Ultimately commercial stock photography is about making some extra income and as I approach leaving my exclusive agreement with iStockphoto behind and branching out into other markets this becomes a great way to track overall success.
iStockphoto gives some bonus in search engine placement to their exclusive photographers. Once my agreement ends not only will my % for commission crash dive I’ll also be pushed further back in search engine results. As a result of no longer being exclusive my monthly downloads and income from iStock will crash – I’m expecting to about 30% of current averages. The real challenge will be as I get my portfolio branched into these other markets will my combined earnings get at least close to what I was making as an exclusive at iStock.
First I did two things.
1: Set a target monthly earnings amount. I chose this amount to reflect not only what I want to make from stock photography at a minimum each month but also a number I’ve been hitting off and on for the last few years. It’s a number for me that helps cover some of the monthly bills. Since I don’t want to give out exactly what I’m making in dollars and cents (that’s my business not yours) I can express my monthly combined income as a percentage of the target. Say my target is $100 and I make $90 one month, well I hit 90% of my target.
2: I pulled some historical data. I went back to 2006 to pull some numbers, all from iStock since I’ve been exclusive for that time.
And here’s the results
Month Year Target
January-06 11.78%
February-06 14.31%
March-06 25.26%
April-06 23.39%
May-06 26.46%
June-06 49.85%
July-06 32.65%
August-06 55.30%
September-06 50.82%
October-06 60.96%
November-06 77.66%
December-06 45.44%
January-07 44.99%
February-07 46.59%
March-07 48.73%
April-07 45.99%
May-07 59.21%
June-07 50.75%
July-07 41.61%
August-07 60.91%
September-07 64.84%
October-07 93.52%
November-07 85.29%
December-07 69.02%
January-08 72.54%
February-08 78.42%
March-08 120.30%
April-08 86.63%
May-08 94.19%
June-08 101.88%
July-08 108.66%
August-08 109.56%
September-08 139.04%
October-08 154.71%
November-08 166.80%
December-08 106.03%
January-09 82.70%
February-09 107.33%
March-09 101.37%
April-09 74.41%
May-09 98.66%
June-09 88.61%
July-09 94.79%
August-09 97.03%
September-09 87.68%
October-09 105.42%
November-09 122.44%
December-09 68.11%
January-10 105.81%
February-10 104.54%
March-10 137.90%
April-10 94.01%
May-10 82.31%
June-10 67.09%
July-10 109.97%
August-10 92.70%
September-10 105.98%
So some important numbers to think of with this data.
- I first broke the 100% mark in March of 2008
- My best month ever for $$$ was November of 2008 where I hit 166.8% of my target
- 2008 was also my best year with a monthly average of 111.56%
- My best month of 2010 was March with 137.90%
- My average for the first 9 months of 2010 was 100.04% per month.
So if I’m hitting 100% of my target why am I giving up the iStock exclusive agreement again?
In January of 2011 they are going to slash my royalty rate and that combined with their favoring the search engines towards non-iStock but rather Getty owned portfolios (in which they’ll make even more money) means I would expect my 2011 numbers to slip backwards to 2007 levels. 60% at best – maybe only 50%.
Now of course giving up the exclusive agreement I expect to take even a bigger hit – on iStock only I’ll be lucky to pull 2006 numbers – I’m guessing 30% – BUT, my income won’t be based on iStock alone anymore.
So I’ve got two goals for 2011
- Bring my monthly % to at least what I estimate it would have been after the iStock changes had I remained exclusive with them, i.e. 60%
- If I can achieve goal #1 I want to ramp it up to the point where I’m reaching at least as well as I’ve been averaging this year, i.e. 100% (and of course more would be awesome as well).
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