Back in the Seventies and Eighties I founded and ran several Fleet Street photo agencies specialising in stock images of celebrities from pop stars to politicians. These were syndicated to the National and International press and Television. These days I am active in the Microstock world and this blog charts my journey as well as, hopefully, providing inspiration and ideas to others. Image buyers should also find this blog useful with links to my portfolios and regular updates on new uploads. Unless otherwise stated all images are my copyright and may not be reproduced or copied. Comments are very welcome but will be reviewed before publication. Enjoy your visit. Regards, David.

Thursday 9 December 2010

November updates:

A solid month on Shutterstock with 63 downloads ($19.01). Dreamstime produced 12 downloads ($10.13) -both these sites getting sales on my archive image of actor Leslie Nielsen who, sadly, died last month.
123RF continued it's new phase of activity with 3 Editorial sales ($1.27) so, as previously posted, it looks like these are starting to take off at last.
Picturenation managed a single web resolution sale of Olympic games chief Sebastian Coe netting £0.40. Still just painfully short of the £50 payout level. Next month?

BigStock produced one editorial sale ($0.50) but on the plus side there, my acceptance rate seems to have improved in recent weeks. A good selection of Editorial images of the Hastings Jack In The Green festival being accepted -rather than deemed "Not Newsworthy" as they have in the past.
One interesting thing here is that they (or some reviewers) now require a Shutterstock style "dateline" caption. Some images got put back in my edit section for that reason but were then accepted with the revised caption. The strange thing is that I have yet to see an official announcement that this is now a requirement. Maybe it's when you get a reviewer used to SS?

Istock couldn't manage a single regular sale but I did get 5 partner program sales ($1.25).
Nothing from Veer or Mostphotos in November. Mostphotos, however, have just started selling subcription packages (to which I am currently opted in) so I will be interested to see if this starts producing sales. Regards, David.

Saturday 4 December 2010

Sales milestone -1000 downloads at Shutterstock:


December 2, 2010 saw a major milestone on Shutterstock when I had my 1000th download with this image of the Tentertainment music festival.
Since being accepted in June 2009, Shutterstock has always delivered strong sales. I still get the odd day with no sales (usually a Sunday) each month but in general I have sales every day.
That is way different to when I started this journey and my only agency was the (now closed) Snapvillage. Days, weeks and even months would go past before I could get excited over a 30cent subscription sale!
So on to the next big milestone at Shutterstock when my earnings hit $500 and I get a raise in my commission per download. I still have a way to go for that one but expect to reach it next year. Regards, David.