I was really busy with shooting and contributing to microstock portfolio in October. My average portfolio grew up from 392 pictures in September to 466 (18.8% increase): 62 new pictures in iStock, 98 in Shutterstock, 70 in Dreamstime. However, my total earnings with 503 downloaded pictures ($0.54 per picture) went up only 12.5% in comparison to September. No ELs in October.

• $500 total earnings from Shutterstock in less than 8 months. It gave me the 33% raise for new downloads. SS took the lead last month.
• $50 first payout from 123RF in 11 months. 123RF was not doing so great in October
• $50 first payout from StockXpert in 6 months. The same performance as in September.

iStock performance was fantastic in October, but ... only for the first 3 weeks. The last week went almost without sales. Overall earnings were slightly higher than in the previous month, but I am concerned about the future of my IS portfolio.

I got a very nice growth of earnings from Dreamstime which clearly took the #3 position. SS, IS, and DT provided 79% of my microstock earnings.

It was not so bad month for Fotolia despite the fact that I managed to add there just half of my pictures accepted by SS.

There were no more sales in Featurepics despite my efforts to promote that portfolio across my blogs, e.g, Old Wooden Scoop ... or Bent Shaft Paddle and Outrigger Canoe.

I am getting close to one year in microstock phtoography. I will be posting more analysis of my portfolio and efforts trying to figure out: Can I make any real money from microstock?

Some other bloggers are reporting monthly earnings from microstock:

Microstock Diaries ... Microstock Experiment ... NiltoMil ... jrtb ...
Driftless Ramblings ... bankizdjec.pl ...

Anybody else?

Related posts:

• Growth of My Microstock Portfolio in 7 Agencies: IS, SS, FT, DT, BSP, 123RF, SXP
• Microstock Photography Earnings in 2008:
  September | August | July | June | May | April | March | February | January
• What Sells in Microstock? My List of Picture Bestsellers
• How to Get Accepted by ShutterStock? Don't Give Up!
• My microstock referral links for photographers:
  Dreamstime, ShutterStock, BigStockPhoto, 123RF, FeaturePics.

I had a late start with StockXpert and started to sell pictures in that microstock site in May. This is what I wrote in my April 2008 earnings report:

A few days ago I got accepted by StockXpert after 4 failed applications "At the moment we are not looking for pictures as the ones you uploaded". I got tired with typing my bio and info over and over again. So, I just wrote "please visit my website to see my photography and microstock earnings." Maybe, that worked, because I didn't really change my pictures.

Related posts:

• Microstock Photography Earnings in 2008:
  August | July | June | May | April | March | February | January
• My microstock referral links for photographers and other contributors:
  Dreamstime, ShutterStock, BigStockPhoto, 123RF, FeaturePics.
• What Sells in Microstock? My List of Picture Bestsellers
• Growth of My Microstock Portfolio in 7 Agencies: IS, SS, FT, DT, BSP, 123RF, SXP