August was a month of highs and lows. The Summer slowdown really showed in my overall quantity of downloads but some unexpected sales boosted the month.
Starting over in Sweden with Mostphotos, I finally had my first sale. An image of a solar heating panel in Greece sold as a subscription sale netting Euro 2.48 (about as much or more than you get for a regular sale on most sites). It's hard to not like a site that lets you upload your images without reviews. At least you know that images you believe in are getting online somewhere. Sales are a welcome bonus.
Over at Shutterstock downloads fell to just 55 with a number of days returning no sales at all. As previously posted though a $28 EL took my August earnings there to $50.44 (ironically making it my BME there).
Dreamstime produced 11 downloads ($5.16). The fact that they were virtually all subscription sales dragging the earnings down further.
123RF netted 9 downloads ($4.99) enough to take me over the $50 payout level.
Veer surprised with two sales including my second EL ($19.60). My Romanian flag image (pictured) taking me close to payout at Veer.
Istock slowed as well with just 3 downloads ($3.96) with an additional $1.68 from 6 partner program sales. On the plus side there I have continued to get high acceptance of my Editorial images pushing my portfolio to 254 images. (Edit to add: Forgot to mention that I also reached my first ever $100 payout in August! Pushed there by Editorial sales).
Bigstock managed just 1 download ($1), another dissapointing month from them.
Yaymicro also proved dissapointing when the anticipated Third Party sales (2nd Quarter) failed to be posted. Uploading has been down for a couple of weeks now -just to make things worse.
Uploading saw a further push of my portfolio to Canstockphoto taking it to over 70 images. Very quick reviews and a good acceptance rate with (strangely) a batch of 6 or so rejected for "invalid keywords". Didn't understand that one so I have queried those.
I also, finally, signed up to the last of the "big four" sites -Fotalia. I had always been a bit put off them by many on Microstockgroup saying that Fotalia do not like landscape and travel images. Well that's what I submitted and got 10/10 accepted from my first batch! Will see how that one goes (perhaps they were being nice to a newbie?). Regards, David.
