February Sales Update:

Ken Russell - card on Redbubble

Given that it is a short month I tend not to have great expectations for February but I was proved wrong by one very large sale this time.

First place (by a very long way) went to Alamy with 5 downloads. Four were from my B/W archives plus one digital image of the Greek island of Halki. The winner here was my 1991 image of Body Shop founder Anita Roddick speaking at a rally in Trafalgar Square, London. Alamy contacted me to ask if I would waive the Editorial Use Only restriction as the client wanted to use it for a social media campaign. Assured that they had the required permissions, I agreed and was delighted to see a sale just short of $400.00 (gross) later that day. Following on from my biggest ever sale in January it was exciting to see that repeated and exceeded in February.

Staying on the subject of Alamy it is worth noting that April is the one time of year when you can choose to opt out of different selling options. In particular you can review the countries where they have distribution partners and opt out of any regions you would prefer not to have your images on sale. A few spring to mind at present. You can also opt out of the low value Novel Use scheme as well (though I must say I have never actually had any of those sales).

Shutterstock took second place. A few On Demand sales and two modest Single sales kept them up in

Anita Roddick - big sale on Alamy

the rankings.

Third place went to Istock with 19 downloads. A bit disappointing in quantity but, of course, these were mainly January sales being reported.

Redbubble took fourth place with 2 product sales. This month it was greeting cards of British film director Ken Russell and legendary WW2 singer Dame Vera Lynne.

Fifth place went to Adobe with 5 downloads though nothing on the editorial front this month despite my having a number of new ones accepted recently. Edit: I was wrong - one of them was of Waitrose supermarket trolleys.

Dreamstime made sixth place with 3 downloads. All editorials in their case.

Finally in eighth place were Bigstock with 2 downloads. Those months last year when I was getting dozens of airshow image sales seem line a distant memory now.

Ferry at Skopelos - archives to Pond5

New uploading still consisted mainly of my back catalogue to Pond 5. Not too many left to go on that front but no sign of any further sales at the moment.

I have continued to research travel ideas (in particular Lisbon) but have yet to book anything for certain. At least things are getting easier with most European destinations no longer requiring a Covid test before you go (for vaccinated people) and no testing required to return to the UK. There is also talk of the PLF (Passenger Locator Form) being scrapped for UK return. Having not travelled since November 2019 I am very much looking forward to seeing some new (and old) destinations this year.

Too early to predict how March will go but in general it is usually an upturn month. Let's see. Regards, David. 

February Sales Updates:

Turia river park, Valencia

Not only a short month in February but in most cases short on sales as well.

Shutterstock took first place (even with their new commission structure). A worthwhile Single sale plus an Enhanced download and a number of On Demand sales pushed them into top place. As predicted, I moved onto Level 2 during the month.

Second place went to Alamy with 4 downloads. None of them massive sales but welcome all the same. Three were from my B/W archives and the fourth was another use of my Lidl supermarket images.

Third place went to FineArtAmerica with a T shirt sale.

Dreamstime made fourth place with 5 downloads. 

Istock reached a new low in fifth place with just 8 downloads. How a major agency can sell so few I

Museu de Belle Arts, Valencia

don't know. Of course, these were essentially January sales which was bad all over, so we'll see how the February sales go when we reach the 20th.

Redbubble came in sixth place with just a single sticker sale. A far cry from their usual excellent performance.

Seventh place went to Bigstock with 4 downloads. About average for them.

And finally in eighth place were Adobe with just a single download. On the plus side this was my Illustrative Editorial image of the Covid guidance letter sent out by the UK Government. I fear that Adobe might never open up to normal Editorial (i.e. that have people in them) but, at least, the Illustrative route means I have more images to build my little Adobe portfolio (think I am approaching the dizzy heights of some 400 images soon!).

Obviously, shooting new travel images is out of the question at this time but with vaccines rolling out it's starting to look like foreign travel may be possible later in the year. That said I am building up a target list of UK shots as, all being well, travel restrictions within the UK look like being lifted fairly soon.

Montjuic castle Howitzer, Barcelona

With no choice but to trawl past images recent uploads included some from Valencia including the Museum of Fine Arts and the Turia river park. Barcelona also got revisited for an image of a 1898 vintage Howitzer mounted outside Montjuic castle.

Travel companies are going into overdrive in the UK tempting people to book for later in the year so I hope to see an upturn in image sales as the year goes on as well as my other outdoor images such as music festivals. Let's see how March goes. Regards, David.

February Sales Updates:

Sold at Alamy: 1978 animal rights demonstration

A steady (and short) month in February with a mix of highs and lows.

Still up in the usual first place were Shutterstock. No Single sales this month but a worthwhile increase in On Demand sales pushing the income up.

In a surprise second place were FineArtAmerica with first a high value print sale of Margaret Thatcher and then four separate postcard sales of the Greek island of Paxos. I have had Paxos images bought as postcards before and I am guessing these are to the same buyer.

Alamy took third place with a single good price $$ of a 1978 anti seal hunting demonstration in Trafalgar Square, London. This archive image gets used on quite a regular basis across the various sites that have it. Not bad for a fourty two year old image.

In fourth place were a disappointing Istock with just 16 downloads -less than half of what I normally

T shirt sale at Redbubble: Monarch jet landing at Skiathos

get. A low RPD didn't help matters here either. Can only hope for an improvement in March.

Also disappointing in fifth place were Redbubble with just a single product sale. In this case a T shirt of a Monarch jet coming in to land on the Greek island of Skiathos. Taken in 2012 it is a reminder that Monarch, sadly, no longer exist.

Sixth place went to Bigstock with 6 downloads. Nothing to get excited about but an improvement on recent results.

Seventh place was taken by Adobe with 2 downloads. I had some fun recently by going into my portfolio here and forming two galleries (Majorca and Halki islands). These get featured on your profile at Adobe as well as being published on an Adobe Portfolio page. Whether it helps sales in any way at all I couldn't say but the customisable Portfolio pages look good at least!

Halki island chapel, Greece

Finally, down in eighth place we had Dreamstime with just 2 downloads. 35c subscription sales at that :( With around 2.6k images on Dreamstime that really is a sorrowful result. I've said many times before that I really like DT and can only hope for a turnaround there.

Personal circumstances meant not much time for uploading recently but I did revisit my 2017 trip to the Greek island of Halki including an image of a small chapel on the seafront at Emborio. I've uploaded images of this chapel before but like this more distant view framing the chapel with trees.


Too early to judge how March will go but past experience suggests things should take an upturn from here. More next month. Regards, David.

February Sales Updates:

From photo to watercolour art -Cala Carbo in Majorca

A strong month in February with a surprise at the top and a new direction in my images as I started uploading some "illustrations".

Straight to first place (again)were FineArtAmerica with three sales. A large framed canvas print and two separate T shirt sales. It's starting to look that after my long drought there sales are starting to come in again.

Relegated to second place were Shutterstock with a strong performance in subscription sales with one or more buyers buying a large batch of Greek island images. On Demand and Single sales played a smaller part this month.

Redbubble were in third place with four product sales ranging from stickers to a photographic print.

Fourth place saw Istock with just 28 downloads. Far from their best here.

Fifth place went to a slightly perked up Dreamstime with 7 downloads. Far from the glory days but better than some recent months. A credit sale of footballer George Best helped push up the income here.

In sixth place Alamy disappointed with just one sale (another of my archive politician images). A low

Crusader Knights castle on Halki island, Greece

two figure sale which became my first one at the new reduced 40% commission rate bringing my cut to single figures. That said, that was still higher than most microstock sales produce.

Bigstock took seventh place with 13 downloads. These were mainly all sub sales so dropped them down the income rankings.

Bringing up the rear in eighth place were Adobe Stock (formerly listed here as Fotolia) with 2 downloads. With the Fotolia site now closed to new uploads I have had to transition to Adobe. A few issues initially as I got used to it but I think I now have the grasp of it. The main issue was their auto keyword suggestion which I thought I had eliminated but managed to end up with Greek island images tagged as Jordan and Turkey! Thankfully you can edit images after acceptance so I was able to remove those. I now remember to click Remove Keywords to take out the auto suggestions.

Beach launched fishing boats at Dungeness, Kent

As for those illustrations, a post in Steve Heap's excellent blog Backyard Silver put me on to the Jixipix Watercolour Studio software. This worked out at about £28 (UK price) and is an application that allows you to import a photo and render it in the style of a watercolour painting. There are a number of templates to choose from and various sliders for fine tuning the results. I was mainly thinking of art sites as the market for these but have had some success (as in getting accepted) uploading them to micro sites under the illustrations category. Uploading as photographs just got rejections for overfiltered etc. Whether or not any of these will sell I have no idea but for a fairly low investment I thought it worth trying! I will report back on that in the future. One thing to say about the software is it either works with an image or it doesn't. Some attempts just looked awful and were abandoned. The skill (such as there is) seems to be choosing the right images to convert.

Other recent uploads included the fishing boats on Dungeness beach in Kent. Like my home town of Hastings there is no harbour at Dungeness and the boats are launched from the beach. Another set were images of the medieval Crusader Knights castle on the Greek island of Halki. I've photographed this a number of times over the years but can never resist capturing this slice of history.
Now to see what March will bring. Kind regards, David.

February Sales Updates:

Santa Eulalia merchant schooner in Barcelona

February saw some improvements over the dismal January I am pleased to say.

Back on form in first place were Shutterstock with much improved sales and the return of a good number of On Demand downloads. Several modest Single sales also added to the results here.

Second place went to Istock with 25 downloads with my Tentertainment music festival images continuing to do well.

Redbubble came in third place with 3 product sales. I continue to be impressed with this site and always look forward to seeing what products from my range are purchased. Sadly, as yet, no one has bought a calendar -which I had expected to do well.

Fourth place went to Bigstock with 7 downloads -a mix of local images and Greek islands.

Vintage tram at Port Soller in Majorca

Dreamstime made fifth place with 5 downloads (all subscription sales).

123rf were in sixth place with just 4 downloads. To be fair, as well as stopping new uploads to them I

also opted out of their Partner sales so this is bound to have a downward effect. I am just waiting their promised "good news" announcement at the end of March before probably pulling the plug on them entirely.

Bringing up the rear were Mostphotos with just 1 download (a subscription sale for just a few euro cents). Some people, I gather, do quite well here but it has never really taken off for me. The ability to download your own images for free makes them useful as an additional back up for my files.

Nothing from Alamy in February but I continued to upload my back catalogue to them and now have around 2200 images there. I am hoping that because all my images are available with a Royalty Free license (they have to be because they are RF on other sites) I'll have a bit of an edge there. Carrying out test searches on my image subjects often throws up a lot of competition -until you exclude Rights Managed images from the results and a lot of the competition vanishes.

Zea marina at Piraeus in Athens

Nothing from Picfair either but I did make a major move by increasing the price of all my images from £10 to £40 (making them just under £50 when Picfair add their margin on top). Crazy move when a lot of photographers are only charging a pound or two? Maybe, but now I'm selling on Alamy the Picfair price just looked too cheap for what (I perceive) is a similar market. I also factored in that Picfair is now representing the long established Robert Harding (travel) picture library (prices well above mine!) and even the mobile phone images division of Alamy -Stockimo. If both those think they can get sales at premium prices then I didn't want to be selling myself short. Picfairs global price changer makes it easy to amend all your prices at any time in moments so I can always rethink my strategy at any time.

Recent uploading had me working through my various trips from last year including those from  Athens, Barcelona and Majorca. This year I am returning for an extended stay in Barcelona and going to the Greek island of Tilos -so I'm busy doing research to get stock image ideas ready. I'll report back on those later in the year. Regards, David.

February Sales Updates:

Sold at Picfair: Anti National Front demonstration in Brixton

A stronger month in February with a lot going on in the Microstock world.

Shutterstock took first place as ever with one of their best performances in months. A good number of On Demand sales and a few modest Single Downloads helped boost things here. Their new redesigned Contributor Dashboard has gone down well with me (though not everyone) and I am especially enjoying seeing exactly where in the world my downloads have taken place

Second place went to Dreamstime with 6 downloads. Two higher value credit sales pushed up the earning here.

In third place were Picfair with (at last) my third sale there. My seventies image of protests at a National Front march in Brixton finding a buyer at well above micro prices. A nice touch at Picfair is that you can request payout as soon as you have a sale which is what I did. For some reason I opted for payment via Paypal (rather than direct to my bank). Be aware that this will carry a fee at Paypal -I forgot that the main agencies pay the fees for you. A lesson learnt for next time.

Fourth place was taken by print site Redbubble with two merchandise sales. Things seem to have slowed recently here but nothing like Fine Art America where it is now some fourteen months since my last sale. Not sure what happened to them but I have, in any case, paid my premium account fee for another year in the hope that things pick up.

Church of Christ The Saviour, Tilos island

Fifth place went to Istock with 16 downloads. February 20 saw the first of their new monthly sales reports. Unless you upload the report into some spreadsheet software you are going to have a hard time deciphering what has sold and for how much. Why they can't just give you a straight forward list of sales and commission I don't know. There's talk of improvements to come so I hope this will be one of them. The big question around the new % based subscription commissions was partially answered, Yes there some paltry $0.02 commissions but also many well above the old fixed 28c per download. I'll have to see how that pans out in the coming months before making decisions on continuing to work with Istock.

Bigstock were in sixth place with 17 downloads. A strong surge of Greek island images here this month.

123rf made seventh place with a poor 5 downloads. There seems to be no consistency with them at all recently.

Dodekanisos Express catamaran powers into Tilos island

Lastly, in at eighth place were Fotolia with 3 downloads. Bring on the editorial is what I would say to them!

Over at Alamy, still no sales as yet but exciting times as their impressive new Image Manager finally reached me (they have been rolling it out across contributors for a while now). Easy to upload and bulk edit it is a pleasure to use and, of course, the new Manager finally allows for editorial images to be set as Royalty Free (RF). For me, this means that I can now upload all the editorial images I have on Microstock (e.g. most of my portfolio). I also applied for and was granted access to the archive/historic uploads so I can also upload all my old celeb/political images. Best of all, these do not have to be approved - just upload and they're in. My portfolio has jumped from under 100 images to over 700 since getting the new Manager - with quite a bit of interest (in terms of views and zooms) from buyers. Feels like Alamy will now finally come good for me going forward.

Recent uploading saw me working on more images of the Greek island of Tilos including the Church of Christ the Saviour in Mikro Chorio and the Dodekanisos Express ferry arriving at Livadia. March has started slowly so far so I'll see what the rest of the month brings. Regards, David.

February Sales Updates:

Margaret Thatcher - Shutterstock E.D.

A pleasing strong month in February with a few nice surprises.

A powerful month on Shutterstock as it maintained its usual place at the top. On Demand sales were strong, producing more revenue than standard subs. An Enhanced Download (Extended License) of Margaret Thatcher helped boost things further. The controversial change to the ED payout (from flat $28 to a varied % amount based on your sales tier) didn't make a lot of difference here. Under $3 less than previously -certainly not enough to make me consider opting out of these sales as some have done.

Istock took a decisive second place with a worthwhile 10 credit sales and a further 27 sub/PP downloads. This was one of the strongest months for credit sales in a long time.

In third place came Dreamstime who, as previously posted, had a record sales day for me with 54 subscription sales of my archive rock band images. A further 10 subscription sales during the month helped reverse the poor showing for DT of late. It was interesting to see the flurry of unrelated downloads after having that big day. It may be that my images got pushed up in the search rankings because of that. Or just a co-incidence :) If you are on Dreamstime never miss the chance to post good news using the sites Blog facility. New blogs get listed on DT front page and can help to draw a lot of attention to your portfolio. Also, do not forget to make use of the social media sharing buttons on your blog posts to draw in Twitter, Facebook and Google+ readers. To date my post has had over 1600 viewings and gained a place in the "hot" topics listing -again bringing in more attention to my work. DT also rewards popular/useful posts with a free credit which can be put towards image purchases there. Several of the images on my Greek Islands blog have been obtained in this way.

Vintage car - Laptop sleeve sale on Redbubble

Fourth place went to Redbubble who pleased with a further two product sales. Margaret Thatcher on a baby outfit (lucky baby!) and my vintage American car image on a laptop sleeve. It's taken a while, but my images seem to be gaining some traction at Redbubble of late. My only disappointment so far is not selling any of my range of calendars. I had felt sure that Christmas would have seen a few sales of these.

123RF took fifth place with 14 downloads. Editorial images making a strong showing here. It's a shame then that, once again, I have a backlog of over twenty editorial images awaiting review -some for weeks now. Seems I keep going down the same road of waiting forever for reviews and then having to email support to get something to happen (sigh).

Lech Walesa - multiple sales in February

Bigstock made sixth place with 7 downloads. Steady tick over site this. Never really excites or surprises and I have never had an extended license there in all the years I have been with them. Maybe one day?

Finally in seventh place were Fotolia with just a single download. I am prepared to be patient with this one as I still only have a small portfolio and there is everything to play for in the future -especially with all images being mirrored on Adobe Stock and available directly within Photoshop. They just need to start taking Editorial images and I'll be really happy.

Images used this time show the Enhanced sale on Margaret Thatcher at SS and the vintage American car sold at Redbubble. Lech Walesa, former President of Poland, makes an appearance after a flurry of sales on Shutterstock, Dreamstime, Bigstock and 123rf. A good example of how archive images can sell when the subject is in the current news. Regards, David.

February Sales Updates:

Agios Ioannis beach, Meganissi island

A rather late posting for my February updates I know, but other events intervened.
As every month, Shutterstock came out on top by a long, long way. Three modest Single Downloads and a good crop of On Demand downloads helped to make a solid month here.

Second place fell to Istock with 5 regular credit sales and a further 16 sub/PP downloads. What is interesting to see is the decline in PP (Thinkstock.com) sales as the new Istock subscriptions build up. It seems fairly clear where they are pushing the marketing now.

Traditional beach huts, Glyne Gap

Dreamstime came in third with 9 downloads. February saw the long awaited payout on the Google Adwords deal with many contributors reporting floods of $2 sales from the deal. I was full of anticipation but received just a single sale (one of the two images they originally chose last year for the Beta testing). Oh well, maybe the next round will prove better.

Bigstock saw fourth place with 16 downloads (mainly subs). As previously posted, Hastings and
St.Leonards subjects continued to do well here.

123rf were down at fifth place with 9 downloads (again, mainly subs). At least I kept my Level 2 status at the end of the month.

Fotolia managed just one sale to make sixth place in the list.

Glyne Gap from Galley Hill

Finally, a sale at Yaymicro (from one of their Partner sites). This was my first sale from Yay since last August and February also marked a year since my last sale directly on the Yay site itself. The easy uploading and quick batch editing keep me supporting them with new images but really (on a business level) I should give up on them. The trouble is that I still remember the good early years when they used to get me regular sales at decent rates. I just keep thinking the lack of sales cannot continue there forever. Can it?

Recent uploading saw me revisit some images from my 2008 trip to the Greek island of Meganissi as well as a set of images from a local beauty spot here called Glyne Gap. I'm a bit hesitant to admit it was the first time I had visited it since moving to Hastings in 2009. I'll certainly be going again in the near future! Regards, David.

February sales updates:

An average month in February with, as usual, Shutterstock way out in front. A good number of On Demand downloads and a high paying Single download pushed the income up nicely. Meanwhile, the Shutterstock app for Facebook continues to hiccup with just the odd sales update now and again. Forget about the Twitter app -it stopped last June for me and shows no sign of ever being reactivated again! Whether or not either of these helps sales I can't know, but they certainly do not hinder.

Dreamstime did well with 15 downloads but these were mostly subs sales thus only $6.90 in earnings. It's been noted many times how DT sales come in Subs waves and then Credit sale waves (without anyone ever really fathoming why). Think I'm now due my Credit sales period!

Istock perked up with 14 downloads ($10.18) and a further 5 PP sales ($1.40). The big news from Istock is that they are introducing subscription packages from April. Commission will be at $0.28 for non exclusives (in line with the current PP rate at Thinkstock and Photos.com). How this will affect sales remains to be seen. On balance, I expect to see an increase in sales and revenue from this. Parent company Getty Images also announced a plan to make millions of images free to use in "non commercial" blogs and the like. Obviously this produced predictable outrage amongst contributors with suggestions they were trying to drive competing agencies out of business. I take heart in the fact that Shutterstock seem unconcerned about the move and do not see it as a major threat. In reality how many bloggers are going to want to embed Getty images into their blog -complete with links to Getty and (potentially) some sort of advertising stream? I know I would rather just pay for an image for either of my blogs when I need to -without the Getty clutter around it.

123rf produced 12 downloads ($3.97) -again mainly subs sales. As mentioned before reviews of my (non editorial) images have ground to a halt -I still have an images from January/February in pending. A recent thread at microstockgroup.com suggested that they review large batches promptly but smaller batches or single images are left waiting.

Bigstock saw 9 downloads ($4.90). I'm still seeing an increasing number of subsciption sales here which, thankfully, are still being paid (for now) at the enhanced $0.38 rate for Bridge to Bigstock contributors.

Fotolia managed 5 downloads (1.25 credits). I still have a tiny portfolio there, but what does get accepted seems to sell.

Yay surprised with a single download paying 0.75 euros. Just what caused Yay sales to drop off a cliff after last April remains unknown. Google changed their search results at that time and some other agencies reported a fall in traffic after that -so that may be the reason. Even their multitude of partner sites seem to produce little or no sales.

Finally, having posted recently about no sales at Mostphotos for a long time, I had a sub sale in February for 0.27euros. Hopefully, that isn't it for another nine months.

Uploading in February included an archive image of British architect Sir Richard Rogers as well as images of the Krka waterfalls in Croatia and my local event -the annual Jack In The Green festival in Hastings. Regards, David.

 

February sales updates:

As ever, another great month at Shutterstock which pulled in 136 downloads ($65.18). Is there anything bad to say about them? Well, their Facebook contributor app doesn't always work and just misses days out. Ironically it always seems to miss when I have a good (for me) day. I recently had 15 downloads in one day and, of course, the app didn't post that one.
Dreamstime produced 18 downloads ($11.99) though, sadly, that included quite a few sub sales bringing down the actual income.
Istock didn't repeat their strong performance from January but managed 7 downloads ($9.71) plus a further $1.12 from four PP sales. Further (mainly) editorial uploading brought my portfolio there up to 670. I also hit   my 250 downloads which means, woohay, that I am now elligible to go exclusive there! I'll pass on that one, thanks, but what was interesting was that my upload limit rose from 18-20. Not sure if that was just for becoming a "bronze" level contributor or not. Couldn't find anything on the site saying you get a rise in upload limits.
Bigstock saw 8 downloads ($5.88). Their new subscription packages are now live and I have had 2 so far at  $0.38 each.
123rf also saw 8 downloads bringing in just $3.86. Still a wait and see on them but I'm into my third month of halting uploads there.
Yaymicro reported 2 partner sales and one direct sale bringing in 1.25 euro.
Fotolia were up with 8 downloads (1.95 credits). These were pretty much all sub sales.
Uploading in February saw me continuing with my Jack In The Green festival images and also re-visiting my seventies music images such as the one above of "power pop" band The Boyfriends, which I took in 1978. March has started well on Shutterstock so we will see how that goes. Regards, David.

February updates:

For a short month February provided excellent sales.

Shutterstock had a BME in quantity of downloads with 113 sales ($59.65). It fell a couple of dollars short of BME in earnings with last September still holding the record thanks to an EL sale. A large chunk of earning came from On Demand sales and one Single Sale (paying $4.75).

123rf produced a healthy 23 downloads ($16.55) taking me to a second payout.

Dreamstime perked up with 12 downloads ($15.34). A Tiff sale of Margaret Thatcher for $9.20 helped push that earnings figure. The extra portfolio exposure there was very welcome.

Bigstock pleased with 6 downloads($11.10), all Editorial images. The Bridge connector continues to do its job there with SS approved images showing up in my Bigstock port a day or two later.

Istock proved a bit dissapointing with no sales up to Feb 16. A flurry at the end produced 8 downloads ($6.52) with a further $1.12 from four PP sales.

Yaymicro saw 2 downloads (both of Margaret Thatcher) earning 2euros.

Fotalia also saw 2 downloads (2 credits). Clearly there are sales to be had at FT if I could just get more accepted.

Uploading in February saw another delve into my archives with colour images of Lech Walesa and former Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine amongst them. I only have a limited number of colour archive images available compared to my B/W files but it certainly made a change. Regards, David.

February updates:

February saw a strong month at Shutterstock with a total of 83 downloads ($21.31) helped by one buyer scooping up 17 of my archive b/w images of various celebrities (Anne Bancroft etc). I also had a number of sales of the Thin Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore who, sadly, died in February (likewise on Dreamstime). They also rolled out a Beta version of a great new feature in which you can see the total all time sales and income from each image. No great surprise to find my image of the 2009 Tentertainment local music festival (see earlier posting) at the top position with over 80 downloads. Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister, comes a close second for a single image (or top if you combine the sales of all my images of her).

Dreamtime produced 19 downloads ($7.82). A higher than usual number of subscription sales pulled the income down there but was boosted by a (level three) sale of Margaret Thatcher - paying $3.70 in commission.

Bigstock made 3 downloads ($4.50) including one of my Shell petrol station images which paid a pleasing $3 in commission. The really good news here this month was their announcement that their payout limit has reverted to $30 (from $50). In their announcement they stated that this was so contributors could get more regular payments. What a refreshing attitude compared to the agencies that set high payouts (probaly hoping that many will never make it and they can just keep the money). My balance was already over $40 so I applied for payment and received it a couple of days later. All credit to Bigstock for this move. Now, if only Shutterstock would just include me in the "Bridge to Bigstock" programme I could double my portfolio and hopefully see a good increase in sales.

Also hitting payout was British agency Picturenation with a medium res sale of Anita Roddick (founder of the Body Shop chain of cosmetic stores) which paid £4 in commission, taking me above the magic £50 required. In contrast to Bigstock though PN only payout once every 8 weeks and I just missed the deadline for the next one. That's certainly one area of improvement Picturenation could work on in the future. If Yaymicro can pay within two minutes of request (via Paypal) I don't see why others cannot.

123RF continued its climb with 7 downloads ($3.50) -virtually all Editorial images. Many of my images there now also feature on parent company site Inmagine.com (but, sadly, as yet they are still not taking Editorial images).

Istock produced 1 regular download ($0.20) and 3 partner program sales at the newly improved rate of $0.28 each. On the plus side there the Editorial collection is now live. With ten images accepted so far and more pending I have already had my first Editorial sale. Istock could potentially (finally) prove a worthwhile site for my images.

Nothing at Cutcaster yet but I continued uploading my celebrity archives and now have over 400 images online there. I haven't had time, as yet, to start further uploads to Canstockphoto so nothing there yet either.

February also saw nothing at Veer, Mostphotos or Yaymicro, though at the latter the 4th quarter (2010) third party sales must now be imminent. Wishing you all good sales in March. Regards, David.