Have a great Christmas!

Wishing all readers of ShootingStock a great Christmas and a brilliant 2016! I hope you will continue to enjoy my blog in the coming year. Kind regards, David.


A red car in the snow at St.Leonards-on-Sea in England

January Updates:

Slightly late -but here are my stats for January.

Shutterstock pulled in an impressive 69 downloads ($23.87) with 5 on demand downloads bolsting up the total revenue to reach another payout.
Dreamstime produced 13 downloads ($13.55) with a varied mix of commercial and editorial images.
Bigstock continued to show life with 3 downloads ($4.00) with $3 of that coming from one of my previously mentioned ("not newsworthy") snow pictures! BTW, I did query their complete rejection at Shutterstock and after a very helpful response I re-submitted, with half of them getting accepted.
Istock managed one regular sale ($0.51) and four partner programme sales ($1.00). I'm expecting my sales here to increase once I have Editorial images online.
Over in Norway, Yaymicro finally posted the third party sales for the 3rd quarter of 2010. At Euro 9.22 it was pretty much in line with previous quarters. Hopefully the 4th quarter sales will be quicker in coming and should take me over the Euro 30 payout level.

Once again 123RF showed promise with 9 downloads ($5.65). All editorial images. Editorial reviews there continue to be fast (usually within a couple of hours) but commercial reviews have become backlogged at the moment due to a large number of submissions (according to their post on microstockgroup.com).

Another zero month at Picturenation, Veer and Mostphotos.
Picturenation is still just a pound or so off their £50 payout level so I am just willing someone to buy something soon. Veer is where I have my lowest acceptance rate so I cannot expect much from my 200 or so portfolio. My $74 "Dash For Cash" earnings are sitting there out of reach for now. Mostphotos have revised their pricing with lower rates for small and medium uses and the introduction of subscription packages -so there might be some action to come in the future. Regards, David.

December updates:

December saw a solid month at Shutterstock with 61 downloads ($20.70) with the total figure being helped by 4, higher paying, "On Demand" sales. Dreamstime was going well but stalled as we approached Christmas resulting in a total of 11 downloads ($12.37). However, December did bring a milestone there as I had my 200th sale.

Bigstock had a surprise flurry of 6 (all Editorial) downloads ($3.00).(EDIT: That should have been $4 but I had an adjustment of -$1. It appears my best Margaret Thatcher image was a victim of the fraudulent downloads that took place over Christmas at Istock and BS). While at 123RF the sales continue to grow with a further 6 downloads ($3.15). This brings my total sales there to 11 (8 Editorial) since having my first ever downloads on October 31. This is starting to look like an interesting agency.

Istock, once again, produced no regular sales but managed 6 partner programme sub sales ($1.50). The lack of sales there probaly a result of stopping uploading after their commission cuts announcement. Well, I made my point (not that they would ever have noticed) and have decided to re-start uploads this year. The deciding factor was the forthcoming launch of their Editorial image collection. My whole portfolio is mainly Editorial and I do not feel I can miss out on what could be a good opportunity. The downside is they are not taking Celebrity images which is dissapointing given my archives. I am hoping that might change in the future.

Finally no sales in December at Mostphotos, Veer, Picturenation and Yaymicro (not even the latters long overdue Third Party sales report, which they had hoped to have out by Christmas).

Uploads for December included further Greek island images (Halki) and some snowy uk street images. Dreamstime (and others) approved the latter (minus a few for "similarity") but Shutterstock and Bigstock both declared they were "Not Editorial.Not Newsworthy" (Britain is having the coldest Winter for 100 years by the way!). (EDIT: To be fair to BS I hadn't submitted all of them for review when posting. They have since accepted some of the set -so snow is newsworthy again!). Oh well, that's how Microstock goes......

Wishing all readers, agencies and fellow contributors (and, yes, even reviewers) a happy and prosperous New Year. Regards, David.