Today I finally hit 10,000 downloads on istockphoto.com. I've been a member since March 2006 and let me tell you that 10,000 came a lot quicker than I would have guessed.
With those downloads comes my gold canister on istock which means that I will be getting a larger commission on my photo sales now and that I will be able to upload more photos at a time. Of the two, the money is the important one, I haven't been able to upload my limit since I hit silver and now there is practically no chance of doing it now that I'm a gold.
When I started uploading, the top levels seemed so far away, it didn't really seem possible that I could do it this quickly. Now it seems that I will make it to diamond in not much longer, with some work I'll be at the top level very quickly and with no more work, it is only a matter of time.
I'm still only making about a tenth of what I would like to be making, or maybe I should say a tenth of the amount I would feel comfortable quitting my day job with. I guess I should look at it from the perspective of that I'm making enough to take 2 months off next summer. Although I'll probably do neither of those two things even if I do make enough money to do that.
The reality of it is though, that a few times in the past, money I've made from istock has kept me out of trouble. When I got my appendix out, for example, I wouldn't have been able to pay my rent or eat because of the time I had to take off work. But with those handy istock payments coming in I was just fine. There have been other moments, but that was the biggest one for me.
I'm really happy with how it is working out so far.
-Gary
