Statistics of February

February has became my second best month in earnings for me. I have had 101 downloads with no more than 381 images online. Even though the number of downloads raised a little it is still far away from the record of last August. I have got 10 new accepted images, this is the lowest amount since I have started microstock. These ten images were mainly related to easter, but I also made a few on the current local festival.

I have got my first extended license sale at Shutterstock. Without this sale this month would have been even worse than the previous one. With the extended license sale at Shutterstock I have got a new BME there since last August. Shutterstock was gaining a little momentum over last month with an extra 10 sales even further in earnings. I was hoping better consistency at iStockphoto, however my sales dropped dramatically there from the BME in January, I hope this is not going to be a trend. Based on the earnings results iStockphoto has even lost its monthly crown against Shutterstock. Dreamstime has sold 17 files in a short month that is a new record there, however these sales are either subscriptions or one credit sales so the BME of december seems far away. As for Fotolia I cannot say any good news, its already bad performance has degraded even further.

Here you can find the details for my report:

Agency	Portfolio size	Downloads	Earnings ($)	Change	Views
Fotolia	345	4 sub, 3 OD	2.55	-33%	1296 (~)
Dreamstime	291	15 sub, 2 OD	5.81	+64%	218 (up)
Shutterstock	381	64 sub, 1 OD, 1EL	45.88	+182%	N/A
iStockPhoto	235	11 OD	13.03	-49%	3292 (up)

My multi-site view/download figure is 137 views/download in the month (116 views/download all time). Since I reporting this number this is the first time it decreases significantly. This is mainly because of the high amount of sales at Dreamstime. iStockphoto is back to the league of 300 views/download. Fotolia has barely changed in this figure. As an opposite Dreamstime has almost doubled the number of views on my portfolio, so their views/download figure has been increasing a little.

As I already reported it on my previous statistics page the only agency that I can count on is ShutterStock. This is still the case, however this time it seems iStockphoto could be a good performer even though its fall this month (they are still in the second best earner position with a large margin). My strategy of uploading to iStockphoto all my work accepted by other agencies finally seems to starts paying. My portfolio at iStock have almost reached the 250th accepted photo. In the middle of the month I have already predicted that my earnings would drop significantly at iStockphoto, thus I figured I need some new technique on attract buyers. This new technique is the introduction of my thematic private lightboxes that are referred from all the images they hold. I plan to introduce these lightboxes in this blog soon. They are still in their youth however I can see that they are already generating some further clicks.

At the end of this blog entry I put my total earnings comparison after the end of February. Since I have started at the different agencies at different times I have scaled the earnings down to an average day on each agency in its past year. On this figure you can see that agencies except ShutterStock started to get equalized results. iStockphoto is a little bit stronger than Fotolia or Dreamstime but the difference is still small compared to the overall result of Shutterstock. Trends of the past three-four months show that I am probably going to have the ranking stabilized as I have it today.
So here is my current agency ranking:

1. ShutterStock (-)
   
2. iStockPhoto (-)
   
3. Dreamstime (-)
   
4. Fotolia (-)

Statistics of January

January has suffered a major setback in earnings for me. The saver of the month was iStockphoto where I have had my new BME. Shutterstock was falling even further in earnings. And this month both Dreamstime and Fotolia was performing so badly that I have not seen this bad sales since last June-July. I have had 82 downloads with no more than 371 images online. The number of downloads has decreased significantly since December because of the fall of Shutterstock. I have got 20 new accepted images. This month I have made only two new series, both were short ones. I have seen quite high interest about my Pécs series that covers 2010's European cultural capital. So I also decided to add some further images to my portfolio about Pécs. Shutterstock performed so badly again that it has lost the monthly crown for the second time I have been selling stock photos. But instead of Dreamstime this time the crown went to iStockphoto with a large margin.

Here you can find the details for my report:

Agency	Portfolio size	Downloads	Earnings ($)	Change	Views
Fotolia	336	1 sub, 4 OD	3.8	-76%	1275 (up)
Dreamstime	276	5 sub, 2 OD	3.54	-82%	110 (up)
Shutterstock	371	50 sub, 2 OD	16.26	-11%	N/A
iStockPhoto	197	18 OD	25.45	+109%	2938 (up)
StockXpert	344	NONE	0	-100%	2650 (up)

My multi-site view/download figure is 232 views/download in the month (113 views/download all time). This figure has also suffered a major increase mainly because of StockXpert, where I have seen an unprecedented increase in views that did not result downloads at all. iStockphoto made a huge comeback by lowering its 340 views/download figure from the past month to an almost average 163 views/download.

As I already reported it on my previous statistics page the only agency that I can count on is ShutterStock. This is still the case, however this time it seems iStockphotos good performance might lead to a second regular performer. My strategy of uploading to iStockphoto all my work accepted by other agencies finally seems to starts paying because of the steady growth of earnings since last August. My portfolio at iStock have almost reached the 200th accepted photo. Previously it seemed like they don't like my work, however the newly submitted photos have a quite high acceptance rate for me (around 80%).

Unfortunately it seems like even though I have had high hopes for StockXpert they started to drop in earnings and this month they have reached the unprecedented 0 donwloads. This low amount of sales did not happen since I have started to upload to them... Last month I decided that unless they start to bring some "significant" money in soon, I will not even upload to them anymore. I beleive this will be the case if they are not going to sell anything in Febryary.

At the end of this blog entry I put my total earnings comparison after the end of January. Since I have started at the different agencies at different times I have scaled the earnings down to an average day on each agency in its past year. On this figure you can see that agencies except ShutterStock started to get equalized results. As a result of December's bonanza at Dreamstime and Fotolia, they postponed iStockphoto to achieve its awaited second place till this month. My overall ranking however seems to get really unstable for the bottom _three_ places because their daily earnings are really close (the difference between the lowest and the highest ranked agencies is just over 30%). In the coming months I hope these agencies will get more stable earners, as a result they will be more stable in ranking.
So here is my current agency ranking:

1. ShutterStock (-)
   
2. iStockPhoto (^, was 3rd)
   
3. Dreamstime (v, was 2nd)
   
4. Fotolia (-)
5. StockXpert (-)

Statistics of December

December became my BME so far, thanks to the BMEs at iStockphoto, Dreamstime and Fotolia. The past month became BME even though my Shutterstock income suffered a major breakdown. I have had 101 downloads with no more than 355 images online. The number of downloads has decreased significantly since November because of the fall of Shutterstock. I have got 22 new accepted images. This month I have made only two new series, so I lowered my upload average a little bit, however this month I have reached my best acceptance ratio so far (for example I have had only a single rejection at Dreamstime). PPD has peaked at all agencies this month. I have had two series of sales at Dreamstime and also at Fotolia. Without these sales Dreamstime would have closed an above average month, meanwhile Fotolia would have seen troubles again. In case of Dreamstime one of my images just reached the second level. Shutterstock performed so badly that it has lost the monthly crown for the first time I have been selling stock photos. Therefore in December the best earner agency of the month is Dreamstime.

Here you can find the details for my report:

Agency	Portfolio size	Downloads	Earnings ($)	Change	Views
Fotolia	324	4 OD, 4EL	15.3	+446%	1193 (~)
Dreamstime	270	2 sub, 12 OD	19.18	+140%	97 (down)
Shutterstock	355	62 sub, 2 OD	18.24	-31%	N/A
iStockPhoto	150	8 OD	12.12	+87%	2726 (up)
StockXpert	324	7 sub	2.1	-40%	1361 (up)

My multi-site view/download figure is 145 views/download in the month (96 views/download all time). This figure has also suffered a major increase mainly because of iStockPhoto, where I have seen an unprecedented increase in views that did not result downloads. As an opposite Dreamstime made a league of its own by breaking the 7 view/download barrier in December.

As I already reported it on my previous statistics page the only agency that I can count on is ShutterStock. This is still the case. Unfortunately it seems like even though I have had high hopes for StockXpert they started to drop in earnings and now they are cancelling most of my income from them by dropping subscriptions entirely. They suggested that if I would like to have subscription sales then they would cut the already low fixed rate of 0.3 to 0.25. This drop does not seem to be bad on first sight in my case since Shutterstock subs earn the same amount for me today, however at Shutterstock I have perspective. So I have opted out from the new subscription model of SXP, and I also decided that unless they start to bring some "significant" money in soon I will not even upload to them anymore.

My strategy of uploading to iStockphoto all my work accepted by other agencies finally seems to starts paying. This month was BME but the number of downloads did not change even though I have uploaded quite a lot to them. My portfolio at iStock have just passed the 150 accepted photos. Previously it seemed like they don't like my work, however the newly submitted photos have a quite high acceptance rate for me

At the end of this blog entry I put the my total earnings comparison after the end of November. Since I have started at the different agencies at different times I have scaled the earnings down to an average day on each agency. On this figure you can see that agencies except ShutterStock started to get equalized results. As a result of this months bonanza at Dreamstime and Fotolia, they really get a boost, and even though I thought iStockphoto is going to climb to the second place this month, it did not happen because of the strong competition from Dreamstime. My overall ranking however seems to get really unstable for the bottom _four_ places because their daily earnings are really close (the difference between the lowest and the highest ranked agencies is just 15%). In the coming months I hope these agencies will get more stable earners, as a result they will be more stable in ranking.
So here is my current agency ranking:

1. ShutterStock (-)
   
2. Dreamstime (^, was 4th)
   
3. iStockPhoto (-)
   
4. Fotolia (^, was 5th)
5. StockXpert (v, was 2nd)

Statistics of November

November has had slightly better results than October, but it was still far away from September's bonanza. These results are mostly coming from the almost identical month at Shutterstock and BMEs from Dreamstime and iStockphoto. But I am still under $50 in earnings from all the sites in a single month. I have had 130 downloads with no more than 333 images online. The number of downloads has decreased a little bit. I have got 26 new accepted images. Since I have started this is the least productive months of mine from the shooting point of view. This month I tried to produce more images, so I have almost reached my upload average. My PPD at Fotolia has drastically fallen to the previously unseen level of July, as a result I have sold more photos than I did in October but I have earned less. I wrote about Fotolia's good progress last month, however since then they have slowed down dramatically, maybe because they don't really like my non isolated shots and they were dominant this month. Other interesting observation that more than half of my monthly earnings from Fotolia and Dreamstime occurred at the first 5-6 days of the month (at least in my past four months).

Here you can find the details for my report:

Agency	Portfolio size	Downloads	Earnings ($)	Change	Views
Fotolia	310	4 sub, 2 OD	2.8	-7%	1219 (up)
Dreamstime	247	6 sub, 4 OD	7.97	+22%	123 (down)
Shutterstock	333	95 sub, 2 OD	26.54	-2%	N/A
iStockPhoto	114	1 sub, 5 OD	6.46	+48%	1281 (~)
StockXpert	305	10 sub, 1 OD	3.5	-35%	1098 (up)

My multi-site view/download figure is 113 views/download in the month (86 views/download all time). This figure has also suffered a major increase mainly because of StockXpert. I am now almost sure that Fotolia (203/downs this month, 175 all time) and iStockPhoto (213/downs, 132 all time) counts the number of views of a photo differently.

As I already reported it on my previous statistics page the only agency that I can count on is ShutterStock. However, in the past months StockXpert seemed like it can become the second stable earner. Of course I came too late to StockXpert, because my majority of my earnings was coming from Photos.com and Jupiterimages Unlimited subscription sales. Since the removal of Photos.com my sales figures has almost halved. So I am still really interested whether the StockXpert sales alone would result similar sales. For the record here are the details of November: Photos.com Sub 5, Jupiterimages Unlimited sub 5 and finally I have got a single StockXpert OD sale. This seems a definite problem after they also remove Jupiterimages sales. Without these sites I would barely have a single download. This is worrying, especially for a site that I have had such high hopes for.

My strategy of uploading to iStockphoto all my work accepted by other agencies finally seems to starts paying. This month was BME and the number of downloads also reached a number where the earnings seem to become more sustainable. My portfolio at iStock have just passed the 100 accepted photos. Previously it seemed like they don't like my work, however the newly submitted photos have a quite high acceptance rate for me.

At the end of this blog entry I put the my total earnings comparison after the end of November. Since I have started at the different agencies at different times I have scaled the earnings down to an average day on each agency. On this figure you can see that agencies except ShutterStock started to get equalized results. If Fotolia does not catch up soon it will be hardly enough to catch up with the now decreasing sales volume of StockXpert. This month I have not seen any movement in the ranking, however iStockphoto starts to reach StockXpert and soon it will be again second in my stats.
So here is my current agency ranking:

1. ShutterStock (-)
   
2. StockXpert (-)
   
3. iStockPhoto (-)
   
4. Dreamstime (-)
5. Fotolia (-)

Statistics of October

October could not beat September results for me. As a result I am again under $50 in earnings from all the sites in a single month. I have had 133 downloads with no more than 309 images online. The number of downloads has increased a little bit. I have got 29 new accepted images. Since I have started this is the least productive months of mine from the shooting point of view. I only made around half of the submitted images in the recent month. I made the others during August and July, back then I did not have the time to publish all the images I shoot, so now it was time to submit them. If I would not have two OD downloads early in the month Shutterstock would have produced little less money than last month. I wrote about Fotolia's good progress last month, however since then they have slowed down dramatically, maybe because they don't really like my non isolated shots and they were dominant this month. Other interesting observation that most of my earnings from Fotolia and Dreamstime are from the first 5-6 days of the month (at least in my past three months).

Here you can find the details for my report:

Agency	Portfolio size	Downloads	Earnings ($)	Change	Views
Fotolia	294	2 sub, 2 OD	3.05	-65%	982 (down)
Dreamstime	218	3 sub, 4 OD	6.5	-17%	136 (down)
Shutterstock	309	93 sub, 2 OD	27.06	+7%	N/A
iStockPhoto	80	8 OD	4.35	0%	1262 (up)
StockXpert	279	18 sub	5.4	-45%	714 (~)

My multi-site view/download figure is 81 views/download in the month (79 views/download all time). Dreamstime and StockXpert here still contributes a lot. I am now almost sure that Fotolia (245/downs this month, 170 all time) and iStockPhoto (151/downs, 134 all time) counts the number of views of a photo differently.

As I already reported it on my previous statistics page the only agency that I can count on is ShutterStock. However, StockXpert had more frequent downloads, so I could almost count on it two-three times a week. Of course I came too late to StockXpert, because according to other blogs and forums their merger just starts to show its results. So I am still really interested how do my overall sales figure will turn up at the end of the coming months there. For the record here are the details of October: Photos.com Sub 11 and finally Jupiterimages Unlimited sub 7. This seems a definite problem for the future because I read it several times that these two sites will not offer images from StockXpert anymore. Without them I would not even have a single download which is worrying, especially for a site that I have had such high hopes for.

The next paragraph is a recap from last month, unfortunately nothing changed since then, even though the number of accepted photos now are almost reaching 100: I also changed my upload strategy for iStockPhoto because others report sales comparable to ShutterStock there. And I also have surprisingly high rpi there. So now I started to submit all of the photos I have managed to get accepted somewhere. Previously it seemed like they don't like my work, however the newly submitted photos have a quite high acceptance rate for me. The earnings figures however did not change too much.

At the end of this blog entry I put the my total earnings comparison after the end of October. Since I have started at the different agencies at different times I have scaled the earnings down to an average day on each agency. On this figure you can see how much StockXpert gained even in a single month. Also iStockPhoto started to drop a place which is probably because the small amount of photos I have uploaded so far (the new uploads does not seem to catch downloads so fast).
So here is my current agency ranking:

1. ShutterStock (-)
   
2. StockXpert (-)
   
3. iStockPhoto (-)
   
4. Dreamstime (was 5th in Sept)
5. Fotolia (was 4th in Sept)

Prediction results for september

I have discovered the tool of Yuri Arcurs that can predict your monthly earnings based on the sales you had so far. This tool uses historical data of Arcurs. I started to use the tool and compare it to the linear prediction in my previous blog entry here. Now that I have reached the end of the first full month with logged predictions, here are the basic statistical details:

	Arcurs's prediction	Linear prediction
Median	$63.78	$61.6
Average	$69.17	$68.06
Minimum	$57.71	$54.83
Maximum	$111.44	$123.8
Standard deviation	$12.53	$16.01

As you can see there are not too many changes in the data if you compare them to the previously published ones (E.g. minimum and maximum values did not change, they were all reached by the 10th of the month). It still shows that the linear prediction is not that different.

Below you can also see the chart showing the relations between the current earnings and the two predictions.

As you can see I have stopped collecting the data after 27th of Sept, because I don't think anyone would need any prediction on their earnings so late in the month.

Here is how close the two predictions get to the real number ($55.91):

	Arcurs's prediction	Linear prediction
Median difference	+$7.87	$5.69
Average difference	+$13.26	$12.15
Closest match	+$1.8	-$0.05
Maximum difference	+$55.53	$67.89

So on the first 5 days of the month Arcurs's prediction gives more precise numbers (+86% overprediction instead of the linear's 106%). However this advantage disappears soon in the last 7 days of my measurements there were several predictions over $7 from Arcurs's tool meanwhile the linear prediction have had less than $5 as its error. The smallest error in the last seven days was $0.34 (or 0.5%) with the linear prediction and $1.91 ( or 3.2%) with Arcur's tool. So if you are as eager as I am for new numbers (and your portfolio's profile is similar to mine or has small amount of sales during a day), than I suggest you to use Arcurs's tool in the early days. Arcurs were predicting consequently closer numbers to the final result - the 10 predictions I made during the first 5 days have had more than $11 advantage for Arcurs on average. Then after 5-7 days you can switch to the linear prediction algorithm. At least that's what I will do till my earnings don't start to get different. (e.g. if my total earnings reach several hundreds of dollars a month).

Statistics of September

Updated with the number of views and analysis.

September was BME on Fotolia, Dreamstime and StockXpert for me. And this was the first time I have earned more than $50 from all the sites in a single month. I have had 132 downloads with no more than 280 images online. I have got 21 new accepted images. Since I have started this is one of the least productive months of mine. Even though I slowed down submissions there was an increase on monthly total earnings at all agencies save ShutterStock. Shutterstock started to produce more countable income with 3-4 downloads every day. Fotolia is getting interesting because since April I always earn more there.

Here you can find the details for my report:

Agency	Portfolio size	Downloads	Earnings ($)	Change	Views
Fotolia	273	2 sub, 4 OD, 1 EL	8.7	+45%	1238
Dreamstime	199	3 sub, 4 OD	7.83	+347%	198
Shutterstock	280	101 sub	25.25	-22%	N/A
iStockPhoto	43	4 OD	4.33	+375%	501
StockXpert	265	11 sub, 2 OD	9.8	+113%	725

My multi-site view/download figure is 88 views/download in the month (79 views/download all time). Dreamstime and StockXpert here still contributes a lot. Even though Fotolia has increased the earnings significantly its views/download figure is still around 200... It seems like Fotolia and maybe iStockPhoto counts the number of views of a photo differently.

As I already reported it on my previous statistics page the only agency that I can count on is ShutterStock. This has not jet changed, but in case Fotolia holds on to its steady growth for the coming months then it will be my second agency to provide useful income. As you have seen from this month figures the others are still heavily jumping back and forth, so I cannot count on them too much right now. However, surprisingly StockXpert reached second place with the same amount of downloads that we have seen in last month. I start to believe that StockXpert buyers like my images more than the other fluctuating agencies. Of course I came too late to StockXpert, because according to other blogs and forums their merger just starts to show its results. So I am still really interested how do my overall sales figure will turn up at the end of the coming months there. For the record here are the details of September: StockXpert PPD 2, StockXpert Sub 5, Photos.com Sub 4 and finally Jupiterimages Unlimited sub 2.

I also changed my upload strategy for iStockPhoto because others report sales comparable to ShutterStock there. And I also have surprisingly high rpi there. So now I started to submit all of the photos I have managed to get accepted somewhere. Previously it seemed like they don't like my work, however the newly submitted photos have a quite high acceptance rate for me. The earnings figures however did not change too much.

At the end of this blog entry I put the my total earnings comparison after the end of September. Since I have started at the different agencies at different times I have scaled the earnings down to an average day on each agency. On this figure you can see how much StockXpert gained even in a single month. Also iStockPhoto started to drop a place which is probably because the small amount of photos I have uploaded so far (the new uploads does not seem to catch downloads so fast).

So here is my current agency ranking:

1. ShutterStock (-)
   
2. StockXpert (was 3rd in Aug)
3. iStockPhoto (was 2nd in Aug)
   
4. Fotolia (-)
5. Dreamstime (-)

Predicting earnings by the end of the month

I have recently discovered a tool of Yuri Arcurs that can predict your monthly earnings based on the sales you had so far. This tool uses historical data of Arcurs. I started to use the tool and compare it to the linear prediction I believe most of us use. Its formula is simple and straightforward:
LinearPredicion=TotalDays*SalesSoFar/DaysSofar

I have started to take notes on both predictions from 3rd of September. Now that we have reached the middle of the month here are some statistical details:

	Arcurs's prediction	Linear prediction
Median	$71.31	$68.51
Average	$75.21	$74.62
Minimum	$57.71	$54.83
Maximum	$111.44	$123.8
Standard deviation	$14.69	$19.76

As it can be seen from the table above the usual difference between Arcurs' tool and the linear prediction is within the boundaries of standard deviation. For me it means that the tool cannot be used more precisely for my data than the simple linear prediction algorithm.

Below you can also see the chart showing the relations between the current earnings and the two predictions.
Finally you could observe that the linear prediction always grows within a given day. Its because the formula I used for the calculation is on daily basis. If I would have used smaller granularity in timing the differences between the two predictions would be probably smaller.

At the end of the month I plan to report when did these two predictions reached the best prediction and how close did they matched the real earnings figure.

Statistics worth monitoring

If you remember I was writing about my own stock statistics application on this blog already. You can see the previous entries here: about Fotolia's tag cloud, about photo views monitoring. Now that my application is running for more than a month I started to collect more than just the basic statistics I have built the application for. Basically my app monitors the sales and views of every picture I have on SS, FT, IS and DT. From these data I can calculate the following stats:

• How much did I earn overall or at a particular agency
• How many views I have had overall (excluding SS for obvious reasons) or at a particular agency
• Number of views/download - overall stat (all views/all downs) or per agency stat
• How many downloads do I have with a particular download type (overall, per agency)
• Detailed view on the statistics above for every month/week/day
• Total earnings/views per photo (independently from particular agency) - this stat aggregates all earnings/views of the different agencies for a particular photo (I made an algorithm to find the same photo's different id's at the agencies I am submitting to)
• Latest views/downloads per photo - this is useful to identify if a photo has lost the appeal to the buyers or it was not listed in any searches at a position visible to them.
  

These are the ones I currently monitor. If you can figure out some more that you think I could include in my stats I will do my best to include them. I plan to publish the app as soon as it gets stable enough for others, so stay tuned. I hope it will be useful for others. The good thing about the app that it collects all the data to a simple SQL database, so in theory you could write your own statistics queries. The bad thing that you will probably won't like the app because it does not have a GUI currently (ok, there is a simple GUI for prompting you the recaptcha image for shutterstock login, but that's all).

Statistics of August

August was BME on Fotolia, Shutterstock, and StockXpert for me. I have had 148 downloads with no more than 259 images online. I have got 60 new accepted images. This is almost comparable to the number of accepted images in June (which was 70). Even though there was an increase on submissions my monthly total earnings were not increasing at all agencies. On first of August my 23 day long download record has not counted further. But my downloads only stalled for a single day and it turned out that only 1st of August finished without downloads in the entire month. So now I have a new record still running and it is now on its 30th day. Therefore if this tendency is not broken soon I would count the days where I have had more downloads than a single one.

Here you can find the details for my report:

Agency	Portfolio size	Downloads	Earnings ($)	Change	Views
Fotolia	251	1 sub, 3 OD, 1 EL	6	+79%	1117
Dreamstime	168	5 sub	1.75	-74%	211
Shutterstock	259	123 sub, 1 OD	32.43	+73%	N/A
iStockPhoto	9	2 OD	0.91	-85%	115
StockXpert	236	12 sub, 1 OD	4.6	+1433%	624

I usually monitor the number of views on my images also, and from now on I plan to include the views column my the statistics. My multi-site view/download figure is still around 85 views/downloads, thanks to StockXpert. Fotolia's figure has dropped significantly first since I have started to calculate this number, and now instead of 135views/downloads now I measure 156. And these are the all time figures this month Fotolias monthly average has gone over 200!

As I already reported it on my previous statistics page the only agency that I can count on is ShutterStock. As you have seen from this month figures the others are heavily jumping back and forth, so I cannot count on them too much right now. However, surprisingly StockXpert starts to rise the volume of its sales for me. It might happen that StockXpert buyers like my images more than the other fluctuating agencies. Of course I came too late to StockXpert, because according to other blogs and forums their merger just starts to show its results. So I am really interested how do my overall sales figure will turn up at the end of the coming months there. For the record here are the details of August: StockXpert PPD 1, StockXpert Sub 4, Photos.com Sub 7 and finally Jupiterimages Unlimited sub 1.

At the end of this blog entry I put the my total earnings comparison after the end of August. Since I have started at the different agencies at different times I have scaled the earnings down to an average day on each agency. On this figure you can see how much StockXpert gained even in a single month.
So here is my current agency ranking:

1. ShutterStock (-)
   
2. iStockPhoto (-)
   
3. StockXpert (was 5th in July)
   
4. Fotolia (-)
   
5. Dreamstime (was 3rd in July)

Number of photo views at different agencies

I have started to create a statistics app in order to replace picniche contributor toolbar. I already wrote about it on my first statistics related article (Fotolia API). Since then fotolia revoked my API key because they did not like the amount of queries I made. So I decided to go on the hard way and collect the necessary info like you would with a browser. I plan to collect the number of views, the number of downloads and the earned money on each individual image in every hour or so. I have written the collectors for Fotolia, Dreamstime, and iStockphoto. The iStockphoto one is only partial because I don't have enough images and sales to see how do they split your photos and earnings to pages. The good thing that my collectors are doing their jobs in the past two days. During these two days I did not have too many sales so I cannot conclude anything on them jet.

The only missing agency that provides the number of views for my portfolio is Stockxpert. However I did not really started to sell photos there, and I read on several sites that they have just started to decline in the past few months. So maybe it is not worth doing the collector at all for them. If they will produce more earnings I will reconsider writing one.

But anyway I have started this entry to tell you my observation about the views on my portfolio in the past two days (I know it is not a huge sample, so later on I might update the numbers if they will change dramatically). So in the past two days I have had 126 views on these three agencies. From all these 110 was from Fotolia, 6 was from Dreamstime, and the remaining 10 from iStockphoto. The 110 views of Fotolia is a little biased because that was the first collector I finished and it had half a day extra to collect views. So practically its view number should be a little bit lower than 100. From my previous hand made measurements Fotolia and Dreamstime has had the same amount of views, maybe Dreamstime had even a little bit more before they stopped counting the views of not logged in users. So I suspect Fotolia also has a similar policy.

I hope you found this entry useful, I plan to report also on the Shutterstock collector I am doing right now. Even though Shutterstock is the highest earner for me I left them last because they do tricks to avoid automated data collections. Right now I have just finished the creation of the captcha extractor so the statistics app could ask the user to provide the reading for the captcha figures.

Update: After another 1.5 days here are the standings: FT - 140, DT - 23, IS - 20

Statistics of july

July was BME on all agencies for me. I have had 86 downloads with no more than 199 images online. I have submitted 34 new images. This is a huge drop on the number of submitted images compared to more than 70 in june. Even though there was a drop on submissions my monthly total earnings on all agencies got doubled. I have broke my record of 9 consecutive days with downloads. The new record is still running and it is now on its 23 day.

Here you can find the details for my report:

Agency	Portfolio size	Downloads	Earnings ($)	Change
Fotolia	198	7 sub, 3 OD	3.35	+86%
Dreamstime	126	3 sub, 4 OD	4.94	+312%
Shutterstock	199	64 sub, 2 OD	18.69	+55%
iStockPhoto	8	2 OD	6.09	inf
StockXpert	176	1 sub	0.3	inf

I usually monitor the number of views on my images also. I started to submit to StockXpert late june because I have seen a serious drop on the number of views at Dreamstime. Later on I have realized that Dreamstime changed the algorithm behind logging views. But I was afraid of the possible drop on sales, so I have chosen another popular agency. StockXpert did not have any sales in June because I have had very few images submitted back then. But now I am a little disappointed that with my full portfolio it still did not produce so many downloads.

Fotolia has a really good way to monitor the views on the portfolio, so from the very beginning I have tried to make predictions on downloads based on the view count. Earlier I have had 190views/download, but nowadays this number seems to decrease and it is already at 135views/download. This is an all time figure, however I have also counted it for monthly periods and this month I have had it at 85views/download. I have also started to take notes on the views number at Dreamstime and iStockPhoto. Since I have more downloads on Dreamstime I can calculate a meaningful number now: 19.5views/download. Unlike Fotolia I have not had time to check how accurate this number is (especially after the recent changes in view counts at Dreamstime). On Fotolia I really get a download around every 135 views (+/- 30 views usually).

I think if the downloads will be more frequent, then the number of views will not be that interesting for the statistics. However for example on iStockPhoto I have not had any downloads in June, so all I could measure was the number of views - this is the reason the value of change column for iStockPhoto is infinite. Later on the only reason to still have a look on the number of views would be the identification of those photos that have good keywords but bad execution. This will show when I would need to take a new shot about the subject.

Because my sales are so small the only agency I can count on is ShutterStock. The others are heavily jumping back and forth, so I cannot count on them too much right now. At the end of this blog entry I put the my total earnings comparison. Since I have started at the different agencies at different times I have scaled the earnings down to an average day on each agency.

Fotolia's tag cloud and search results

I have started to play a little with fotolia's API. I thought it will be harder to get some useful data out of it, however it turns out it is a great fun to use their API. My only problem so far that they do not allow access to all the details on the contributor page (e.g. it is not possible to collect the credit earnings data on an individual image). I also had a technical problem with the user login that is required to access some more details about an individual contributor. Even though I am not able to access this data right now I am not going to press it harder to have a complete Java API. Instead I have started to focus on the stats I am planning to do. And thankfully these stats have nothing to do with the details you can get when logged in as a contributor.

My first trial on how can I use the API for improving my photography is to do a single search on every word in the tag clouds. The results will let me choose the keywords that are least used thus they are worth using. These keywords are the ones which are well searched but has the lowest competition: Laos, ships, wreck, lorry, nuclear, cables. So I believe the best picture you can make for Fotolia would be a nuclear aeroplane carrier wrecked near to Laos that is rescued by lorries pulling it off the coast with strong cables. OK this was the fun part.

I think the statistics might be useful for others too, so here is the entire table with the results:

Word from the cloud	Result number with the given search term
abstract	474639
adult	391461
aeroplane	7687
animal	267064
apple	63639
architecture	231558
art	388796
artistic	103662
asian	91753
attractive	387251
autumn	136617
baby	106735
background	1215977
ball	114731
bank	67915
bar	59474
bath	39187
beach	196972
beautiful	795328
beauty	723581
black	522012
blue	825436
boat	80536
body	191913
box	72334
bright	252399
brown	293568
bubbles	18666
building	219207
business	532649
businessman	103433
cables	4245
camel	4353
car	68069
cat	42961
chair	41408
chinese	48275
chocolate	53370
christmas	204301
church	82433
city	176029
clock	28908
close	170458
close-up	333882
closeup	317549
cloud	143778
clouds	144985
coffee	81804
cold	136037
color	582343
colorful	246727
colour	121638
colourful	52380
communication	148925
computer	189182
concept	297522
conceptual	84237
container	42900
contrast	35591
corporate	120485
couple	102150
dance	43843
design	477125
detail	187274
diet	201798
digital	119039
earth	90043
eat	162627
education	102992
element	113168
emotion	96372
england	25131
euro	38425
europe	137412
exam	12820
expression	170603
eye	132349
eyes	175234
face	430993
fashion	337929
female	698202
field	164149
finance	110678
fish	76783
flower	389416
flowers	130401
food	605394
fresh	418976
fruit	256382
fun	310592
garden	205273
gift	154507
girl	637715
girls	97486
glass	247302
golf	13905
graphic	223569
grass	242782
green	785660
hair	291919
halloween	27933
hand	338792
hands	305858
happy	487771
head	163523
health	379428
healthy	478027
holiday	453015
home	207421
horse	37515
horses	10061
hotel	42942
house	198186
houses	17190
hue	8397
human	259340
illustrated	14203
illustration	599161
india	18695
interior	71289
internet	131033
iron	42292
isolated	1017834
keyboard	43280
lady	272808
landscape	288477
laos	2188
laptop	76442
leaf	238279
leaves	123692
light	345880
line	121801
london	11925
lorry	3804
love	292563
macro	321267
mains	4067
male	283680
man	395532
massage	22978
metal	184531
mobile	45632
model	288051
modern	282430
money	135345
moon	20261
mouse	20337
naked	34700
natural	362542
nature	926853
network	43299
new	140556
night	91234
nuclear	3884
nude	23280
ocean	182247
office	218516
old	288378
orange	262735
outdoor	181237
pain	21897
park	153525
party	180518
pattern	326242
peace	67999
people	607619
person	547142
photo	84595
pictures	7157
piggy	4765
pink	195723
plant	335411
portrait	493059
pose	115890
pound	7815
prayer	15442
pretty	429187
project	15255
rainbow	29635
red	794417
reflection	182065
render	86682
rendered	13095
restaurant	113335
river	98444
rose	80663
rural	82517
sand	130866
saving	11403
sea	321684
season	231173
security	68477
sex	23606
sexy	239721
shadow	100105
shape	220202
ships	3495
shoes	24100
shop	48950
shopping	56435
sign	208787
silver	91483
skin	184817
sky	528451
smile	393893
smiling	282110
snow	130357
space	139370
spring	291685
star	84974
stone	157637
summer	522733
sun	261161
sunflower	15821
sunny	114855
sunset	78561
support	34304
sweet	251855
symbol	331583
teacher	12413
technology	227710
telephone	45844
texture	286721
thailand	18810
time	65216
tint	6448
training	48937
travel	316605
tree	357604
trees	357604
trust	12948
two	102863
up	115776
urban	102896
vacation	250911
vase	12711
view	151774
wall	113257
water	492384
weather	60250
wedding	87243
whiskers	6395
white	1444849
winter	191020
woman	798790
women	271044
wood	215094
work	221185
wreck	3518
yellow	468039
young	736731
youth	216241