Good post, man. And stunning shots. Keep it up.
Regarding stock photography, I was wondering how long did it take you from your first photo uploaded until you got your first sale?
I got on a few websites, including some of the ones you mentioned, but it was taking me too much time and work to keep them up, so I've quit and kept only Snapwire, which I loved because of the way it's built. It has a ranking system for photographers, and the higher you get, the higher the chances to sell.
But eventually I decided to quit that too, because it was still time consuming.
P.S.: I also need to mention that my level as a photographer is well below yours, so I feel the need to reformulate my question from above: how long did it take you since you started with photography until you got your first stock photo sale? I guess this question would be more fair.
P.S.2: I'm curious about the next part of your post.
May you have fun travels. ;)
I forgot to mention that in the post: I applied for various stock agencies on March 31st and April 1st, you can see in the chart that already in April the first sales were coming in. I have been a hobby photographer for many years before I tried out selling my photos and happily found out that this worked quite well :D
I haven't heard from snapwire before, I will look into it, thanks for pointing it out!