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.

Sunday 13 October 2019

September Sales Updates:

Science Museum, Valencia
A stable month in September with various signs of life and a flurry of sales created by the national news.

Shutterstock were in first place. A worthwhile Single sale boosted things at the start of the month and the sad news of the Thomas Cook travel company going into administration led to a whole bunch of sales of my signage outside the Hastings branch. The fact that these were taken in 2009 and featured their old logo didn't seem to deter buyers -such is the nature of stock imagery. Pleased to hear in the last few days that the chain of UK stores has been bought by Hays Travel and that many former employees will be offered jobs by the new owners.

Second place went to Istock with 37 downloads. An improved RPD this month brought the earnings up. My Thomas Cook images also featured here.

Alamy took third place with 2 downloads once again from my archive material. Conservative party leader Michael Howard and Mirror newspapers owner Robert Maxwell delivering sales here.

Fourth place went to Redbubble with 3 product sales. This month two T shirts and a laptop sleeve
The Umbracle sculpture gardens, Valencia
(the latter with my image of Barcelona University).

Fifth place went to Dreamstime with an improved 10 downloads. Thomas Cook again plus several of my archive celebrity images.

Adobe perked up with 4 downloads to make sixth place. Just waiting for Illustrative Editorial to be rolled out to bronze level now (and then, hopefully, general editorial).

Eighth place went to Bigstock with just 4 downloads (three of which were -guess what).

Thomas Cook branch -selling well in September
I posted in May how Yaymicro had added on Depositphotos as a new partner and automatically signed me into the deal. I had another surprise recently when I spotted a whole bunch of new partners including the dubious sounding Darius at Yay. I opted out of these right away but decided there was really only one sure way to stop this keep happening so deleted all my K2.4 images. One by one -several clicks per deletion. It took a long time but at least they are now gone. It's a shame because Yay started off with a lot of hope and were getting reasonable sales up until 2013 when it all went downhill.

New uploads continued with my Valencia images -in particular the futuristic buildings of the City of Arts and Sciences. Accepted everywhere except by Shutterstock who say they cannot take any images of these buildings for commercial OR editorial use. Why their policy is different to everyone else I have no idea but it's disappointing to not be able to upload to my top selling agancy. A fairly slow start to October so far but more next month. Regards, David.