Shutterstock has put together a very interesting
Infographic related to Contributor Earnings. Everyone engaged in stock photography -- regardless of whether they have ever licensed an image through Shutterstock, or any other microstock distributor -- should examine this Infographic carefully. It contains a lot of important insights.
In 2014 Shutterstock paid out $83,605,000 to contributors living and working in the following areas of the world.
| United States |
$7,646,000 |
| Rest of the Americas |
$2,841,000 |
| United Kingdom |
$4,247,000 |
| Germany |
$3,361,000 |
| Rest of Europe |
$51,715,000 |
| Africa |
$608,000 |
| Japan |
$572,000 |
| Rest of Asia |
$11,475,000 |
| Australia |
$801,000 |
| Oceania |
$241,000 |
| |
|
| |
$83,507,000 |
Note: there is about $100,000 difference between the sum of all the areas reported and the gross figure reported. I suspect this is the result of rounding errors.
Note that the combined royalties paid to contributors in the U.S., UK and Germany represent only $15,254,000 or 18% of the royalties paid out. If we add Japan and Australia to the above, contributors in the 5 countries received a total of $16,627,000 or less than 20% of the total payout.
Some might have expected image creators in the U.S., UK, Germany, Japan and Australia would have produced the bulk of the images licensed. That is clearly not the case. Some might have expected UK and German image creators to be the European leaders. Combined they only produced about 13% of the saleable images. They other 87% came from other countries in Europe.
Some might have expected Japanese and Australian photographers and illustrators to have produce the bulk of Asian images licensed. Producers from these two countries only received 10% of the royalties from Asia and Oceania. The other 90% went to people working in other parts of Asia.
In 2014 the median payouts to contributors living in Belize, Dominica, Tanzania and Cambodia were greater the 2013 Gross Annual Product (GDP) per capita for these countries. These were places where producing stock imagery could be a viable business. Countries where Shutterstock made payouts to image creators for the first time included: French Polynesia, Nigeria, Laos, San Marino, Northern Mariana Islands, and Madagascar.
Global Trends
The inforgraphic also highlights the most popular image, video and music subject areas globally in 2014, and gives a number of visual examples in each area to illustrate the point. In general the popular subjects were:
Image Trends- Blurred Backgrounds, Linear, Unique Perspectives
Video Trends - Animation, Slow Motion, Aerial
Music Trends - Optimistic, Quirky, Serene
Why Are Images Rejected
Shutterstock also listed the three top reasons why images in the Photo, Video, Vector and Illustration categories are rejected. They provided examples of the problems and explanations of what creators could do to avoid or solve those problems. Anyone interested in producing marketable stock images would do well to study this information.