Welcome to my November 2016 Monthly EyeEm Income Report!
Whenever my photos sell through the EyeEm Market I will give you a detailed monthly report that shows you exactly how much you can make on EyeEm, including EyeEm Market, the EyeEm x Getty partnership and the EyeEm x Alamy partnership. I’ll also share any lessons learned, the photos that sold and the exact dollar amounts from each of my photo sales. So, to answer the question: ‘how much do you make on EyeEm?’, here goes!
Hello you! How are things going? I hope November was a great month for you.
It’s crazy to think that it is almost the end of the year, right? It doesn’t seem all that long ago that I was setting goals for 2016. In case you didn’t know, I’m kind of take my New Year’s resolutions seriously. Here is what was on my list this year and how I am getting on with them:
- Practise meditation
- Expand photography
- Learn Swift & make own app
- Launch my web design business
- Grow YouTube channel
- Track my sleep
There has been a whole lot on my plate this year and I’ve been getting through it like I’m at an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet!
I managed to practise guided meditation, with the help of the Calm app & subscription, for 285 days straight before life finally got in the way. Moving from Thailand back to England has been mostly awesome but the change in lifestyle has been a challenge. My daily meditation was a casualty of that.
My photography is expanding (I know, it is a purposefully vague term because I didn’t know what shape that would take) and things are going well. I’m getting passive income through the EyeEm Market and I’m approaching a place where I’m starting to figure out what I want from my photo practise. EyeEm is my thing and where I now want to focus all of my photography efforts. Not only that, but I also want to discover your journey and help you out as well. For 2017 I’ll be exploring how to help you more with your own EyeEm journey.
One of the biggest casualties this year has been to learn the Swift coding language. I’ve never coded an app before and so this would have been the biggest challenge. Unfortunately it’s something that I haven’t had time to dedicate to. I’d still like to get around to this at some point but I’ll need to wait until I can create more free time, especially now that…
I registered as a sole trader and launched my own web design business this year. This has been a huge challenge as I’ve never done freelance work before but the support and response I’ve been getting has been amazing. This is only going to get better in 2017, I’m sure of it.
Next on the list was growing my YouTube channel, and I’m happy to say that it has been a pretty good year. Those of you who follow me on YouTube know that I’m not trying to be internet famous or anything, I’m just recording/sharing memories and moments that are important to me. With that said though, I do love reading and replying to comments on my videos. I’ve continued to vlog each week in 2016 and I might even carry on next year too!
Finally, the last thing on my list was to track my sleep and – 365 days later – I have a much better idea of what helps me sleep better. I’ll get around to publishing a huge post about this at some point for those of you who are interested but really it was just a way for me to understand myself better. So, remember Brett, no caffeine up to 3 hours before bed!
Alright, enough about my New Year’s Resolutions, let’s get on with the show!
Latest Goings On In November
November has been another really good month for my EyeEm Market sales and I know, I know, $100 isn’t that much money but it didn’t feel like work. I think that’s part of the magic behind the EyeEm Market; you are sharing your photos and experiences with a community of people just like you would anywhere else, except with EyeEm you might actually get paid for doing so!
I still think it’s crazy. Crazy and awesome.
So what else has made November a good month for me? Well…
*drumroll please!*
I actually, finally, really got around to uploading more photos!
Please pick your jaw up off the floor and allow me to continue… It’s true. Something came over me and I decided to sit down and edit my photos. The dreaded photographers block was lifted – or maybe I was just inspired by the latest EyeEm magazine? Either way, I spent a day just sorting, editing and uploading images to EyeEm. I got a bunch more photos from a diving trip to Phuket on there and also the images from my trip to Laos.
It felt awesome and I was super pleased.
I even got a shoutout from the EyeEm team on Twitter and Instagram! <3
Take the plunge. #MondayMotivation
?: @brettworth https://t.co/GqWhhYge4Z pic.twitter.com/0OCFIKfjV1
— EyeEm (@EyeEm) November 14, 2016
But…
I still had no EyeEm Market sales for the month.
And then while I was writing the first email to my newsletter subscribers the sales came in, all within minutes of each other. This makes me wonder if the EyeEm Market now only notifies you towards the end of the month or only in bulk. I’m can’t confirm this but it seems likely as I had sales from numerous EyeEm partner sources which all came through together. So, perhaps we shouldn’t expect any sales until towards the end of the month? Let me know if you’ve experienced this too.
What about these numerous EyeEm partner sources I’m talking about? Usually, most of my sales come through the EyeEm x Getty partnership, but this month was a little different.
EyeEm x Partners
Back in February EyeEm announces through their blog that they were teaming up with WhiteWall, a web based photo lab and printer. The collaboration meant that your EyeEm Market images could be licensed and then printed by WhiteWall for buyers around the world. As usual the revenue split was 50/50 and, when I was asked if I’d like to be involved, I of course said yes. But in reality, I thought nothing of it. After all, who would want to buy and hang my images?
Turns out that someone does because one of the images this month was purchased through WhiteWall!
“We chose these photos because they have a message or even a story in them, encouraging the viewer to take a second look to discover the whole photograph. They are all carefully shot and edited with the love of a photography enthusiast… All in all, the most important aspect was that we would love to have all these pictures printed by our WhiteWall experts and to have them hanging on our own walls!” – Jan Ole Schmidt, Head of Category Management, WhiteWall
This is a totally new and exciting way to think about my photos out there in the world. Interestingly, I don’t recall seeing the image that has been licensed to print ever being licensed before. This just goes to show that even though your image may not be what buyers want for digital media, someone out there might want to hang it on their wall.
So how do you know if your photo is being sold as part of the EyeEm x WhiteWall collection? Well the simple way is to head over to whitewall.com and search for your name (you are showing your real name on EyeEm, aren’t you?). That’s what I did to find my image in the screenshot above. Alternatively, you might notice on your photos that the sneaky EyeEm team have added a new tag like they’ve done with mine below:
Also this month, aside from EyeEm x Getty partnership sales I also made one direct sale through the EyeEm Market itself. It was only a small sale but I find it significant because it means that my images are clearly appearing across a number of marketplaces. This can only be good news as more exposure should also mean more sales.
A Big One
When we take a look at which of my images sold this month in a moment you will notice that most of the sales are fairly small. You’ll also notice that one image in particular has paid out very well this month and it is one of my favourites. It’s a shot of me – or, more specifically, my back and backpack – standing in the middle of beautiful street in Japan.
The really cool thing about this sale is the price, I received $70 from the sale. Pretty cool, huh? But now think about how much it cost the person who purchased the license… EyeEm takes a cut, so does Getty Images and this means that the photo could have been sold anywhere between £150 to £275! If there was ever a confidence booster for selling your images, this is it 😉
In my free ebook that I released last month (’10 ways to jumpstart your EyeEm Market sales’ available in the Resources section of this site) I mentioned that you should take photos which are not only useful for buyers, but that also means something to you too. This is the perfect example of that principle. I remember the exact moment it was taken, the smell of the air, the cool breeze and how I was positively giddy about how great this street looked. It means a lot to me and sale or no sale, it’s worth something to me.
Photos like this is what the EyeEm Market is all about to me; real moments that mean something but also benefit buyers as well.
EyeEm Photo Sales & Earnings Breakdown
The following figures show the exact earnings I have received by selling my photos on the EyeEm Market. These numbers show the exact amount available for me to withdraw into my bank account.
Total this month: $98.10
The ‘total this month’ amount counts all sales that happened from the 1st calendar day of the month to the last.
Number of images sold this month: 7
The ‘number of images sold this month’ amount is also based on the 1st calendar day of the month to the last.
Total to date: $1,428.37
The ‘total to date’ amount is the grand total of all earnings made from selling photos on the EyeEm Market, up to and including this month.
Images That Sold This Month
Here are the images that sold this month through EyeEm, including how much I received from the sale and which EyeEm Market vendor it sold through.
$ 3.51 Partner License – Getty Images via The EyeEm Collection
$ 2.93 Partner License – Getty Images via The EyeEm Collection
$ 2.00 Partner License – Getty Images via The EyeEm Collection
$ 70.00 Partner License – Getty Images via The EyeEm Collection
$ 2.00 Partner License – Getty Images via The EyeEm Collection
$ 13.66 Partner License – WhiteWall via The EyeEm Collection
$ 4.00 Standard License (Commercial)
Lessons Learned In November
Wow, what an exciting month! It’s months like this when it feels like Christmas has come early (and Christmas is my favourite holiday of the year so you can guess how it makes me feel). Between the sales and the social media love from the EyeEm team I feel that I have found a real home for my photography online. A place where I can share my stories, my experiences and my photos to one of the best communities in the world.
The lesson learnt this month is this: celebrate the wins, no matter how small they might be.
Next year I’m planning on changing up my EyeEm income report posts to make them a little bit prettier and more useful. If there’s anything you’d like me to add then please let me know in the comments.
I hope you have an amazing start to December and I’ll see you here again next month. Until then have a think about your 2017 New Year’s resolutions and keep uploading those photos.
Thank you Brett for sharing and the insights. Appreciate you sharing you monthly sales report as well 🙂 and yes, EyeEm sales comes in every end of the month (21st – 23rd approximately) At least for me that is. Lastly, congrats to all your sales in EyeEm and may many more to come for you!
Thanks for this! It’s always interesting to see how much you are selling since there is very little info online about selling at EyeEm. I joined this summer and I like the concept very much, but the waiting time for the images to go from premium to Getty is painfully slow – four months it seems like. Anyway, keep it up!
Yes, agreed on the little info online for EyeEm as opposed to the many others out there. I joined end of last year and loved it. The community, the friendly and responsive EyeEm team,and the well executed platform all added to my wonderful experience there 🙂 And yes, you are absolutely right on the waiting time… it is painful but well worth the wait for me. Hope the process will quicken soon. Have to say, I truly enjoy reading your blog and appreciate the way your materials are presented here. Well done and thanks again for sharing !
Thank you for sharing your reports. As mentioned before there is little to no info on the income from EyeEm elsewhere. I was wondering, what is the total count of photos that you have posted to EyeEm (how many of them qualify for Premium)?
Hi Domku. For myself, on market, I have about 560 pics and out of that, only 132 is qualified on Premium. Hope that helps. Total posted to date is about 600+ but of course some are personal photos I like to share but didn’t opt them in to the market.
Hey Domku! Apologies for the late reply, I wanted to do it justice and dive in a little deeper for you. I’ve answered your question (and included a bunch more stats) in this months income report [https://www.oneeyeclosed.co.uk/eyeempaid-december-2016-eyeem-income-report/]
Hope this answers your question. Happy New Year!
– Brett