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.

PictureNation sales

Since their return online I have been busy uploading my backlog of images and, of course, hoping for some sales. Pleased to report three Editorial sales in the last week. A Medium resolution of the ever reliable Margaret Thatcher (netting £4 commission) and two Small web resolution sales of La Toya Jackson and Mohamed Al Fayed (netting £0.40 each). Hopefully, this is a start to more regular sales here as PN push their marketing now that they are back. I have a lot of archive British politicians images online with them and I'm hoping the forthcoming General Election here will generate some sales as commentators look back to previous elections (as they tend to do). PN's new lower rates (which they brought in shortly before going offline) make them much more competitive with the Micro sites whilst still offering photographers a better than Micro commission. At 40% they pay £0.40/£4/£6 for small, medium & large res sales. They also now offer Extended Licences which pay £14/£20/£30 respectively. They also have a referral programme but (rather dissapointingly) only for referring buyers and not new contributors as most of the Micro sites offer. I'm hoping that they'll look at that in the future. Regards, David.