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.
Showing posts with label june sales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label june sales. Show all posts

Friday, 8 July 2022

June Sales Updates:

Gordon Brown - good sale on Pond5
 Just as May saw Alamy going from hero to zero June saw Pond5 going from zero to hero!

So, straight into first place were Pond5 with 5 custom licence sales of archive images of former British Prime Ministers. Margaret Thatcher, Ted Heath, John Major, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. These were all for decent amounts and I got the usual 50% commission for each. Whilst photo sales on Pond are not frequent when they do happen they are for reasonable amounts (though whether that will last now they are owned by Shutterstock we will see).

Shutterstock took second place with a big increase in downloads and 8 On Demand sales plus 3 modest Single sales making up over 50% of the total. They would have been an easy winner but for that nice Pond surprise.

Third place went to Istock with 37 downloads. A low RPD this month pulled them down a bit.

Fourth place went to FineArtAmerica with a T shirt sale. FAA never seem to break through in mass

Tony Blair - sticker sale on Redbubble
sales for me but always do enough each year overall to make them worthwhile.

Dreamstime took fifth place with 6 downloads including two rare credit sales of my former home town of Hastings. Just a few cents until payout now.

Alamy made a small comeback in sixth place with a $ sale. This was another from my set of WW2 ration books and Identity cards. I'm really pleased with how this series is doing as they seem to be getting regular sales across all my agencies.

Seventh place went to Bigstock with 4 downloads. No sign of the Bridge returning.

Redbubble disappointed in eighth place with a single sticker sale of Tony Blair (making another outing this month. Not sure what you do with a sticker of a former Prime Minister but there you go.

Bringing up the rear in ninth place was a very rare appearance from Mostphotos with a single subscription sale. I don't know if anyone does well with this site but it certainly has never worked well for me. The big plus is that you can download your own images for free so it's another form of backup.

Food Ration book - gathering sales

Missing from the rankings list above is Adobe where I didn't get a single sale during June. I still hope for the day when they take proper editorial images and not just the limited (no people) Illustrative Editorial. Hard to figure why they are so adverse to this when just about every other agency going accepts them.

As mentioned in my last post shooting was concentrated on my Greek islands trip to Ithaca. I have yet to start editing and uploading these. I'm still continuing to go through my archives looking for further images to scan and upload.

July now takes us into the famous Summer Slowdown so we'll see what the month brings. Regards, David.

Monday, 5 July 2021

June Sales Updates:

 

Catalonia: In the news
A steady month in June with first signs of the Summer Slowdown balancing with a coming out of pandemic upturn.

First place went to Shutterstock as in the old days. An uptick of On Demand sales making up almost 50% of the dollars earned.

Istock took second place with 24 downloads. An improved RPD brought the figures up here. Interesting that no less than fourteen of these were music festival images (a sure sign that some normality is starting to return).

Third place went to Alamy with 3 downloads. An archival b/w shot of theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn and two images of a Lidl supermarket.

Adobe rose to take fourth place with 8 downloads. Good to see two more of my editorials sell here - Tesco trolleys and a Laura Ashley store.

Fifth place went to Redbubble with 2 product sales ( a T shirt and a greeting card).

Soundwaves community choir: June sales

 Dreamstime took sixth place with 10 downloads. My recently uploaded John Lewis store image got an early sale here.

FineArtAmerica made seventh place with a T Shirt sale.


Finally, in eight place were Bigstock with 5 downloads. My big aviation uplift of the last couple of months seems to have come to an end.


Tentertainment music festival: Picking up sales

Overall in June there was an uplift in music festival images across the board. I also had a number of sales of my community choir images across several agencies. Barcelona protest images also sold as the Catalonian politicians jailed after the 2017 declaration of independence were pardoned.


Still no overseas travel lined up yet. I'm just waiting for things to stabilise a bit more (which will be helped by the proposed lifting of Covid restrictions in the UK on July 19). I'm missing the Greek islands and Spain so hope to be there in the not too distant future. Regards, David.

Wednesday, 1 July 2020

June Sales Updates:

Symi island - sold on Fine Art America
A strong month in June with a few exceptionally good sales and a marked changing in my results line up.

Alamy took a commanding lead in first place with 3 downloads (all from my b/w archives). A couple of very modest sales of politicians Richard Tracey and Ken Clarke were topped off on the last day of the month by an excellent $$$ sale of Seventies band The Fabulous Poodles (specifically violinist Bobby Valentino playing live on stage in 1978). A great end to the month!

Second place went to FineArtAmerica with a substantial canvas print sale of Yialos harbour on the Greek island of Symi. I am certainly seeing an upturn at FAA in recent months.

Third place place was taken by another print site Redbubble with 3 product sales. Two posters of Majorca and a sticker of Tony Blair.

Istock made fourth place with a disappointing 18 downloads. Only a reasonable RPD held things up
Fabulous Poodles - sold on Alamy
here.

Fifth place went to Dreamstime with 5 downloads. Three of these paid out the 10% bonus commission offered from new sales after June 1. Thus a $0.35 sub sale rises to $0.38 and the $2.00 sales are now $2.20. Note, the bonus does not apply to plans purchased before that date. It's a nice touch in these times.

Making their final appearance (for now at least) in Sixth place were Shutterstock with 11 downloads. As previously posted, I deactivated my port on June 6 in protest at the new commission structure so this just represents sales for the first week of June - many of which were for paltry $0.10 amounts. My withheld portfolio may be small (compared to some) at 2600 files but I am certainly leaving them some gaps in their coverage. Margaret Thatcher anyone? I even had an email from them saying a buyer wanted to purchase one of my archive images and the fee would be $5.00. Would I consider re-activating to allow this sale? Politely declined with my reasons. The #boycottshutterstock goes on. Check out the newly formed https://stockcoalition.org/ for news of action here.

Bigstock made seventh place with 4 downloads. As mentioned before, my portfolio here will not get bigger as my SS uploads were mirrored to them. Cannot see it would be worth uploading directly for those sort of sales. That said, they did get another sale of my Coronavirus letter image -the only place to have sold it so far.

Plaza de Espana in Seville
Bringing up the rear in eighth place were Adobe with just a single small sub sale. If I had hoped they would be announcing a full editorial image offering to capitalise on the Shutterstock carnage I was to be disappointed (so far).

Recent uploading saw me returning to my 2019 trip to Seville for a number of images including one of the rowing boats you can hire at the stunning Plaza de Espana. I look forward to the day when I can actually return for real.

Looking for other outlets for my images I decided to sign up to Pond5 My portfolio page . They are mainly known as a video agency but do take other media including stock photographs. They quite often supply archive footage for television documentaries and the like so I thought my archive images (at least) might make a good fit. I wasn't at all sure if my b/w scans would get accepted but my initial test batch of 11 images all passed. You can set your own prices or let them do it and they pay 50% commission on photo sales. I've set my own for now but really have no idea how Pond5 will work out for me. Obviously, I will report any sales if they happen.

Stay safe. Regards, David.

Wednesday, 10 July 2019

June Sales Updates:

LMS Class 5 steam locomotive passes St. Leonards
A stable month in June which saw limited uploads due to a trip to Greece but plenty of new photographs.

Way out in front in first place were Shutterstock with a strong number of subscription sales but slightly less On Demand sales than normal. A couple of Single sales boosted things up.

Second place went to Redbubble with 4 product sales (T shirts and a phone cover). They seem to be having a problem at present with the social media sharing buttons missing from the various products. A look at their help centre confirmed they are aware of this and looking for a fix.

Third place (and only just beaten by Redbubble) went to Istock with 39 downloads. Travel images
Solar energy array on Tilos island, Greece
seem to do especially well here though my Tentertainment music festival images always have a strong showing as well. It's always interesting to see an event in a small Kent town get downloaded from countries all over the World as a generic outdoors/summer/festival/event image.

Dreamstime made fourth place with 5 downloads. One of these was a higher paying credit sale of Professor Stephen Hawking which pushed them up the rankings.

Fifth place went to Alamy with a single modest sale. This was a 1978 image of Danny Kustow -guitarist in the Tom Robinson Band. Sadly, Danny died earlier this year and this probably prompted the sale. One of the things about having old archive images in your portfolio is that it is inevitable that, in the course of time, these sort of uses will come up.

Danny Kustow of the Tom Robinson Band
Bringing up the rear in sixth place (nothing from Adobe this month) were Bigstock with just 2 downloads. That's the least I have had from them in a long time (not that are ever a big seller for me).

New shooting in June was mainly round a two week return trip to the Greek island of Tilos (went there last year  as well). I especially wanted to get  more images of their innovative energy project which aims to make the island self sufficient in power via a solar farm and a (very large) wind turbine. On the way out I had a couple of days in Rhodes -concentrating on the historic walled Old Town area.


Back home (literally the next day) I had the chance to photograph a steam locomotive excursion (London to Hastings) on its return journey through St.Leonards Warrior Square station. I was pleased to see how many people turned out to watch this go through. If you are interested in this type of photography you can look on the internet for the various steam excursion operators where they provide details and timings of upcoming trips.


Early sales for July are looking encouraging but, of course, we are now heading into the famous Summer Slowdown period so we'll see. Regards, David.


Wednesday, 18 July 2018

June Sales Updates:

Church of St. Nicholas on Tilos island, Greece
June was an unexciting month in terms of photo sales but personally exciting with a two week stay on the little Greek island of Tilos and the installation of new super fast broadband making my work flow way easier (more on those later).

As usual Shutterstock came well out in front. On Demand sales were considerably down this month -pulling down the total revenue earnings.

Alamy made a pleasing second place with 3 downloads. None of them especially large in money terms but still well above typical microstock rates. All three were from my old archive images confirming that the time spent uploading these was worthwhile. My Alamy portfolio has now passed the 2.5k mark.

Istock continues to pull in the revenue with 36 downloads giving them third place.

In fourth place was Dreamstime with 12 downloads including a worthwhile Extended License.


Solar energy powering Tilos island, Greece
Redbubble made fifth place with a single sale of childrens clothing. Yet again some lucky baby is going to have an outfit adorned with a Margaret Thatcher image! For anyone wondering how to get childrens clothing as a product line here is the answer. Click edit on the first template (T Shirts) then click on the I for information symbol (over on the right of screen). Then tick the childrens clothing box before hitting save. Basically you have to opt in to this for each upload to avoid inappropriate images appearing on kids clothes.

Bigstock did well with 14 downloads and made sixth place. A mixed bunch of images this month.

Breaking their four downloads a month rule 123rf continued their slow goodbye (from me) with 6 downloads pushing me to barely $2 to payout level and giving them seventh place this month. Now at six months since I ceased uploading to them.

In eighth place were Mostphotos with a single subscription sale. I'm never quite sure why I continue to bother with them (other than the free back up service) but I have now opted out of their subscription packages so any future sales should be for a reasonable rate. If there are any, of course. Either way I'm not really losing anything there given how few sales I get.

Framing Livadia harbour on Tilos island, Greece
Two weeks of June were taken up by a trip to the small Greek island of Tilos. I hadn't stayed there since 2006 (when I wasn't doing photography) so my images were limited to those from a couple of day trips from the nearby island of Halki. There was plenty to shoot on Tilos including two main villages, two deserted villages, a monastery and a couple of Crusader Knights castles. Of especial interest was the solar/wind power project Tilos have whereby they hope to become self sufficient in power just from renewable sources. This has attracted a lot of attention so getting images of the wind turbine and the solar panel array were high on my shoot list for the trip.

Back home my uploading was advanced greatly by upgrading to 4g broadband. The difference was astounding. Single images now upload almost instantly and larger batches take a few seconds - not the many minutes they used to take. Ironically, this is costing me less per month than my old slower 3g broadband did. In terms of uploading this is certainly a gamechanger and I look forward to getting many more images uploaded going forward.

July looks set to be firmly in the Summer Slowdown mode judging by my sales so far. More next month. Regards, David.

Saturday, 22 July 2017

June Sales Updates:

The Markellos Tower on Aegina island, Greece
Another steady month in June with a number of my smaller agencies making it into my sales report as well as a continuing good run at Istock.
As ever, well out in front were Shutterstock with another strong month and income circa double of my second place site.

Second place went to Istock with another impressive month of 45 downloads -down from May but much higher than I had been seeing in previous years (and that's with limited uploading in 2017). As previously there were some very low paying subscription sales but others paying much higher than the old $0.28 fixed rate. I said I would see how the new percentage rates worked out in practise and I think it is fair to say that while I am seeing results like these I will be sticking with them.

Picfair took third place with another single sale. Looks like things are picking up here.

Fourth place was for Redbubble with a further three product sales (T shirt, Baby clothes, Sticker).

Bigstock saw fifth place with 13 downloads.

In sixth place were Dreamstime with 9 downloads with all being subscription sales.
Tourist rides in Aegina Town, Greece

123rf slipped to seventh place with 13 downloads (no big sales like last month sadly).

Alamy were in eighth place with a further single sale. Good to see no further refunds and my first sales are starting to show as cleared funds.

Ninth place went to Fotolia with 3 downloads.

Canstock had a single download to put them in tenth place.

Finally we have Mostphotos with two small subscription downloads.

Rhodes Cup yacht race, Tilos island, Greece
June saw little uploading due to spending (yet again) two weeks on the little Greek island of Halki. Whilst there I also took a day trip to Tilos island where I concentrated on photographing the abandoned village of Gera. Last years Tilos images have done well so I hope to continue that success with these. June also saw a General Election in Britain and I received a number of sales of Amber Rudd (Home Secretary) and Damien Green (newly promoted to Deputy Prime Minister). Recent uploads have concentrated on my 2016 images of the Rhodes Cup yacht race on Tilos (rejected by Istock as they deemed them "professional sport") and the famous landmark of the Markellos Tower from my April visit to Aegina. This interesting old building was once the seat of the Greek government during their War of Independence (from Turkey) when Aegina itself was the temporary Capital of Greece.

July looks like it will prove, as expected, the start of the Summer Slowdown with fairly low sales on most sites so far. Updates will follow in due course. Regards, David.

Saturday, 9 July 2016

June Sales Updates:

Soon to go: British Home Stores in Hastings
As promised a prompter posting for my sales updates for June.

In first place, no prizes for guessing that Shutterstock came top with around double the earnings of my second place site. A good crop of On Demand sales in June but only one small Single sale.

A strong second place for Istock with 9 credit sales and a further 27 PP and sub downloads. Interesting to note that of the latter only one was from the PP. Is Thinkstock being run down in favour of promoting sub sales at Istock? Trying to predict what Getty will do next is a near impossible task - so I'll just await developments.

Dragon Lily seed heads on Halki island
Third place went to Redbubble with 6 sales. A good mix of products including mugs,T shirts, stickers. In a new move they have just announced the scrapping of their minimum payout level. Commission on any sales will just be paid out by the 15th of the following month regardless of amount. Good news for those that do not sell much and have been sitting on a balance in their account.

Fourth place went to an improved Dreamstime with 16 downloads. Good to see a bit more action here but a
long way from where they were for me.

Fifth place saw Bigstock also with 16 downloads. My music festival images were the best seller here.

123rf managed sixth place with 18 downloads. Most of these were sub sales which pulled the income down. It's been a while since I saw some large credit sales at 123.

Fotolia were in seventh place with 3 downloads.

At eighth place were MostPhotos which for the second month running saw 2 subscription downloads.

Agioi Anargyroi church on Agistri island
No sales over at Picfair (still stuck on just 2 sales ever). My experiment with their bulk price adjuster came to an end when I reverted all my images back to £10 per license. My test to see if a £5 level would generate more sales suggested to me that pricing isn't the issue. I really want Picfair to work and intend to keep uploading.

Recent uploads included some shots of the Hastings branch of British Home Stores (BHS). Founded in 1928, the Department Store chain of 163 UK shops is now closing down for good -with no viable buyer for the business found. Sad to see a long standing part of the High Street going but, if I'm honest, I cannot remember the last time I even went in the store let alone bought anything. Other uploads included shots of Dragon Lily seed heads taken on the Greek island of Halki last year. These proved hard to ID but I put out requests for help on several forums resulting in several suggestions but Dragon Lily came in as the most credible -based on a lot of research. Google reverse image search didn't help at all -just returning lots of images of green olives! Finally, I continued with my uploads from my May trip to Athens including the church of Agioi Anargyroi on the little island of Agistri. Regards, David.

Thursday, 16 July 2015

June sales updates:

Emborio village, Halki island
As ever, by far, Shutterstock came in the number one slot for June. The month saw a good crop of On Demand downloads but only two modest Single downloads.

Second place went to Istock with a strong performance of 12 credit sales (many of the Tentertainment music festival) plus a healthy 37 subscription and PP sales.

Bell tower on Halki island
New agency Redbubble took third place with two product sales (as previously posted). An exciting start to my relationship with this Print On Demand site.

In fourth place Dreamstime showed a bounce back from the dire sales last month with 8 downloads.

Fifth place went to Fotolia with only 1 download but it was my first ever extended license on the site -paying a healthy six credits. Pleasingly the image was from the same set as my avatar picture here. Fotolia also had some exciting news with the launch of Adobe Stock. Adobe (who purchased Fotolia a while back) will now mirror the Fotolia library within Adobe products such as Photoshop allowing designers to choose and purchase images without leaving the programme. This should certainly lead to a boost in sales once it gets established. In addition, at Fotolia, sub sales now count as full sales towards your ranking. This was applied retrospectively so I jumped from the basic white level to the higher paying bronze level.

In sixth place were 123RF with 7 downloads. My images uploaded in May continued to await review throughout the month (and still do at this time). Not sure what's going on there.

Stefanos volcano crater, Nisyros island
Just pushed into seventh place were Bigstock with 13 downloads (virtually all subs).

Finally, a small subscription sale from Mostphotos gave them a rare appearance here and eighth place.

Very little uploading in June but plenty of shooting as I spent two weeks on the lovely small Greek island of Halki. This was my third visit to the island (population just 280!). As before I took a day trip by ferry to the nearby island of Nisyros where the star attraction is the live volcano crater which you can walk around in -this was still as amazing third time round. I'll be working on my new images in due course but the ones here are from my last visit in 2010. Check out my Greek island blog for more info on Halki. Regards, David.

Wednesday, 16 July 2014

June Sales Updates:

The Red Arrows
A steady month in June reflecting the usual Summer slowdown. As previously posted, I was on the Greek island of Paxos for two weeks and, therefore, new uploading was very limited during the month.

Obviously, Shutterstock came way out on top with a slight drop in download numbers over May but a good number of On Demand sales increasing the total revenue. Just one small Single download this month.

Istock produced 6 regular downloads ($5.72) but then boosted that with a pleasing $5.32 from 19 PP sales (one of my best results ever on the PP -probaly as a result of editorial images now being available) and finally the first of the new subsciption sales netting $0.84 from 3 downloads.

Coco and The Butterfields
Dreamstime saw 15 downloads ($11.82) with a continuing mix of Greek island images and old archive favourites such as Margaret Thatcher.

123rf ticked on with 12 downloads ($6.88). There seems very little variation in sales on 123 each month and at my Level 2 status income remains dissapointingly low -receiving just $0.25 for subscription sales. The days of 50% commission seem a long time ago now.

Fotolia produced just 2 downloads (0.82 credits). Whether or not being opted out of their DPC operation made a difference I don't know. I still only have a very small port there in any case.

Finally, another sale at Mostphotos! OK it was just a subscription sale paying 0.23 Euros but, all the same, still showing some signs of life. The image in question was British band Coco and The Butterfields performing at the annual Tentertainment music festival (pictured).


Al fresco dining, Skiathos
Nothing again from Yaymicro in June making my 0.75Euro sale in February my only sale for 2014 (with over 2k images online there). Not even their many Partner sites seem to be producing any sales -though to be fair most of my port is editorial (which, sadly, they do not send to the Partners). It's a real shame to see how sales have declined there. It was never a top seller but I used to see regular payouts. A check on my uploads for the last year or so just shows zero views on virtually everything to the extent I wondered if the view counter was broken. As an experiment I Tweeted a couple of images and the views count shot up to double fiures on those -so it does work. Shortly after every image suddenly had one view each - I assume Tweeting attracted the attention of a search engine somewhere. Might be worth trying with your own images. Even their Twitter page seems to have vanished -I just got a Page Does Not Exist message. (Edit: The Twitter link on their site doesn't work. However, you can find their account at twitter.com/yayimages ). I really hope they can turn this around.


Recent uploads included a lucky shot of a Gull swallowing a rat in the harbour at Skiathos. I was rather pleased with this image but Shutterstock obviously weren't -Poor Composition/Lighting etc. Luckily it got accepted virtually everywhere else. I also uploaded a couple of new images of The Red Arrows from the 2013 Eastbourne Airshow (Airbourne). Recent news reports that the team might be scrapped as a part of defence spending cuts (though, thankfully, denied) might help get some sales. Regards, David.

Wednesday, 3 July 2013

June sales updates:

Not too much sign of a Summer Slowdown in June as might have been expected.

As always Shutterstock led the way with 153 downloads ($82.88). Greek island images (in particular Halki) proved especially good sellers this month.

Another good month from Dreamstime saw 16 downloads ($28.74). A varied mix of images selling there.


Istock produced 10 downloads (£12.98) but due to technical issues the May partner program sales were not posted during June. In another major move Istock simplified their various collections and price points during June. Short term, the main effect for me was the scrapping of the Photo+ level (a limited percentage of my portfolio which I self-selected to sell at a higher price point). These images are now, for the time being, back in the lower priced "main" collection. Istock say the process is not yet complete and my hope is that these files will move up to the new Signature collection, though there appears to be no certainty of that happening. A wait and see situation.

Bigstock perked up with 11 downloads ($6.28) with a noted increase in subscription sales.

123rf only managed 6 downloads ($1.72) leaving me to start questioning again if they are worth uploading to.

Fotolia produced two downloads (0.50 credits).

Amazingly, Veer suddenly produced a subscription sale ($0.25) - my first sale there since 2011. Payout there still looks as far away as ever but at least there is some sign of life. Their web uploader still remains broken after some 7-8 months and a further email to them produced the response that they were looking to the forthcoming updating of the site to resolve the problem.

Uploads in June saw some new archive images of Mohamed Al Fayed (former owner of Harrods department store) being accepted.
However, uploading was limited due to spending two weeks holiday on the charming Greek island of Alonissos where I encountered some mules (pictured). I was also able to spend a day photographing on the nearby island of Skopelos (location of the film Mamma Mia). I'm looking forward to editing and uploading these images in due course. Regards, David.

Wednesday, 4 July 2012

June sales updates:

A mixed set of results in June - but overall pleasing.

Shutterstock excelled with 104 downloads bringing in a BME in earnings of $98.26. This was achieved from two Enhanced Downloads paying $28 each. One was the ever popular Tentertainment music festival (pictured) and the other was an archive B/W image of the 1989 Trades Union Congress in Blackpool. June also saw another milestone as my total earnings at SS crossed the $1000.00 line.

Dreamstime produced 7 downloads ($10.90). Frustratingly their review of editorial images has slowed greatly (I now have three batches going back some 14 days in the queue). According to their forum they have seen a big increase in editorial submissions and are training up extra reviewers to catch up with the backlog.

Bigstock continues to show promise with 5 downloads ($7.70) -all editorial images.

Istock dissapointed in June with just 8 downloads ($4.88) plus a further $3.64 from a BME of 13 Partner Program sales.

123RF also dissapointed with just 7 downloads ($5.04). My worst month there since October 2011. Not sure what's happening there - they were gaining me a growing number of (mainly) editorial sales but that seems to have tailed off in the last few months.

Yaymicro sold one image of media tycoon Robert Maxwell, paying a worthwhile 3.75 euro.

Finally, another nice surprise from Mostphoto when an image of The Red Arrows produced a subscription sale for 5 euros. This took me neatly over the 10 euro payout level so I was able to get my first ever payment from them. Annoyingly I had to pay a 0.70 euro fee to Paypal to get this. An email to Mostphotos received a prompt and friendly reply that this was normal on Paypal. Well, no it's not - not unless you are selling something on Ebay or whatever. This did happen once before with a payment from Yaymicro and they (Yay) promptly apologised and credited my account with the fee amount. Anyone else had this issue with Mostphotos payouts?

Recent shoots saw images of the historic Cinque Port town of Rye in East Sussex (some now online) and coverage of the 2012 Tentertainment music festival (awaiting edit).

July has seen a good start at Shutterstock, so I'll see if this continues before the famous Summer Slowdown kicks in. Regards, David.

Wednesday, 20 July 2011

June updates:




Rather late, but here are my results for June 2011. Certainly there were signs of the famed Summer Slowdown with a slight fall in sales in most cases.

Shutterstock produced 73 downloads ($22.07) pushing me ever closer to the $500 sales (all time) required to get an increase in commission rate. I would expect this to happen within the next month or so.

Dreamstime had a respectable 18 downloads ($15.34) with the usual mix of editorial and commercial images.

Istockphoto continued to prove interesting with 8 dowloads ($4.46) and a further 5 partner programme downloads ($1.40). My portfolio there has now passed the 200 mark compared to the miserable 56 I had prior to them accepting editorial images.

123RF also proved worthwhile with 10 downloads ($6.40) again with editorial images to the fore.

Bigstock proved dissapointing again with only 2 downloads ($2.00) though I did have some potentially exciting news from them following various communications (future post!).

Yaymicro pulled in 1 regular sale (0.50 euro) but still not the long awaited 3rd party payment. Yay have recently announced a whole raft of re-seller/API deals -some now live and some to come in due course. This easy to upload to agency could certainly have good potential in the future.

Nothing from my other agencies in June.

Uploads during June were very limited as I spent two weeks on the beautiful little Greek island of Symi (pictured). Needless to say I returned with a mass of images which I'll be editing and uploading in due course. Regards, David.

Saturday, 17 July 2010

June updates:

Another steady month in June. Shutterstock produced 59 downloads ($18.57). Dreamstime netted 11 dls ($10.12). Bigstock had another (little) flurry of 4 sales ($4.50). Istock produced 2 regular sales and 4 partner program sales totalling $3.64. Picturenation brings up the rear with a pleasing £6.00 for one sale. That's why I like PN -they do not yet get me volume sales but the commission is considerably higher than micro sites. That £6 is about the equivalent of around 40 regular 25c downloads on Shutterstock! Nothing in June from Veer, Yay, Mostphotos or 123RF.

The lack of sales at 123RF is dissapointing. I now have over 500 images online (mainly Editorial but I also now have 17 or so non-editorial accepted). The images went live at the start of May so that's a couple of months now with zero sales. I had hoped that some of my good sellers -Margaret Thatcher etc would have picked up some sales. That said, they have only recently started marketing their Editorial collection so I guess it is early days. Indeed their home page categories list still doesn't even mention Editorial. On a more positive note I eventually queried the 40 images I had pending since April/May. Turned out to be a server glitch and they had dropped off the revue radar. Showing very good contributor service they sorted it within a day or so and all were reviewed (and appoved) promptly.

June saw a big drop in uploads from me as I was on holiday (aka photoshoot) in Greece for the first two weeks. Making full use of my new monopod I now have stacks of new images to edit and upload. They are mainly of the tiny Dodecanese island of Halki (population 300!) but also a lot of the volcano crater on nearby Nisyros island. Uploading of these has begun but I still have a long way to go.

Meanwhile the Veer "Dash for Cash" has now closed. I still have 143 pending so I should know in the next few weeks how much I made from this. Views continue to rise at Veer but still only the one sale to date. I am hoping their forthcoming new marketing campaign will change that. Regards, David.