October Sales Updates:

Planet On Sunday- first and last issue

A strong month in October mainly thanks to one agency.

Way out in first place were Alamy with 9 downloads. Most of these were from my archives including three good $$ (net) uses. Seventies rock band Tom Robinson Band sold for an editorial website. Former Chancellor of The Exchequer Denis Healey sold for use as a museum display and my WW2 ration book was used for a book/ebook. 

Second place went to Redbubble with a good value sale of a framed print of my 1980s B/W image of New Scotland Yard. Maybe a Christmas present for somebody that used to work there? That said, I have yet to see a rush of Christmas type sales as in previous years. It's getting a bit late now.

Shutterstock took third place but no large sales this month. Three On Demand and four modest Single sales helped things here.

Fourth place went to Istock with a disappointing 16 downloads and the lowest month I have had from them in a while.

Adobe made fifth place with 6 downloads. My EV charging point sign featuring again.

Denis Healey - museum sale on Alamy

Sixth place went to Dreamstime with 7 downloads. No credit sales again this month.

Bigstock came in seventh place with 3 downloads - all of the vintage cable car in Barcelona. 

Finally in eighth place were Mostphotos with a rare sale. Another Barcelona image of the beach there. I'm not sure what, if any, marketing they do but they seem never to have expanded out of their home country of Sweden. They have also increased the minimum payout to 35 euros so whether I ever see another payout from them is doubtful. 

Shooting highlight in October consisted of covering the annual Tenterden Folk Festival. This is a bigger deal than it might sound as it attracts folk dance groups and musicians from around the World. I covered the main parade down the High Street as well as individual dance performances that were going on all down the street.

WW2 ration book - good sale on Alamy

New uploading saw me continuing with my "historic" newspapers including an image of National Sunday newspaper Planet On Sunday. Launched in June 1996 with an environmental and conservation mission, it ceased publication just days after launching making my image both a first and last edition. I suspect that is some kind of record for a new newspaper.

I haven't mentioned Picfair for a long time - mainly because there was nothing to report. After two years of paying a fee to have a Store there (and allowing continued unlimited uploads) I finally took the decision to cancel my payment. My store finishes in November so I have stopped any further uploads. Not quite sure what happens after this or what to do with the already uploaded images. I'll see in a few weeks time and report back.

So far, a slow start to November so let's see how it goes. Regards, David.

October Sales Updates:

 A steady month in October with no great surprises -good or bad.

WW2 ration book -sold on Dreamstime

A well deserved first place for Alamy with 3 downloads. a high $$ magazine sale of my archive shot of Jimmy Knapp (then General Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen) and a couple of small travel image sales to web site The Culture Trip. There are sometimes grumblings on the Alamy forum about low value sales to this travel site but you only have to look at it to see the vast number of Alamy images they download. Hardly a mystery why they have a good (for them) bulk deal in place. I just take the view that the higher value sales elsewhere more than make up for the odd low ones. No different really to how it has always been in stock. Back in the seventies/eighties you could easily be seeing £40 sales from a National Daily newspaper whilst some of the Regional ones thought they were being generous paying £5. It all adds up.

Second place went to Shutterstock with a good sprinkling of On Demand sales pulling up the total.

Istock took third place with 31 downloads. As always here travel and music festival images were well to the fore - a sure sign that some degree of normality is starting to return.

Fourth place went to Redbubble with 2 product sales (both throw pillows featuring the Greek island of

Small boat on Halki island, Greece

Symi). I'm hoping there will be a late Christmas gift rush here as in previous years.

Adobe took fifth place with 5 downloads including two editorial ones - a Shell petrol station and my image of a Government letter giving information on Covid.

In sixth place were Dreamstime with 6 downloads. I was pleased to see that one of them was from my recent set of WW2 ration books/identity cards. These are starting to gain some traction with several downloads of late.

Finally we had Bigstock with just 2 downloads. Still, as I always say, my images just go there automatically after being accepted at Shutterstock so there is zero effort involved. Whether or not they keep that scheme going forever remains to be seen. I doubt that I would bother with Bigstock if I had to upload directly.

Bar sign at Mikro Chorio on Tilos island, Greece

Recent uploading had me firing up my Epsom film scanner again to work on some London buildings from 1991. These archive images have done well on Alamy. They also do well on Shutterstock but in this case they all just got rejected for being grainy. Really? Archive film images with grain? Who would have thought that? Their loss.

In the absence of new travel I also revisited my back catalogue for some new images from my trips to the Greek islands of Halki and Tilos. These included a little fishing boat which always seems to be moored in the same place on Halki and a sign pointing to the late night music bar in the mainly abandoned village of Mikro Chorio on Tilos.

November hasn't got off to a stellar start but we'll see how the rest of the month pans out. Regards, David.

October Sales Updates:

Dreamstime sale: George Best

 An overall OK month in October but with some moving around in the rakings.

Alamy took first place with 2 downloads (both from my political archive files). On these alone they would have made second place but a worthwhile DACS payment pushed them to the top. Personally I think it correct to include this as it comes under the "income from stock photogaphy" category.

Second place went to Redbubble with a pleasing 9 product sales. Christmas is certainly coming (and I know what some people are getting!).

Shutterstock slipped down to third place with not even a rise to Level 4 commission keeping them at the top. A distinct shortage of On Demand and good Single sales dragging them down.

Dreamstime perked up to take fourth place with 10 downloads. Certainly signs of improvement there.

Istock had another poor month with just 19 downloads and an unexciting RPD to make fifth place.

John Major - archive upload to Pond 5

  Easy to spot the problem here as my music festival images normally do well here but, sadly, life has been anything but normal this year.

Bringing up the rear in sixth place were Adobe with 3 downloads. Adobe have now opened the Illustrative Editorial category to Bronze level contributors (that's me). More on that next time.

Bigstock managed a second month with totally zero downloads. Not sure what is happening with them as despite never being a big seller I usually get a few sales each month.

Over at Pond 5, i am still awaiting my first sale but continued to upload my portfolio. I'm alternating between my old archive editorials and modern day travel images. I now have just short of 1000 images with them. At Set your own Price and 50% commission I'm happy to take a long view on this site.

Lidl - Illustrative Editorial now open at Abobe

I didn't upload anything much too my regular sites during October as I concentrated on uploading to Pond 5 though I continued to use this to fill gaps in at Picfair and, where suitable, to my POD sites.

More next month which I hope and expect to get posted earlier as I am upping the time allocated to photography...... Regards, David.

 

October Sales Updates:

City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia

A positive month in October overall with a strong showing from one agency and a slightly lacklustre one from another.

Straight into first place were Alamy with 2 downloads. Yet again, these were substantial $$ sales of my archive B/W images (Journalist Eve Pollard and Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott). These sales alone would have put Alamy at the top but a worthwhile DACS payment also came in to push the earnings even higher. I am certainly feeling vindicated for spending a lot of time getting my back catalogue loaded up to Alamy though I am still hoping for more sales from my recent travel images.

Reduced to second place were Shutterstock. Overall, the number of downloads was good but with only two On Demand sales and two small Single downloads the earnings were down. It's those On Demands that normally push up the totals often to 50% of my earnings.

Istock took third place with 36 downloads and a reasonable RPD (pushed up by one image of the

Shoot it then drink it: lager above Valencia

Soundwaves Community Choir which netted me over $9 in commission). Reviews at Istock remain fast for Editorial but Commercial images seem to be running at several days at the moment.

Fourth place went to my favourite print site Redbubble with 4 product sales (T shirt, phone case, sticker and a zipper pouch featuring the University of Barcelona -quite probably for somebody attending there). I'm looking forward to seeing if the Christmas rush I saw here last year repeats itself.

Down at the lower end in fifth place Bigstock saw 6 downloads with Seville and Barcelona images selling.

Church of the Virgin of The Burgh, Rhodes

Dreamstime managed sixth place with just 4 downloads. All subscriptions at that.

Finally in seventh place were Adobe with just a single subscription download.

Recent uploading saw me continuing with Valencia images including more of the stunning City of Arts and Sciences and for something different my glass of lager with the Valencia skyline in the background. My Rhodes and Tilos trip also saw a number of uploads including the medieval Church of the Virgin of The Burgh in Rhodes Old Town. Recent shooting should have seen a whole stack of new images from the Spanish island of Majorca. Sadly, the weather was against me and heavy rain saw me only shooting for one day out of six. That will probably teach me to book so late in the year but I had hoped for some late season sun which, mainly, didn't happen. Too early to judge November yet but there are already a few highlights. More next month. Regards, David.

October Sales Updates:

The Red arrows display over Hastings

A positive month in October with some good sales and the end of the long running 123rf saga.

Returning to form were Shutterstock in first place with a pleasing number of On demand sales (making up over 50% of my total income here).

Second place went to Alamy with 2 downloads and a welcome and unexpected DACS payment added to the total. What's DACS? Find out here www.dacs.org.uk but essentially it's a pool of money collected for secondary use of images (e.g. where a university photocopies a text book containing your image). This is then distributed to registered artists. In my case I was happy for Alamy to make this claim for me (they keep 50%) though some who know what they are doing make the claim directly. Worth noting that Alamy would have been #2 even without this payment.

Third place went to Istock with 50 downloads. The RPD (rate per download) was disappointing this month - dropping slightly below the old fixed $0.28 for subscription sales. That's a first as it has usually been substantially higher.

Fourth place was taken by Dreamstime with 29 downloads. Nothing like the huge surge of September

Rough seas at Cala San Vicente, Majorca

but, once again, there was a single buyer who scooped up twenty images of Majorca in one hit. Can't help but think this was the same buyer though - possibly a travel website of some kind. Ironically at the time of writing I have yet to have a single sale for November there!

Redbubble disappointed with just 2 product sales ( a sticker and a baby outfit) to give them fifth place.

Sixth place went to Bigstock with 8 downloads of a mixed bunch of images.

Finally Fotolia made seventh place with just a single subscription sale. Adobe (owners of Fotolia) have recently announced that the Fotolia site will close next year leaving just the Adobe Stock site running. A good time then to register at Adobe and "synch" your Fotolia account as from next February all uploading will be done through the Adobe portal. I'd been putting this off but, in fact, was much simpler than I imagined. That said, I'm continuing to upload via Fotolia while I can. For clarity all images uploaded to either are currently mirrored on both sites.

Llibertat Presos Politics march, Barcelona

So where is 123rf you may wonder? Gone. Consigned to history as far as I am concerned. Once I'd hit payout AND received my payment I set about manually deleting my 2300 images. Remove. Confirm. I did it in stages throughout the course of a single day before emailing them to close my account. I'm sure they would have deleted the images for me anyway but I didn't want to chance having my account closed and the images still there.  In fact, they responded promptly and gave me the correct legal terminology to use to close the account. This done I got confirmation of closure within a couple of hours. Rather sweetly they thanked me for my past contributions and wished me well for the future. At least we ended things on a nice note. They were once a good, fair paying site (they even had a contributors forum at one point). But then the credit sales dried up and they introduced varying commission levels which were never going to work well for a mainly editorial portfolio. Lifestyle and model type images may well be a whole different story.

Recent uploading saw a lot from my trip to Majorca last month including a day of rough seas at Cala San Vicente. I also uploaded a set of a Red Arrows display over the Hastings seafront in July (they were marking the 100th Birthday of the RAF). Backtracking, I also returned to my April images of Barcelona including more from the massive Llibertat Presos Politics (Free Political Prisoners) march.

Early results for November are mixed so far so I'll see how the second half of the month goes. Regards, David.

October Sales Updates:

Placa de Catalunya, Barcelona

October saw no sales at Alamy so they drop right off the list this month. It seems to be that it takes time to build regular sales there so I would expect them to jump on and off my rankings for some time to come. With a portfolio there now just passing the two thousand mark I am continuing to upload my back catalogue (as well as new images) and gradually building a presence.

With Alamy absent that, of course, leaves Shutterstock in top place and a good solid month of sales there. Shutterstock have recently caused some excitement by introducing a new submission editing page. I've only used it a few times but after spending thirty minutes trying to submit my first upload I found things got better once I grasped how the page works and I'm sure it will soon be totally familiar.

Redbubble made a strong second place with two sticker sales and a good print sale. As I approach the second anniversary of my last FineArt America sale I can only wonder at the big difference in performance from these two POD sites.

Istock came in third place with 35 downloads. Not as good as some recent months but subscription sales

Fountain in the Placa de Catalunya, Barcelona

are still averaging well above the old 28 cent flat rate payment.

In fourth place were Dreamstime with 5 downloads. A higher paying credit sale (above $5) and several of the $2 sub sales improved things here a bit.

Bigstock made fifth place with 9 downloads. A variety of sales but I'm still seeing a trend to local Hastings and area images - as I have noted many times before.

Sixth place saw 123rf with 7 downloads. I'm still languishing down at level 1 there and I'll need to see a lot more sales than that to have a hope of returning to level 2.

Catalonian Parliament building in Barcelona

Canstock made an infrequent appearance in seventh place with 2 downloads.

Fotolia brought up the rear in eighth place with just a single download (editorial submissions -please!).

Recent shooting and uploading has concentrated on my last minute trip to Barcelona following the declaration of independence there. Though only a two day trip I managed to get a number of key Barcelona images including, of course, the Catalonian parliament building. Hopefully, these will see some sales as fresh elections approach there. It was a brief but fun introduction to an exciting City and I will certainly be returning for a longer stay in the future. Regards, David.

October Sales Updates:

Prevelis ferry docking at Emborio, Halki island

My apologies for a late posting this month for October updates.

Of course, in first place were Shutterstock but with dissapointing sales overall. Only a handful of On Demand sales and no Single downloads dragged the results down further.

Second place went to Istock with 2 credit downloads and 24 sub/Partner sales.

Dreamstime came just behind in third place with a 13 downloads. Certainly seeing more signs of life here recently.

Looking to Nissos island from Halki, Greece

Fourth place went to Redbubble with two product sales - a laptop case and a sticker.

Bigstock made fifth place with 13 downloads.

Sixth place for 123rf with 15 downloads. These were nearly all sub sales -made worse by my languishing in the low paying level 1. November results have been dire so my move back up to level 2 could be a while coming.

Fotolia brought up the rear in seventh place with just a single download.

Church of the Holy Trinity, Halki island

Not a spectacular month on any level and probaly a combination of the continuing influx of masses of images to all sites and fairly limited uploading on my part. Personal circumstances in recent months have limited my time available for uploading.


What I did upload concentrated on my last two trips (2015/2016) to the Greek island of Halki. Hopefully my November updates will follow soon though I can say that, if anything, November has been a tough month. Regards, David.

October Sales Updates:

Dodekanisos Express departs Halki island, Greece

No prizes for guessing the number one position for October (and every other month).
Shutterstock (by far) came in first, helped by a good dose of On demand sales and an Extended License for one of my Tentertainment music festival images.

A long way behind were Istock in second place with just 2 credit downloads and a further 27 Sub/PP sales. On the plus side, my portfolio at Istock finally exceeded 1000 images. There is still plenty of room for growth for me here -albeit probaly based on subscription downloads with the odd credit sale thrown in.

123rf climbed to third place with 8 downloads. My portfolio exposure probaly not helped by the fact that I am still awaiting review of images uploaded from August onwards. I suppose, that eventually, I'll have to email support but it really doesn't seem right that I have to do this to get reviewed. I can only suppose that they either changed from reviewing in house to an outside company or, if they already outsourced this maybe they changed to a new service. Either way, the days of editorial reviews within minutes/hours seem long gone.

Redbubble hit fourth place with one sale of a throw pillow (cushion) featuring, yet again, Margaret Thatcher.

Rocky coastline at Lakka on Paxos island, Greece

I am forever grateful that I have images of The Iron Lady in my portfolio. Ironic, when I could not be more opposed to her political policies :)

A rather sad fourth place for Dreamstime with just 4 downloads (boosted slightly by $0.65 in referral income). Hard to say what is going on with Dreamstime but sales have certainly plunged over the last year with many of those remaining being $0.35 subscription sales. I really like this friendly agency and hope that things will improve there. Pleased to say that reviews are still being made on a regular and fairly prompt basis.

Bigstock made fifth place with 6 downloads (mainly subs, mainly Hastings area images again!).

Bringing up sixth place were Fotolia with just one download. As this is considered one of the Big Four stock agencies I still have confidence that sales will grow here in the future as I build up my small portfolio. I am really hoping that they decide to start taking Editorial images in the future -when I would be able to dramatically increase my portfolio. They remain the only top agency to not take Editorial images.

Summer images at the St.Leonards Festival

Nothing at all from the rest in October. I still have hopes for Picfair where I now have some 984 images with over 53k views -but just two sales to date. I hope they eventually introduce their long awaited bulk price editor. I would be very interested to see if pricing is a factor here deterring sales. At my standard £10 per use this is obviously higher than microstock prices and may well be putting some buyers off. I have noticed some (unproven) correlation between uploading to Picfair and subsequent sales (of the same image) on microstock sites but not enough to draw any firm conclusions.

Recent uploading included a set of images of the annual St.Leonards Festival (held right in front of my flat!) which, though not of International importance, provides good generic Summer/Festival/Community/Outdoor event type images. I also revisited my 2014 trip to the Greek island of Paxos for a seascape image of Lakka. Greek islands also featured with an image of the Dodekanisos Express ferry departing from Halki during my trip this June. November is starting to look like a challenging month for sales -but there is still plenty of time for things to turn around. I'll update in December. Regards, David.

October Sales Updates:



Douglas C47-A Dakota

A great month in October on my number one agency, Shutterstock, helped along by my new higher earning level as well as a $28 enhanced download for one of my Margaret Thatcher images. Good On Demand sales and a modest Single Download also added to the mix.

FineArtAmerica came second this month with the sale of a framed print of Pedi bay on the Greek island of Symi (pictured). Just as a reminder, if you have the paid premium account (currently $30 per annum) you also receive a percentage commission on the printing materials and frame etc in addition to the fee you have set. You are also allowed unlimited uploads as opposed to the 25 image limit with the free account.

Pedi bay, Symi island

Istock were third this month with an improving 12 credit downloads and 15 sub and PP sales. The new pricing structure there is certainly helping with most of my credit sales being around $1.40 -certainly better than the below a dollar commissions I often used to see for smaller size uses.

Dreamstime made fourth place with 8 downloads. As mentioned last month there was a long gap in sales which ran right through to October 17 giving DT little time to pick up before month end.

Bigstock came in at number five with a healthy 15 downloads but as they were nearly all subs this pushed the earnings down. Bigstock do not seem to be a site where I get large individual sales -let alone an Enhanced Download. Nethertheless, as part of the Bridge to Bigstock programme, they require no effort on my part and sales are regular there.

New Esperance Morris, Hastings

Finally, in at sixth place were Fotolia with 4 downloads. I am actually quite pleased with that result as my portfolio there is still very small (circa 100 images). As they do not take Editorial images I only make infrequent uploads to them when I have something suitable.

October saw new uploads including an airshow image of a WW2 Dakota, which I decided to give a period feel to by converting to B/W. I also carried on working through my images from this years Jack In The Green festival at Hastings including a couple of the New Esperance Morris dancers. Regards, David.

October sales updates:

A less than sparkling month in October with no agent producing an exciting result.
As ever, Shutterstock came out a long way on top but was far from a BME with a number of zero selling days and few, higher paying, On Demand sales (and no Single or EL sales either). Which is all I am allowed to say about them.

Dreamstime were the runners up with 10 downloads ($16.66) with 35cent subscription sales dragging down the revenue.

Istock saw 11 downloads ($7.32) and a further 4 PP sales ($1.12). As I said last month, I am really missing those higher paying Photo+ sales there.


123rf produced just 8 downloads ($7.54). Their review process of (non editorial) files seems to have ground to a halt with one pending image awaiting review since August!

Bigstock saw a good month with 15 downloads, but as many of these were 38cent subs produced just $6.06 in revenue.

Fotolia managed just one sale (1 credit).

Mostphotos is worth a mention if only to note that it is over six months since my last sale there. Not surprising if the buyers experience of their new (ish) site is as bad as that for contributors. Buggy and slow, everything takes an eternity to load (put the kettle on) or things that you click on just never go anywhere. It's a shame because the site actually looks rather good when/if you actually get there.


Uploads in October included further images of my 2011 trip to the Greek island of Symi and a colourful pet dog belonging to a group of Morris dancers performing at the Jack In The Green festival in Hastings. The latter had an unexpected result when following an upload update on Twitter I found myself being Followed and receiving nice comments from several Morris dancing groups. The power of the internet in action!

Hopefully, maybe, November might bring an uplift in sales. Regards, David.

October Sales Updates:

For a few days in October I thought we were going from the Summer Slowdown to an Autumn Abyss as the month started off so slowly. However, things picked up and October ended up being a strong month.

123rf get first billing here as I had a BME of $28.76 from 13 downloads. Two PEL sales of $11.25 each achieved that (Hastings pier and Dungeness lighthouse) though, in general, sales were busier there than for a long time. Hopefully, there is a return to form going on at 123.
Shutterstock (obviously) excelled with 103 downloads ($56.23). What else to say about this agency? They sell - that's it.
Dreamstime produced 10 downloads ($14.09). The search engine changes that favoured my images a few months back seems to be swinging the other way now.
Istockphoto picked up 8 downloads ($13.58) plus 2 PP sales ($0.52). Editorial images continue to grow here and my portfolio is now just off 600 in number. A far cry from the days (pre editorial) when I only had 150 images there and a rare sale. They (editorial) are currently getting excellent review times -often just an hour or two.
Bigstock saw 5 downloads ($6.90). I am still waiting to see the anticipated big boost in earnings here now that the majority of my portfolio has been transferred via the Bridge to Bigstock program, but I still feel that this is an agency that could do good things in the future.
Fotalia achieved 3 downloads (2.45 credits). This is still a very small portfolio for me but sales are encouraging on that small amount. I'm still bemused how any agency can not have a description field for uploaded images. How do buyers actually know what the image is of? My response is to have longer than usual image titles in which I try to cram in the required information. Probaly just my editorial instincts here as I want to explain the Who?What?Where?When? for my images.
Yaymicro had one download (1euro) and new tougher reviews resulting in a number of rejections for lighting/artifacts. Reminded me of the old days on Istock.
Canstockphoto produced my second ever download ($0.30). I still need to build my portfolio there.

Uploading in October saw more images of the Sussex town of Rye including the famous Mermaid Inn (pictured) and, of course, further images from my September trip to the Greek islands of Skiathos and Alonissos (pictured). Regards, David.

October updates:

A bit late updating this month -usually a good sign that the previous month wasn't much to get excited about. October was no exception to this rule.

Starting at the top, Shutterstock pulled in a healthy 72 downloads ($38.21) with the revenue there helped by 10 On Demand sales.

Istock saw 5 downloads ($4.82) with an additional $1.40 from 5 partner program sales. My portfolio at Istock continues to build and has now reached 339 images including a growing Editorial collection.

123RF netted 7 downloads ($3.97) with a mix of Editorial and Commercial images sold.

Dreamstime proved the biggest dissapointment with just 6 downloads ($3.13) mainly all subscriptions. No idea what happened there but my worst month on DT for a very long time.

Bigstock still showing life with 4 downloads ($2.50) all from my archive celebrity collection.

Fotalia saw my first ever sale. A subscription sale of the Greek island of Meganissi netting 0.25 credits. If my calculations are correct this amounts to around $0.30 -about average for a sub sale. My portfolio there has grown to 30 images now with the growth rate slowed by numerous "technical" rejections. A far cry from my initial 10/10 acceptance (they really were being nice to a newbie then!). The shame is that I had intended to get my portfolio up there really quickly but am now just submitting a few at a time for fear of mass rejections.

Nothing elsewhere in October.

Images sold in October saw a few of Robert Maxwell as I had expected -but nothing like I had hoped for on the 2oth anniversary of his death. Margaret Thatcher sales started to pick up as well, possibly due to the new film about her life starring Meryl Streep. That could be interesting to watch as the film gets released around the world. The film looks pretty interesting too from the clips I've seen.

Recent uploads saw a whole series taken around the Old Town Carnival Week here in Hastings. A very local event but a good opportunity for generic Editorial images such as drumming bands, dancers, a traditional Town Crier and a Tug of War competion (pictured). These were received well by the agencies with 30 accepted at Shutterstock in just one day.

November, so far, is showings signs of improvement over last month and hopefully the new uploads will start to generate sales. Regards, David.

October updates:

October saw a good month at Dreamstime with a total of 22 downloads ($21.49). The total earnings there were boosted by two TIFF file sales paying $4.88 each. These were both of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher -whose recent stay in hospital prompted a number of sales in the past few weeks.
Over on Shutterstock I had 55 downloads ($15.94), again including a flurry of Margaret Thatcher images.
Picturenation did well with two medium res sales paying £4 each in commission -both of the recent Hastings pier fire images. This brings me to less than £1.50 away from their £50 payout, so one more med res sale will do it.
Istock managed one regular sale (pebbles on Hastings beach!) netting $2.80 plus a further $2.25 from 9 partner program sales. I haven't felt inclined to upload any new images to Istock since their commission cuts were announced but that's one I am keeping under review.

Bigstock produced 2 Editorial sales ($1.00) in October. The problem there is my small portfolio (less than 400 images). Compare that to nearly 900 images on parent company Shutterstock (which I joined much later). Editorial images get declined for not being "newsworthy" even when images of the same event have previously been accepted. Archive celebrity images get rejected for "grain" (that would be film grain then) even when they do not have any other images of that celeb in their collection. That said, approvals seem to have been a bit better of late there so I'll stick with them. I live in hope that in the future they might link the two collections so that Bigstock buyers get access to my Shutterstock portfolio. I'm sure that must be possible somehow.

Over at 123RF I finally had my first ever sales. Two subscription downloads netting $0.72. It's a start anyway. I no longer have an earnings page full of zeros. Interestingly these sales came from my 48 commercial images (Halki island, Greece) and not my 593 Editorial images. I think two things would help here. Firstly mention Editorial images on their home page. They went live with the collection in May but there is still no mention of it there. Secondly, integrate the search results with the commercial images. By that I mean that if a buyer searches for Margaret Thatcher they get told that there are zero results for that search. Only when (or if) they then click the "Editorial" tab do the images come up. I wonder how many buyers just give up after that "zero results" message? Still, this is only their first year with Editorial so plenty of time for improvements yet.

Nothing in October from Veer, Yay or Mostphotos.
Regards, David