Comments on: Microstock Celebrity – Lise Gagné

By: Chris from 'Freelance for Money'

Chris from 'Freelance for Money' — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:36:19 +0000

There’s a video about Lise Gagne here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNMqdWWs7GE

By: Rahul

Rahul — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:18:25 +0000

well i’m also amazed as well as inspired by the fact that someone could make such an amount of money from freelancing and selling photos to other sites. Real cool man.

By: the famous nemo

the famous nemo — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:44:53 +0000

I never knew someone could make so much off iStock, wow this is an eye opener.

By: Lee Torrens

Lee Torrens — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 03:52:33 +0000

Hi Boris,

Yes, I expect it’s much higher too, but when they say “six figures”, $100,000 is the most one can ‘assume’. I’d be interested to see a more accurate figure from an authoritative source.

I was told Yuri sold 3,000 more photos on iStockphoto than Lise last month (I don’t monitor this myself). The achievement is even more impressive when you consider he has a lower upload allowance than Lise, and receives less advantage in search results from being non-exclusive, having less total sales, and less time registered.

But then, I believe Lise still works alone while Yuri has created a team of assistants. The comparisons are difficult given the different situations.

By: Boris Yankov

Boris Yankov — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:04:16 +0000

Lise Gagne is earning much more than you estimated. You say $100,000 but the press release says six figures. I agree with DaveofCali’s estimation, the earnings per image can be even higher. I earn over $1 and am shooting with 10mpix camera and far from diamond (but exclusive).

In fact Lise could be beating Yuri on sales or is close to his numbers.

By: DaveofCali

DaveofCali — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 07:24:03 +0000

Actually, with the money I typically get on istockphoto (an average of 60 cents a download), and considering that she has a Canon 1DS Mark II capable of making larger photos that can be sold much more expensively than mine, and considering that she’s exclusive which means she makes double of the nonexclusives, I’d estimate that she makes $1.50 a download, and right now she has about 20,000 downloads a month (thus, 240,000 downloads a year).

Do the math: $1.50 x 240,000 downloads a year = much more money a year than most other photographers except maybe the top 1% of photographers in North America.