Happy Chistmas To All:

Wishing everyone a great Christmas and a very happy New Year. Regards, David.

November Sales Updates:

Stone tower at Emborio on Halki island

A pleasing month in November including the surprise return of a long absent market.

By far, Shutterstock held onto first place with a strong showing of On Demand and Single sales (both combined making up some 60% of my monthly total).

In second place were an improved Istock with 51 downloads and an RPD (rate per download) substantially up on October.

Third place was taken by Alamy with 2 downloads (both from my B/W political archives). Two developments at Alamy pleased and dismayed in various ways. On the plus side they introduced new Portfolio pages coupled with the ability to create individual Galleries (sets). These can both be easily shared on social media to help direct buyers to your images. I've already created a good number of galleries along obvious lines such as Aviation, Barcelona, Majorca etc. You can view my portfolio here My Alamy Portfolio .
The second news was the far less welcome cutting of commission from next February. This drops from an equitable 50/50 split on direct sales to 60/40 ( a drop of 20% in income). They claim this is needed to help fund and develop their business with the usual "you'll benefit from more sales" placebo thrown in. Regular readers will know that I put a lot of time and faith in recent months building up my Alamy portfolio so this comes as a blow. As expected the negative comments on the Alamy forum now run to many pages with a hope that they might re-consider this move and find other ways of funding their business rather than making contributors pay for it. We'll see what happens next.

Redbubble came in fourth place with 3 product sales (I know what someone's getting for

Cap de Barcelona, Port Vell

Christmas!

Fifth place saw the surprise return from the dead of FineArtAmerica with 2 product sales (a mug and a towel). My first sales there since December 2015 so not quite three years. Whether this was a one off event or I shall start seeing more sales will be interesting.

Bigstock were in sixth place with 7 downloads.

Sadly, after a couple of strong months Dreamstime fell to seventh place with 7 downloads (mainly sub sales). Obviously the buyer who had been hitting my port in September and October was absent this month.

Dead rat on Paxos island

In eighth place were Fotolia with just a single download.

Recent uploads included a mixed bunch ranging from a tower of stones on the Greek island of Halki through to the Roy Lichtenstein sculpture Head of Barcelona on the harbour front of Port Vell. For something a bit different I also uploaded images of a dead rat found on the Greek island of Paxos. A good image for pest control/vermin features. I can also envisage this ending up on a T shirt at some point :) 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.

September Sales Updates:

The Boquer Valley, Majorca

As the Summer Slowdown comes to an end (hopefully) September saw a startling result from one agency and some solid results from others.

Straight into the top spot soared Dreamstime with no less than 112 downloads. Around thirty sub sales of the Greek islands of Halki and Tilos were surprising enough but nothing prepared me for the 89 sub downloads of my home town of Hastings and neighbouring Rye. Not even of a specific subject but just random images of different events and locations from across a wide time period. It was such unusual activity that I emailed Dreamstime asking them to take a look. Their prompt reply assured me that there was nothing to cause suspicion at their end and, at the time of writing, all the sales still stand. I'll update if that changes in the coming weeks.

Second place went to Redbubble with 3 product sales. Two T shirts and a framed print of the Greek island of Skiathos pushed them up the rankings.

In third place Shutterstock had another subdued month with very few On Demand sales to push the earnings up. Early October sales are showing distinct signs of improvement.

Alamy made fourth place with a further 2 downloads - both from my b/w archive images. It certainly seems that the time spent uploading my back catalogue to them was well spent.

Istock made fifth place with 43 downloads.

On to my lower earners, we had a rare single sale at Mostphotos to give them sixth place for an On

Eco catamaran at Port Vell, Barcelona

Demand sale. I have now opted out of their basic subscription package, so future sales (when they come) should be for higher amounts.

Fotolia took seventh place with 3 downloads. As last month, these were all for higher than the basic subscription rate. In a surprise move Fotolia announced that they are increasing the minimum payout to contributors for sub sales. If I remember correctly the new minimum for my level (bronze) will rise to $0.33. Further news on Fotolia came when a poster at Microstockgroup said they had been told that Editorial submissions were coming in the future. No official information on this yet, however.

Bigstock only managed 6 downloads to give them eighth place. Perhaps that buyer there who frequently downloads images of Hastings went to Dreamstime this month!

Bringing up the bottom in ninth place were 123RF with (you guessed) 4 downloads. The good news there is that those downloads took me over the long awaited $50 payout level. I'm just waiting for the money to come in and then that's us done I think.

Agia Zoni bell tower, Tilos island

Recent uploads included more from my June trip to the Greek island of Tilos this time of the church of Agia Zoni in the abandoned village of Mikro Chorio. Other images included an electric powered Eco Catamaran at Port Vell in Barcelona. The vessel derives some of its energy from wind and solar power -hence the Eco tag.

Also uploaded were a selection of monochrome versions of my images of the Boquer Valley in Majorca. Though I had art sites such as Redbubble in mind these also got accepted at all my regular agencies as well. We'll see if the buyers like these versions or not :)

New shooting was concentrated on Majorca as well having just returned from a week long trip. I made my maiden hot air balloon flight there which, though magical, was a dawn flight which didn't lend itself to much photography. Still, back on the ground, I shot lots of massive waves breaking in the coves at Cala San Vicente during a day of very strong winds. October looks to be starting well so I hope that continues. Regards, David.

August Sales Updates:

Vintage aeroplane ride at Tibidabo, Barcelona

August saw some slight signs of recovery from the Summer Slowdown (Stall might be a better word) with an unexpected boost from one site but a really disappointing result from another.

Back to first place were Shutterstock but with only a single On Demand sale all month (these normally comprise 40-50% of my monthly earnings. Only two modest (but worthwhile) Single downloads on the 31st pulled things around here - about a third of my monthly total in one swoop.

Istock came in second place with a solid 39 downloads. Lots of new image acceptances here giving hope for a steadily improving future. My Istock portfolio is still way behind others in terms of size as a result of (thankfully, now historic) upload limits, no editorial, and constant rejections for everything imaginable -usually "contains artifacts" (when did you last see that as a rejection reason?).

Still in the game Alamy took third place with another single sale, this time of the Greek island of Skiathos. Good to see a travel image selling there as I have long believed that is probably the area that eventually I will do best with at Alamy. Just look at the travel pages of newspapers to see the large number of Alamy credits.

Fourth place (and here's the surprise) went to Fotolia with 8 downloads. Not just subscription sales

Volleyball on the beach, Barcelona

either but almost all paying out at 0.99 credit levels. I'm actually in danger of getting a payout at Fotolia if this keeps up :)

Bigstock produced 8 downloads to make fifth place. Greek island images continue to sell here as well.

Sixth place went to Redbubble with a single T shirt sale featuring (yet again) Margaret Thatcher.

Seventh place was 123rf with (shock!) 4 downloads. Yet another month in which the 4 downloads rule applies. Barely one dollar to payout level now -then it will be time to Shower The Horse (as Anne-Marie didn't sing). You might have to Google that....

Megalo Chorio on Tilos island, Greece

Finally in eighth place ( and the big disappointment) were Dreamstime with just a single $0.35 subscription sale. Two thousand and three hundred images there and one sale. It's genuinely a shame to see what is happening here. They're a nice agency run by nice people (and I'm not just saying that as a former "artist of the week"). It's been reported that they are taking action against Google because of their low ranking in search results - which I'm sure is a factor here. I have no intention of stopping uploading here and just hope things can be turned around.

Uploading (now super-fast thanks to my previously mentioned new broadband connection) concentrated on my 2018 trips with the 1928 vintage aeroplane ride at the Tibidabo park in Barcelona as well as a lively volleyball game on the beach. Also up were a set of Megalo Chorio the Capital of the Greek island of Tilos. The medieval Crusader Knights castle can be seen on the hill in the background.

Hopefully, September will start to see some improved results all round. Regards, David.

July Sales Updates:

Vintage cable car over Barcelona, Catalonia

The Summer Slowdown months frequently throw up some interesting results and July 2018 was no different.

No Shutterstock in top place this month as Alamy takes the lead with a single three figure sale. Even after deducting 50% commission this still left them way out in front. My portfolio at Alamy has now passed the 2.5k mark and I look forward to continuing sales with them (especially for those sort of amounts).

Reduced to second place Shutterstock had a poor month. It's a long time since I failed to make the minimum payout level here but my sales stopped just short of that. The almost complete absence of higher paying On Demand sales (just one) dragged them down. A couple of Single downloads helped pull it back a bit but not enough.

Roman bridge at Pollenca, Majorca

Third place went to Redbubble with two print sales (an Art Print and a framed canvas print). Always good to see actual print sales knowing my images are destined for someones wall.

Istock took fourth place with some 47 downloads bringing them close to Shutterstock (but with a much smaller portfolio).

Fifth place went to Bigstock with a pleasing 22 downloads. (Greek islands featured strongly here in particular Halki and Tilos).

Dreamstime managed sixth place with 9 downloads most of which came in the final days of the month after several weeks of having just a single sale.

Medieval wall of Rhodes Old Town, Greece

Bringing up the rear in seventh place were 123rf with 5 downloads (all subscription sales so still leaving me a couple of dollars to payout).

A busy month of uploading new images thanks to my new super fast broadband (mentioned last month). Highlights included the vintage (1929) cable car over Barcelona harbour, the Roman bridge at Pollenca on Majorca and the medieval walled Rhodes Old Town - starting point for my June trip to Tilos island. The latter is a UNESCO World Heritage Site so should attract some sales going forward.

The Summer months continue into August so it will be interesting to see what the coming weeks throw up. Regards, David.

June Sales Updates:

Church of St. Nicholas on Tilos island, Greece

June was an unexciting month in terms of photo sales but personally exciting with a two week stay on the little Greek island of Tilos and the installation of new super fast broadband making my work flow way easier (more on those later).

As usual Shutterstock came well out in front. On Demand sales were considerably down this month -pulling down the total revenue earnings.

Alamy made a pleasing second place with 3 downloads. None of them especially large in money terms but still well above typical microstock rates. All three were from my old archive images confirming that the time spent uploading these was worthwhile. My Alamy portfolio has now passed the 2.5k mark.

Istock continues to pull in the revenue with 36 downloads giving them third place.

In fourth place was Dreamstime with 12 downloads including a worthwhile Extended License.

Solar energy powering Tilos island, Greece

Redbubble made fifth place with a single sale of childrens clothing. Yet again some lucky baby is going to have an outfit adorned with a Margaret Thatcher image! For anyone wondering how to get childrens clothing as a product line here is the answer. Click edit on the first template (T Shirts) then click on the I for information symbol (over on the right of screen). Then tick the childrens clothing box before hitting save. Basically you have to opt in to this for each upload to avoid inappropriate images appearing on kids clothes.

Bigstock did well with 14 downloads and made sixth place. A mixed bunch of images this month.

Breaking their four downloads a month rule 123rf continued their slow goodbye (from me) with 6 downloads pushing me to barely $2 to payout level and giving them seventh place this month. Now at six months since I ceased uploading to them.

In eighth place were Mostphotos with a single subscription sale. I'm never quite sure why I continue to bother with them (other than the free back up service) but I have now opted out of their subscription packages so any future sales should be for a reasonable rate. If there are any, of course. Either way I'm not really losing anything there given how few sales I get.

Framing Livadia harbour on Tilos island, Greece

Two weeks of June were taken up by a trip to the small Greek island of Tilos. I hadn't stayed there since 2006 (when I wasn't doing photography) so my images were limited to those from a couple of day trips from the nearby island of Halki. There was plenty to shoot on Tilos including two main villages, two deserted villages, a monastery and a couple of Crusader Knights castles. Of especial interest was the solar/wind power project Tilos have whereby they hope to become self sufficient in power just from renewable sources. This has attracted a lot of attention so getting images of the wind turbine and the solar panel array were high on my shoot list for the trip.

Back home my uploading was advanced greatly by upgrading to 4g broadband. The difference was astounding. Single images now upload almost instantly and larger batches take a few seconds - not the many minutes they used to take. Ironically, this is costing me less per month than my old slower 3g broadband did. In terms of uploading this is certainly a gamechanger and I look forward to getting many more images uploaded going forward.

July looks set to be firmly in the Summer Slowdown mode judging by my sales so far. More next month. Regards, David.

May Sales Updates:

Protestor climbing a comms mast in Barcelona

A steady month in May with  no major surprises or dramas.

The usual top of the tree placing went to Shutterstock though a decreased number of On Demand downloads pulled the dollars down here.

Making a welcome return into second place were Alamy with 2 downloads. One fairly modest one and one substantial one. These were both from my B/W archive collection from the 80s/90s. I now have approaching 2.5k images there and still have some older digital images to upload.

Istock took third place with 40 downloads. They would have been second but for the Alamy sales and are still, in general, my second best site for sales and income.

Redbubble came in fourth place with 3 product sales (bag, T shirt, poster). One of the things I really like about Redbubble is they pay out any cleared earnings on a monthly basis - no waiting to hit a fixed payout level like with most microstock sites. Equally, it's one of the things I don't like about Redbubble because I never get to a substantial amount (I'm sure some do!). It might be nice to have the option of letting it build up a bit.

Fifth place went to Dreamstime with 7 downloads. There are certainly more signs of life at DT these

Lidl supermarket, retail success in the UK

days and the bad old days of rejecting similar images are long gone.

Bigstock came in sixth place with 9 downloads. The ever popular Tenterden food and Drink festival images still continuing to sell here. May saw the second year of this event so I have some fresh images ready and waiting.

Seventh place saw the (leaving when I get payout) 123rf with a paltry 4 downloads. Just four dollars left to payout now. Except for April when the Stephen Hawking effect kicked in, 123 have delivered exactly 4 downloads every month this year!

Finally in eight place we have (still waiting for editorial) Fotolia with a single download. In common with most other sites FT seem to be rejecting little these days so my portfolio is gradually growing there - but still only about 200 images.

Medieval Crusader castle on Halki island, Greece

As well as covering the food and drink festival in May I also took a series of my local Lidl supermarket. Retailing (and in particular food retailing) are big ongoing media stories in the UK so I plan to start adding more storefront type images to my portfolio. I also shot my local Esso petrol station (it's next door to Lidl so silly to miss it). One of the interesting (for me) by products of stock photography is the amount of (sometimes useless) knowledge you pick up when researching for caption information. Esso, it turns out, is an acronym for Eastern States Standard Oil. Who knew? Not me that's for sure.

Other uploading in May included more shots of my April trip to Barcelona including the dramatic moment when a protestor climbed a communications tower to unfurl a banner. He was cheered and clapped by the thousands in the Placa Espanya below. Another series uploaded was of the medieval Crusader Knights castle on the Greek island of Halki. Regards, David.

April Sales Updates:

Llibertat Presos Politics march, Barcelona

Another strong month in April with Professor Stephen Hawking images continuing to sell and right at the end a flurry of Amber Rudd sales following her resignation as British Home Secretary.

As usual Shutterstock were way out in front in first place. A good number of On Demand and a double figure Single download pushing them up. April also saw a milestone when my total downloads on Shutterstock passed the ten thousand mark. That's a lot of sales.

In second place Istock returned to form with 43 downloads. As controversial as Istock might be amongst some contributors, their regular positioning in second place for me tells why I continue to upload there. In spite of some very low paying subscription downloads the RPD (Rate per Download) continues to be higher than the old 28cents fixed rate.

Third place saw a good month at Dreamstime with 10 downloads. Two of these were higher paying credit sales which raised them in my rankings.

Redbubble came in fourth place with three product sales (a pillow, a T shirt and a sticker). Some lucky person now owns a pillow adorned with Margaret Thatcher :)

In fifth place were Bigstock with 10 downloads. My Tenterden food and drink festival images continue to sell there presumably to illustrate outdoor summer events. These images have yet to take off on parent company Shutterstock where my Tentertainment music festival images continue to shine. Sadly, this enjoyable local music event is no more following alleged complaints over noise and other matters. Still for over ten years we had a great event and photo opportunity.

Sixth place saw 123rf with 4 downloads. At this rate it looks like it may be a while before I get my

Teleferic de Montjuic cable cars, Barcelona

final $5 to payout and close my account. Meanwhile as well as stopping uploading this year I have also deleted the pending editorial images which have sat there since December. Whilst in delete mode I also removed the only images of Margaret Thatcher that 123 had in their library (unless you count a waxwork model of her!). In an interesting move their sister company -macro agency Inmagine has ceased as a separate site with buyers being linked over to the 123 Evo (premium) collection instead. Inmagine used to mirror 123 images in a Value RF section which might be another reason for falling sales (not every Inmagine buyer is just going to automatically move to 123 instead). It's a shame -123RF was once a good, fair agency for contributors.

Canstock surprised with not one but two downloads to give them seventh place. I have also stopped uploading there as well for now. They are not bad people but simply do not sell enough to warrant the time uploading. Silly rejections such as wanting property releases for public landmark buildings didn't help matters here -especially when the same building is already in their library. I'm keeping my account open there -who knows what might happen in the future?

Bringing up the bottom in eighth place were Fotolia with 2 downloads. Editorial please!

Missing from the rankings for the third month running were Alamy but (thankfully) May has started with a good value sale there so they will be back in next months updates.

The stunning Boquer Valley trail on Majorca

April saw me making my second visit to the fantastic City of Barcelona (this time for a full week). I hit photography gold on my second day there when the centre of the City came to a halt for a massive pro Catalonia demonstration and march (specifically calling for the release of Catalan politicians jailed after the declaration of independence in October 2017). As expected this made for some great photo opportunities. I also packed a lot more into my week including an exciting ride on the Montjuic Teleferic cable car line.

Other April uploading saw more images from my 2017 Majorca trip including a set of the Boquer Valley trail. Starting behind the town of Puerto Pollensa this goat filled trail takes you through the stunning rock formations of the Tramuntana mountains before ending in an isolated cove where you get to share the beach with yet more goats.

All in all a positive and exiting month in April with a wealth of new images to work on.
Regards, David.

March Sales Updates:

Professor Stephen Hawking 

March was never going to be a normal month because, as regular readers will know, my archives include an  image of British physicist Professor Stephen Hawking who sadly died on the 14th of March. It is in the very nature of shooting editorial images that sometimes they will sell to illustrate a good news story and sometimes the complete opposite....

Way out in front in first place were Shutterstock with something not far off my BME there. My Hawking image was downloaded 58 times alone on the 14th with many more downloads through to the end of the month. That said, image sales at SS were strong all round this month.

Second place went to Dreamstime with 9 downloads. Again the obvious sales including an extended license which pushed up the revenue.

Redbubble took third place with 5 product sales ranging from prints to T Shirts.

Fourth place fell to Istock with 25 downloads. No Hawking effect there as they do not accept celebrity type images (arguing that they would compete with their own Getty Images coverage). I don't get it, but there it is.

Bigstock made fifth place with 21 downloads (obvious sales again).

The Serra de Tramuntana mountains in Majorca

In sixth place were 123rf with 17 downloads (yes, again). In some ways this was unwelcome as I had been poised to walk away from them once I had heard their "good news for contributors" announcement they had promised for the end of March. The announcement never came but I am now so close to payout amount that I may as well hang on now. They've had no new uploads from me for several months now and I plan to keep it that way.

Fotolia took seventh place with 5 downloads (still no editorial from ordinary contributors allowed).

Mostphotos came in eighth place with 4 downloads of Stephen Hawking.

The road down to Sa Calobra in Majorca

Nothing from Alamy again in March so now making two months of no reported sales. Of course, as previously discussed, sales might have taken place but not been reported yet. I'm continuing to build my portfolio there although I'm now starting to run out of back catalogue to upload to them. Obviously, new images go to them in my regular workflow.


Recent uploading had me working on my Majorca images from last year including a cloudy scene on the Serra de Tramuntana mountain range and a series of the famous hairpin bend road down to Sa Calobra - a popular challenge for the thousands of cyclists that visit and train in Majorca each year. Regards, David.

February Sales Updates:

Santa Eulalia merchant schooner in Barcelona

February saw some improvements over the dismal January I am pleased to say.

Back on form in first place were Shutterstock with much improved sales and the return of a good number of On Demand downloads. Several modest Single sales also added to the results here.

Second place went to Istock with 25 downloads with my Tentertainment music festival images continuing to do well.

Redbubble came in third place with 3 product sales. I continue to be impressed with this site and always look forward to seeing what products from my range are purchased. Sadly, as yet, no one has bought a calendar -which I had expected to do well.

Fourth place went to Bigstock with 7 downloads -a mix of local images and Greek islands.

Vintage tram at Port Soller in Majorca

Dreamstime made fifth place with 5 downloads (all subscription sales).

123rf were in sixth place with just 4 downloads. To be fair, as well as stopping new uploads to them I

also opted out of their Partner sales so this is bound to have a downward effect. I am just waiting their promised "good news" announcement at the end of March before probably pulling the plug on them entirely.

Bringing up the rear were Mostphotos with just 1 download (a subscription sale for just a few euro cents). Some people, I gather, do quite well here but it has never really taken off for me. The ability to download your own images for free makes them useful as an additional back up for my files.

Nothing from Alamy in February but I continued to upload my back catalogue to them and now have around 2200 images there. I am hoping that because all my images are available with a Royalty Free license (they have to be because they are RF on other sites) I'll have a bit of an edge there. Carrying out test searches on my image subjects often throws up a lot of competition -until you exclude Rights Managed images from the results and a lot of the competition vanishes.

Zea marina at Piraeus in Athens

Nothing from Picfair either but I did make a major move by increasing the price of all my images from £10 to £40 (making them just under £50 when Picfair add their margin on top). Crazy move when a lot of photographers are only charging a pound or two? Maybe, but now I'm selling on Alamy the Picfair price just looked too cheap for what (I perceive) is a similar market. I also factored in that Picfair is now representing the long established Robert Harding (travel) picture library (prices well above mine!) and even the mobile phone images division of Alamy -Stockimo. If both those think they can get sales at premium prices then I didn't want to be selling myself short. Picfairs global price changer makes it easy to amend all your prices at any time in moments so I can always rethink my strategy at any time.

Recent uploading had me working through my various trips from last year including those from  Athens, Barcelona and Majorca. This year I am returning for an extended stay in Barcelona and going to the Greek island of Tilos -so I'm busy doing research to get stock image ideas ready. I'll report back on those later in the year. Regards, David.

January Sales Updates:

The Temple of Apollo on Aegina island, Greece

If December was a slow month then January can only be catagorised as dire. Even my top performing agency Shutterstock produced a disappointing result and for the first time in years failed to make the minimum for payout. I can only hope that February shows some improvement.

Shutterstock in first place managed only two On Demand sales and a small Single download and coupled with a reduced amount in subscription sales produced a far from stella month.

Second place went to Redbubble with 4 product sales ranging from childrens clothes to stickers.

Istock came in at third place with 27 downloads. A disappointing month from them also.

Michael Latham M.P. -third sale on Alamy

Fourth place went to Alamy with one single sale. This was my third sale there of the late Conservative politician Michael Latham. I actually managed to find that one in use on the BBC News website in a feature on Members of Parliament (and former Members)  who had died in 2017. I suspect that a number of my archive political images will end up being used in a similar way as time goes on.

Fifth place went to a perked up Dreamstime with 10 downloads (and not all subs at that). The Greek island of Agistri accounted for nearly half of these.

Bigstock managed sixth place with 9 downloads. My images of the Tenterden Food and Drink festival continued to sell there.

Seventh place went to Fotolia with just 1 download -a reasonable paying credit sale.

The church of  Agioi Anargyroi on Agistri island, Greece

Bottom of the pack in eighth place were 123RF with just 4 subscription downloads. My December editorial uploads continued to be pending throughout the month just to make matters worse. Their latest changes to commission levels (not even announced -just discovered) which, in my case, will make it much harder to ever move up from the low ball level one rates means that 123rf are very much making themselves contenders to be dropped by me.

Whilst considering the 123rf position I have also emailed both Cutcaster and YayMicro asking them to close my accounts. Though I haven't uploaded to either in a long time I was leaving my accounts open but have now decided that neither is likely to ever produce another payout and they may as well be closed. I expect to lose the small amount of commission earned but they probaly need it more than I do :)

Recent uploads included the 6th century BC Temple of Apollo on the Greek island of Aegina. You can read more about my trip to the island on my Small Greek Islands blog (link on the right). Hopefully my February results will make for more cheerful reading. Regards, David.

December Sales Updates:

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - archive sale at Alamy

A steady if unexciting month in December which, of course, saw the Christmas through to New Year holidays for many buyers.

As normal Shutterstock took lead place (despite a total of seven zero sales days). A reasonable single download pushed the income up a bit here.

Second place went to Redbubble with a pleasing six product sales (including, for the second month running, a print sale). I would assume that a good number of these items were destined to be Christmas presents. Sadly, I have yet to sell my first calendar there -despite having a number of different ones available.

The Arc de Triomf in Barcelona

Alamy took third place with 3 downloads -all from my political archives. An early image of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (before they both went on to be Prime Minister) was amongst these. I have high hopes that the work I put into Alamy in 2017 will continue to pay off in the coming year.

Istock made fourth place with 36 downloads. A lack of high paying commissions brought the revenue down here this month.

Fifth place was taken by Bigstock with 6 downloads.

123rf were in sixth place with 6 downloads (a big change from November's surge). They also seem to have stopped reviewing my new uploads again with several batches still pending after some weeks.

Seventh place was another sad month for Dreamstime with (as November) just 3 subscription sales.

The famous La Rambla in Barcelona

Bringing up the rear were Fotolia with just a single sale. Maybe 2018 will be the year they throw open the doors to editorial submissions. I'm quite sure they'll be climbing my rankings if they do.

Recent uploads continued to focus on my Barcelona trip including a series of the Arc de Triomf (the Barcelona one!) and an image of the iconic La Rambla -the pedestrianised road that every tourist (and photographer) goes to. The regional elections which took place in Catalonia in December helped put the spotlight on Barcelona so I have hopes for these images in 2018.

Wishing all readers of this blog a happy and sales filled New Year. Regards, David.