March Sales Updates:

Plaza de Espana -spectacular building in Seville

Far from a stellar month in March as even my usual number one agency failed to hit payout and several others produced no sales at all.

In first place were Shutterstock with a good number of downloads - but few On demand sales and no Single downloads conspired to drag down the earnings to just a few cents short of payout level. It's not often this happens but at least I can look forward to a bumper payout next month.

Istock took second place with 21 downloads but a low RPD (rate per download) dragged down the earnings.

Third place was for Dreamstime with just 4 downloads. All subscription sales but with two of them at the higher $2 sub level. In a normal month DT would have been lucky to get third ranking on those sales.

Fourth place went to Bigstock with 6 downloads.

Fifth and final place went to Redbubble with just a single sale - a sticker of the Greek flag keeping

Fishing at Piraeus port in Athens

them in the rankings.

Notable absentees in March with no sales at all were Alamy, Adobe and FineArtAmerica (my recent revival of sales hitting the buffers there). Alamy was, of course, the especial disappointment.

No disguising this was a poor month but stock is a long game and needs to be viewed over a much longer period than just a few weeks. My portfolios continue to grow and new subjects added so one bad month needn't be of concern.

New uploads in March saw a return to my 2016 trip to Athens with a series of temples at the World famous Acropolis as well images from Piraeus port (the biggest passenger port in Europe and the second biggest in the World so my research turned up - a useful fact for editorial captions).

Historic Acropolis site in Athens

New shooting saw my first ever visit to the Spanish city of Seville at the end of March. Lots to photograph here in this old, traditional City. Highlights of my visit included the Plaza de Espana (built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929). A spectacular semi circular building with huge public space in front. A moat with rowing boats just added to the photographic interest.  More modern, but equally impressive was the Metropol Parasol (Las Setas de Sevilla) - a 2011 wooden construction resembling giant mushrooms. A walkway on the top affords fantastic views over the City. I'm looking forward to working on my Seville images in the coming months so expect to see more in future posts. Hopefully, April results will see some good improvements. Regards, David.

January Sales Updates:

Wartime defence post at Loggos on Paxos island

An unusual month in January as due to Istock transitioning to their new Enterprise Submission Platform (ESP) for uploading and account management no sales information was available so they are not included this month. Going forward I will include Istock stats in the month I get them notified (e.g. January sales will be in my February report -as that is when I got them). Worth mentioning that I have accessed the ESP site (with some issues initially) and have uploaded a small quantity of trial images -both commercial and editorial. The ability to batch upload and edit is a huge leap forward from the old one image at a time uploader. More on Istock in February.

In January, obviously, Shutterstock took first place as is always the case. Reviews there seem to be fast at the moment with a high percentage of approvals which has enabled a worthwhile growth in my portfolio.

Flying Cat 5 at Patitiri harbour on Alonissos island

In second place were Dreamstime with 8 downloads -again prompt and favourable reviews for my uploads.

Third place  went to 123rf with 10 downloads -sadly not a repeat of my BME in December.

Bigstock took fourth place with 7 downloads. Greek island related images seem to be selling well there recently.

A big surprise when Cutcaster turned up in fifth place with 2 downloads. These were my first sales there since 2014! I stopped uploading there a long time ago now. Even with these two sales my total downloads still only amount to 10 (with a port of 1.4k images). Still a long way to payout there.

The historic Acropolis in Athens

Fotolia came in with sixth place with 2 downloads. Until they decide to accept editorial images this is never likely to be a big selling site for me.

Finally in seventh place were Canstock with I download. My comments on Fotolia also apply to Canstock.

Not a stellar month overall but I am hoping my upload drive will start to pay off during 2017 as new material gets accepted. Recent uploads revolved around Greek images including a wartime defence post on Paxos, the Flying Cat catamaran on Alonissos and finally another image from the Acropolis in Athens. A lot has happened in Microstock in February (hence my late posting) so more of that next time. Regards, David.

December Sales Updates:

The Acropolis of Athens

Well that's it then for 2016. Not a spectacular year in terms of microstock sales for me due to a combination of lack of uploading time reducing my output and the continuing influx of new images to all the sites. Redbubble proved the rising star of the year with regular sales of a wide variety of images. A far cry from FineArtAmerica where I had no sales at all in 2016 -I will, however, be renewing my premium membership for 2017 to see if there is a turnaround. Yay was the casualty in 2016 when I finally ceased uploading new images. With over 2000 files uploaded they produced just one sale for 0.68euros.

So to December then there's no need to say that Shutterstock maintained their lead in first place -though I barely scraped past the minimum payout.

Second place went to Redbubble with 5 product sales ranging from clothing to phone covers.

Stefanos volcano crater on Nisyros island

Third place was taken by Dreamstime. Though they only managed 3 downloads one of those was another high paying credit sale of nearly $10.

Fourth place went to 123rf with an astonishing 25 downloads making it my BME in quantity but not income. A lot of Greek island images sold -presumably to the same buyer.

Steady Bigstock produced 10 downloads to make fifth place.

Exceptionally down in sixth place were Istock with 2 credit sales and 10 subs. This was because of their transition to new sales reporting which is due to happen around February. As a consequence reporting in December ended before the month was over and before any Partner sales had been added. From now on sales will be updated monthly in one go so my rankings will be a bit out of line for a while. Not being able to see sales accrue in real time is hardly motivating for anyone and I hope they reconsider this in the future.

Tentertainment music festival at Tenterden, Kent

Finally a single sale from Mostphotos earned them seventh place. I haven't forgotten Fotolia -they just didn't have a single sale for me in December!

Uploading in December saw a big increase with many new files now available. I intend to keep this pace up throughout 2017 as much as possible. New images included my first Acropolis shot from my Athens trip last May as well as my set from the 2016 Tentertainment music festival. Backtracking to 2015, I also uploaded further images of the Stefanos volcano crater on the Greek island of Nisyros.

Wishing all readers a very happy 2017! Regards, David.