Indie BME

January 2012 was an indie BME for me by a long way. I earned $311, which is somewhere near what I was earning as an iStock exclusive, but with far less images for sale. I had my best ever month at Shutterstock, where I broke through the $100 barrier for the first time.

I got four extended licence sales - two from iStock for a total of $47, one from Shutterstock ($28) and one from Veer ($35), making a total of $110.

I am hoping my good sales figures are a result of my hard work, rather than just a seasonal fluke (apart from at iStock of course, where I have done my best to trash my sales by removing my best-sellers). I have been uploading a lot more lately and have nearly doubled my Shutterstock portfolio since the end of last year. I still have less than 200 images for sale on my new agencies though. I find it interesting to look back at at my old iStock exclusive income for the sub-200 image mark. In February of 2009 I had 181 images in my portfolio and made $127 for the month, considerably less than I have made this month as an indie, even without taking extended licences into account. I admit that this isn't a valid direct comparison as it doesn't take price increases, new exclusive income streams (ie Vetta, Agency, Getty) or improvements in my portfolio into account, but it is still interesting.