I’m back from excellent vacations in Asia! Japan and Thailand are really great places to be. A big thanks to David, one of my blog readers in Tokyo, to take the time to meet me. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to meet more of you during my next travels. Anybody from Brisbane? That’s where I will be next.

Due to my holidays I was not able to post my April statistics on time, so here you have them with some delay. The month of April was weaker and did not continue the upwards trend of the previous months. When compared to 2008 the dip in April appears to be normal. In 2009 April stayed flat with regards to March. So no need to worry with the April 2010 numbers.

The months before summer are usually weak and it is a great time to shoot and get ready for the post-summer large volume sales!

Getty royalties are exactly the same as they were a year ago. These are the numbers for March 2010 (the April numbers are coming out next week). I am happy with that considering the more expensive Getty collections are struggling to keep up with the changes in the stock market.

Royalty per Image slightly down on iStockphoto. At Getty Images slightly up for March.

How has your business been going? Did your April see a peak too? Are you preparing your portfolio for post-summer sales?

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I don’t know whats happening out there but sales keep increasing! March has been a fantastic month. 31 days makes a different, but even if you look at the revenue per image, the numbers went up. Getty revenue decreased, no surprises there. How has march been for you?

Competition is fierce in the stock market and if you want to stand out you have to invest. Long gone are the days where your holiday pictures or nice shots from your cousin’s newborn were enough to earn a comfortable pocket money. For the past two years I have watched the quality of pictures on iStockphoto increase constantly and after discussion with many other successful stock photographers quickly decided that the only way forward is to invest: invest  in reasearch, invest in quality.

This has worked well for me. A good photoshooting will cost anywhere between 700EUR and 2000EUR (mainly model, make up, wardrobe and location). Recently I spoke to a stock photographer friend of mine and enjoyed hearing he had spent careful time researching a topic and then investing on producing the idea in the best possible way. Numbers are working for him.

All this time however, I had had no proper means of measuring how successful my investments were. I knew my shooting costs but I could not measure precisely the point where my investment broke even. And this was always a problem.

The goal is that a photoshooting breaks even within 6 months. That means that the series should generate 16% of your costs each month. How do you measure that?

It was only just recently, about 3 weeks ago, that I had a deeper look into LookStat.com, and was surprised to finally discover a tool to help me improve measuring return on investment (ROI). In LookStat you can set up a collection of pictures (suitably the results of one photo session) and LookStat will tell you how much money those pictures have generated. You have different viewing options and charts, making it easy to understand.

I am still missing some important features which make measuring ROI easier, and so I wrote Rahul Pathak, the founder of LookStat, with some suggestions and was pleased to hear that they are already working in that direction! I’ll keep you up to date on any evolution and how you can use it for your pictures.

Thanks to LookStat here are some examples of my measurements, good and bad (click on the picture for the complete series):

	Earned 61% of investment in 4 months
	Earned 8% of investment in 4 months
	Earned 1200% of investment in 13 months
	Earned 221% of investment in 9 months
	Earned 67% of investment in 8 months
	Earned 585% of investment in 20 months
	Earned 13% of investment in 9 months

How do you measure return on investment? How important is it for you? I would be interested in learning about your workflow and number keeping

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Numbers are out for iStockphoto and Getty Images. iStockphoto has produced very strong results in February 2010. I doubled my February 2008 earnings and achieved one of my best ever months. 2010 is being very profitable on iStockphoto.com!  Here the chart.

Downloads on the other hand remain constant. My portfolio has not grown which explains the low fluctuation in downloads.

At Getty Images no surprises. January 2010 was good but stays within the normal revenue range.

Comparison

When we look at the complete evolution of my iStockphoto and Getty Images portfolios, the trend remains: iStockphoto revenue increases while Getty Images remains constant.

And most interestingly, the revenue per image on both agencies continue their convergeance.

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2010 started off quite well. The increase in prices at iStockphoto has not yet detered buyers from shopping. My downloads remain fairly constant and inline with 2008 and 2009.

Royaltees, however, have benefited from the increase in prices. January,2010, was very strong. Stronger than December, 2009, but slightly under October and November, 2009.

Here the charts for iStockphoto

My Getty Images royaltees for December arrived a week ago, so I couldn’t post the information earlier. With my December report I can now compare my Getty royaltees for 2009 and 2008 (please note that I got my first Getty report in March 2008).

You will notice that 2009 and 2008 were pretty much identical, even though I had double as many images in 2009.

How have iStockphoto’s price changes worked for you?

Do you have charts with your Getty royaltees? I haven’t found any Getty photographers who share their charts. Does anybody have some links?

Happy New Year!

Chris Guillebeau posted a very interesting review of his year 2009 and encouraged others to do the same. He went through his numbers, his business results and drew conclusions from them. His process appealed to me and I applied it to my photography business. I want to share it with you and would be very interested in knowing how your photography has done in 2009. How has you income evolved? What have been your costs? Has your business strategy worked?

So what are my conclusions for 2009?

Large increase in investment

in 2009 I invested almost twice the amount of money in productions. I always had a wardrobe stylist at each production and bought all the clothes necessary for each photo session. I also worked in rented places more often. These two elements considerably increased the cost of each photo session, some photo sessions costing over 1500 Euros.

Despite the big investment, I produced the same amount of images in 2009 as I did in 2008: in 2009 I produced 110 images (45 for iStockphoto and 65 for Getty Images) and in 2008 I produced a total of 111 images (81 for iStockphoto and 30 for Getty Images).

The decision to invest more was focused mainly on Getty productions. Since my royalties at Getty Images did not increase during this period, I conclude that the investment was not as profitable as I would have expected.

Nevertheless, the risk was necessary in order to best evaluate the profitability of Getty Images.

A considerable increase in royalties at iStockphoto

In 2009 my royalties on iStockphoto increased by 29% while my total download count only increased 2,6%.

Despite having produced half as much for iStockphoto in 2009 as I did in 2008 (45 images in 2009 and 81 in 2008) I still managed to earn a 29% increase! Tell me which employer gives you such an increase working half as much!? There are three main factors explaining the increase:

- The introduction of the premuim Vetta Collection: If you compare 2008 and 2009 you clearly see that between September and November there is a steep rise in sales. My amount of downloads for that period in 2008 and 2009 is identical. But if you look at the royalties it is clear that after the introduction of the Vetta collection in August 2009 my earnings increased.

- The continuous expansion of the microstock market

- The yearly increase in prices: every year prices go up and in 2009 my images sold more expensive. Even though prices increased my total number of downloads remained constant. This is very encouraging since it disproves the claims that higher prices scare buyers.

Poor results at Getty Images

Despite producing twice as many photos for Getty Images as I did in 2008, and the higher investment in production, I experienced no increase in royalties. My portfolio doubled its size but my royalties stayed constant. This translated into a considerable fall in royalties per image. I do not have a clear explanation for this, but here are my theories:

- Getty Images image price decreases: In order to face competition from the microstock agencies, Getty Images has restructured its pricing resulting in a large decrease of prices in certain of its collections and image sizes.

- Descrease in market share of Getty Images

- My images are not appropriate for the Getty market buyer: My images might not satisfy the demands of Getty buyers. This is an assumption but I cannot base it on facts. I would be interested in seeing earning reports from other Getty photographers in order to verify if my image style is the reason I see no increase in sales on Getty.

Specialisation of my portfolio

When I review the images I produced this year I observe a clear specialization in the area of commercial glamour. This has been a conscious decision. It is an area where I see potential and where competition is still low, but where demand is healthy.

This review will allow me to set new targets for 2010 and change my business strategy to achieve those goals. In a second post this week, I will go through my targets and share with you how I plan to achieve them.

Until then I would be very interested in hearing your opinion on my review. Did you see the same trends? Have you performed a review of 2009? What are you results?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

The Getty Images sales report always comes out three weeks after the month is over, so finally here are the numbers, fresh out of Excel!

I always compare iStockphoto and Getty Images earnings reports and these are the numbers for November. The chart shows that both in 2008 and in 2009 November brought a slight dip in earnings. December will probably have another dip before it picks up in January.

The trend on Getty continues, without any major increase or decrease.

How about your numbers? How was your November? Did you experience a dip too?

After three weeks of great holidays it was time to crunch some numbers. I updated my Excel sheets with data from September and October and came up with the following charts. In a previous post I had started providing this data. From now on you will get a monthly update of my iStockphoto and Getty royaltee, portfolio size and RPI evolution.

September and October have really been good examples of how the Christmas season provides a healthy push to sales. Since July I have increased my income by approximately 75%!

The Getty RPI (revenue per image) continues its downward trend and I have reached a point where my images sell on average for the same price on iStockphoto as they do on Getty Images. The introduction of the more pricey iStockphoto Vetta collection probably has something to do with it.

The stock market is changing fast and it’s not easy to know in which direction to go. A Goldman Sachs report states that iStockphoto could become the third biggest stock photography market in 2012 (after Getty and Corbis).

With such a big market opening up ahead of us one has to analyse how to focus efforts now until 2012 to grab as big a piece of the pie as possible. Recently Getty Images invited the top brass from iStockphoto to contribute to their Rights Managed Stone and The Image Bank collections, giving them access to a market just as big as the Royaltee Free market (I can’t find the chart where I read this… I’ll update soon).

Having contributed to the Getty Photodisc and iStock Exclusive Collections for a year and a half, I have some considerable data to analyze. I have to think on how to proceed in the next year. I am just one small fish in the ocean but my numbers can give the curious an insight into how things have developed for me.

The first graph shows how both my portfolios have grown over the past 18 months. Since the Getty portfolio is much smaller its increase is noticeable.

The second graph compares the Revenue Per Image on both agencies. Getty images started selling strongly with healthy prices, but over the past 18 months Getty has pushed prices down aggressively to keep competitive and you can see that clearly in my graph. The revenue per image on both agencies are converging.

On the third graph you see my royaltees. Over the same period of time iStockphoto has risen steadily, while Getty remains stable albeit unpredictable. The rise in August on iStockphoto can be explained by the introduction of the premium Vetta Collection.

I think the graphs speak for themselves! Enjoy comparing them with yours and please provide feedback on your numbers. Are we seeing a general trend?