When I started this "offseason" project, I thought I'd be happy to make a bit more money - I made about $100 per month before, without much additional work. I had one good sale last year (2k) and that helped my overall.

In the last 3 months, I've put a lot more time into this, as I said I was going to. I am happy to report May earnings are over 4x what they were in February. It's a start. However, if earnings could go up another 4x, I could pay my mortgage for the rest of the year with just stock earnings!

We have a new model recruitment website ( http://www.syracusemodeling.com ) a new sales/storefront site coming soon (at http://www.oratonu.com ) and a lot of stuff planned for 2008 and 2009 as far as microstock goe It's addicting, seeing those numbers increase!

May was a BME (best month ever) on 7 of my 9 agencies. One day I'll be like Sandra & figure out Istock as well. lol

Anyhoo - I know our last topic got to 10 pages so *someone* was interested in this stuff. I thought I'd update you all. You can always follow along as it happens at http://www.niltomil.com and check out how our project is going! We get a raise when I hit $3000 on Shutterstock, which should be either the end of this month or early to mid next month. Sweet. We'll see how it progresses during the ONseason.

M

This is SOOOOOO exciting!

How will your modeling site work?

Nevermind... I went and checked it out... very cool!

cool cool cool!!!

Hi Matt--I have a question.

I am currently a member of one stock agency (istock) and want to join another one (preferably shutterstock). However, I'm pondering file exclusivity when it comes to two or more agency memberships. It's hard enough learning the ins and outs of Istock.

Let me know if I need to clarify this...it would be very helpful.

If you're exclusive with Istock, you can't submit to anyone else. if you are talking about single file exclusivity at say DT or FT, I don't bother with it - I think it's limiting your income. Some people do amazingly well with Istock exclusive. I'm all about diversification.

Or better, let's put it this way - the smart people I trust in microstock are all about diversification. So I just copy them for now.

Thanks, Matty I haven't poked around the site enough yet, but am totally going to so I can see if getting involved in stock will work for me. It's niiiice of you to have posted so much about your experience and now sharing your insights with niltomil