It's interesting to look back on the microstock experiment I started a few years ago. I have been quite lazy this past year about uploading anything--and expected my sales to dry up because of it. While the sales have definitely not been through the roof, they do continue on slowly and surely. A certain percentage of the sales are coming from about 5 or 10 of the most popular images but a large percentage of sales continue to come from the bulk of the images in my portfolios that are not particularly popular and get downloaded only rarely. In addition to the random photo downloads, every now and then one of the few footage clips I've added will get downloaded, a photographer joins up with my referral code, or a buyer will sign up for a subscription from my link.

I've been averaging [about $225] a month since the experiment began in Feb. 2005. Now my question is how many images do I need to upload to have a nice enough (and steady enough) side income to reduce my hours on my day job and use that time for writing, or art?

The theory of the Long Tail seems to have something to say to this phenomenon:

Of course, the Long Tail and I have met before... Most of my blog traffic probably is in the long tail area of random Google hits on obscure old posts, since I'm so irregular about making time to update this site. But I guess that's fine with me for now. Someday, when my microstock monthly earnings increase enough, perhaps I'll write more regularly.

Originally posted in June 2007.