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.