Christmas 2020

At the end of a strange and unexpected year, wishing everyone the best Christmas possible and a much better 2021. Stay safe.
Regards, David.

November Sales Updates:

Tenterden town hall -editorial sale at Adobe

A fairly strong month in November with a nice boost at one agency.

Down to business we had Shutterstock taking a strong first place. A reasonable Single sale and a slew of On Demand sales (making up circa 50% of earnings) pushing things up here.

Second place went to Redbubble with 5 product sales. The usual range from prints to T.shirts here. As last month, I would expect some of these are destined to be Christmas gifts.

Dreamstime gave a pleasant surprise by coming in third place with no less than 31 downloads. This was another of those unusual events where the same buyer bought a whole load of semi related images (Hastings pier fire, Eastbourne pier fire etc). This is not the first time DT has produced something like this.

Istock managed fourth place with 21 downloads. Again, a disappointing RPD this month.

Fifth place went to FineArtAmerica with a single T.Shirt sale. 2020 has certainly seen some steady results at FAA.

Alamy disappointed with just a single Personal Use sale of Professor Stephen Hawking to give them sixth place.

Seventh place was interesting as Adobe produced 3 downloads. Interesting because all three were from

Hastings pier fire - surge at Dreamstime

my newly submitted Illustrative Editorial range. We had a Barclays Bank, Laura Ashley store front and my own local Tenterden town hall. What they seem to like and accept is branded stuff - store fronts, petrol stations, a Boeing airliner. What failed were just travel type shots which had an editorial element in them. These were all rejected. They also stipulate No Recognisable People. People in the distance or people you can't really make out seem to be ok here. Truth is I'm not sure I have that many in my portfolio that will qualify but I've added about forty so far on Adobe. I'll update on how these do in coming posts.

Finishing off in eighth place were Bigstock with just a single download. As previously posted this was my first sale there since August! I still have no idea why they just stopped.

Rt.Hon. John Smith - archives to Pond 5

Also stopped (briefly) were my uploads to Picfair. This is because they now only offer unlimited uploads if you upgrade to their Picfair Plus store. I probaly did well to get to over 2000 images before the upload button grayed out. With a 20% discount code I upgraded for circa £55 (normally £69 p/a). It certainly looks nice though I am yet to make the most of the customising features available. The key thing is will they actually sell anything now that I have forked out my money? I do have a rather uneasy feeling that they are concentrating their efforts on selling nice websites and not on selling images. I'll see in the coming year and then make a decision.

Not much photography shooting since last time but I get out to do a few store fronts and the like (all accepted at Adobe!). I also continued to get my back portfolio up to Pond 5 - well over 1000 images now including some of the late John Smith (former Labour party Leader). We shall see what happens there as well but if they are not uploaded they certainly cannot sell them. More updates next time, 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.

 

September Sales Updates:

Neil and Glenys Kinnock. Archives to Pond5

Another varied month in September from high to low (to non existent in one case). In these far from normal times I suppose we shouldn't expect photo agencies to be producing normal results.

In first place (and I didn't expect to be writing this again) were Shutterstock with my best month there in ages. This, it has to be said, was down to several good paying Single downloads which pushed the results right up. Indications for October suggest they are going to plunge in my next results rankings so do not put too much weight on their top score for September.

Only just behind in second place were Redbubble with a record score of 11 product sales running the whole gamut from prints, t shirts, stickers and even a pair of socks (with a motorbike photo on them). Previous years experience is that Redbubble sales build up towards Christmas and this was certainly a good early start towards that.

Third place went to another POD site FineArtAmerica with 2 sales. A T shirt with a Greek ferry on it

Wine lovers Christmas gift?

and a framed print of a Monarch airliner descending into the Greek island of Skiathos. Actually the same image was also one of my sales on Redbubble - this time as a cushion.

Alamy took fourth place with 2 downloads -both from my b/w archives.

Istock were in fifth place with just 17 downloads. Only an improved RPD saved the day here. What I am missing on Istock (and everywhere else) are the multiple sales of my music festival images which in other years would be selling on a daily basis to illustrate upcoming outdoor events.

In the also rans at the bottom were Dreamstime with just 2 sub sales to make sixth place and Adobe with just a single sale to make seventh. In the non existent category mentioned at the top were Bigstock where I haven't had a single sale since mid August. Nothing. At all.

Monarch flight to Skiathos. Print sale on FAA

Also nothing yet at Pond 5 but I continued my drive to put my full portfolio on there to give them a chance to do something with photo sales (rather than the footage they are best known for). I'm currently somewhere just over 600 images so plenty to go yet. I've been uploading a mix of my current travel type images and my archive political/celebrity ones. It's also been an opportunity to fill in some gaps in my Picfair portfolio and the POD sites while I'm at it.

Also on the POD sites I continued my experiment of adding text to some images such as the Time for Wine! on a picture of grapes. I am hoping someone might see these as Christmas present ideas for the wine lover in their life. It'll either work or it won't! 

Half way through October and things are looking far from stellar, but we'll see in my next updates. Regards, David.

August Sales Updates:

The Flying Saucers, sold and unsold on Alamy

Apologies for the late posting. Regular readers will know this is often because nothing especially exciting happened and, yes, here we are in the Summer Slowdown with a Pandemic thrown in for good measure. 

That said there were a few highlights in a rather turgid month. 

 Straight to first place we had Redbubble with 4 product sales ranging from stickers to mug and best of all a framed print of the Greek island of Agistri. 

 Shutterstock took second place in what was my first full month back with them since re-activating my portfolio after a seven week protest shutdown. Still plenty of the pathetic 10-17 cent subscription sales but a number at higher rates such as 44, 59, 66 76 cents (all of which obviously better than my old fixed 36cent rate. On Demand sales have varied from lower to higher than my former $2.70 rate (from $2.25 up to $3.25). Note that this is for level 3 at 25% commission. I anticipate reaching level 4 (30% commission) in October before, of course, being plunged along with everyone else to level 1 on January 1st. 

 Third place went to Istock with 23 downloads. A low RPD dragged them down this month. 

 In fourth place were Alamy, not with sales but an unexpected small amount from ASCRL (American

El Salvador church, Seville

Society for Collecting Rights Licensing). It's the US version of a DACS payment and not one I had seen before. There should have been sales at Alamy as I had two personal use sales of the 1976 Rock and Roll Radio campaign march in London. Guess what's coming next! Both refunded the following day presumably once the "buyer" had downloaded the unwatermarked image. Pretty annoying but not a lot to be done about it as RF (Royalty Free) images on Alamy do not have an opt out for personal use sales. Rights Managed images do but as my images are RF on other sites they have to be RF on Alamy too.

 Moving to the lower end we had Dreamstime in fifth place with 4 downloads. These included a couple of my archive b/w images of actors Jeremy Sinden and Michael Gough.

 Bigstock only managed sixth place with just 2 downloads. Never a big seller but they have really slowed in recent months. 

Agistri island, framed print sale on Redbubble

 Seventh place went to Adobe with just a single small subsciption sale. As mentioned many many times before I will never make much at Adobe unless they start taking regular Editorial. 

 No sales as yet at Pond 5, but I am continuing to upload to them and now have several hundred images online. They have said publicly that they intend to give more of a marketing push on images if we supply the content. Well, who knows but I am certainly willing to give them a chance. 

 Recent uploads have been curtailed whilst I put my effort into Pond 5 uploading but I did add one of the El Salvador church in central Seville. September is showing signs of improvement so more to come next month. Regards, David.