most per sale, and cut back or eliminate the sites that pay me the least per sale. So far, I’ve been happy with the results, and I had my best year this year. Hopefully, that continues. I just wish there were more sites that met my criteria to sell at.

December never disappoints in how awful it is for microstock earnings. This year was worse than December 2011 and 2010. That said, I still made money and it pushed me over into a best year ever for passive income earnings. So, it wasn’t all bad. Anyway, here’s the breakdown:

Clipartof led the way again with 26% of my earnings. It was followed by Shutterstock at 23%. My own site, MyStockVectors, was third at 12%. Dreamstime came in fourth with 9% and Toon Vectors jumped up to fifth with 8%. Can Stock rounded out the top 6 with 6%. The rest were less than 5% a piece.

Well, that’s it for 2012. Hopefully, 2013 is a prosperous year for everyone.

I can’t believe 2013 is only a few days away. I guess time flies when you are creating illustrations. Anyway, it’s that time of year again to revisit how I did on my goals from last year, 2012. I had three goals from last year, so let’s see the results.

Goal #1: Double my stock portfolio (8000 images).

This was a lot of images, but I crushed this goal. I hit 8000 images at the end of September, then I started a project of converting all my images to a black and white version. I ended up with over 15,000 images. I guess it’s good I did so well on this one because it wasn’t as positive for my other two goals. Anyway, Goal #1 was a success!

Goal #2: Increase freelance earnings by 15%.

I definitely wasn’t sure about this goal when I set it, and I think it shows. I really didn’t have much of a game plan to accomplish, and my freelance earnings didn’t increase at all. In fact, they went down. I doubt I’ll rollover this goal either. I’m just not sure if I can really do much with it. Projects either come in or they don’t. Goal #2 failed.

Goal #3: Make $500 in a month at myStockVectors.com.

Another failure for this one, but I was very close. I had a couple months that were over $400, and my site traffic seemed to improve in the last quarter of the year. It should happen next year, but I probably said that last year too. Unless close counts, then goal #3 was a failure too.

Another one out of three year. I seem to be good at those (too bad that wasn’t a goal). Anyway, let’s set the bar for next year.

Goal #1: Get to 20,000 images on MyStockVectors.

Goal #2: Make $500 in a month on MyStockVectors.

Goal #3: Get to 500 Design Files on MyStockVectors.

Goal #4: Earn $3000 in a month with my passive income.

Well, that’s it. Hopefully, I can accomplish them all next year. We’ll see.