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.

August Sales Updates:

Greek marine research vessel Aegaeo at Piraeus

August proved another slow summer month with not even the unexpected leap to top place which I saw from Alamy in July (in fact, nothing at all from them in August -though that is the nature of how Alamy works with various billing cycles meaning I could have had sales which are not reported yet).

So, as in a normal month, Shutterstock moved back to first place. A good crop of On Demand sales and several modest single sales helped stabilise things here.

Istock made second place with 37 downloads. Down on recent months but still maintaining higher sales since the Unification process at the start of 2017. I finally got round to signing up for the free Todayis20 site which helps you make sense of the inscrutable sales reports from Getty. Once signed up just upload your Getty sales file to them to have all revealed -including thumbnails of all the sold images. There is a wealth of information available which you can break down in multiple ways. This site was created by a Getty contributor and, though free, donations are welcomed.

In third place were Redbubble with three product sales (including one order of 10 stickers of a CCTV camera image - I suspect they are going up in someones shop or similar!).

Fourth place saw Dreamstime with 7 downloads. Some higher priced subcription sales here but no big credit

Torrent De Pareis on Majorca

sales this month.

123RF perked up with 18 downloads to make fifth place. As seems frequent here the sales started off slowly before picking up towards the end of the month.

Sixth place went to Bigstock with 10 downloads. My images of the Tenterden Food and Drink Festival continued to sell here.

Finally in seventh place were Fotolia with 3 downloads (still waiting for them to accept Editorial images so I can really upscale my portfolio. Who knows if this will ever happen but I keep hoping).

Xara gate at Alcudia on Majorca

Recent uploads included some of Greek marine research vessel Aegaeo in Piraeus port, Athens. Operated by the Institute of Oceanography this ship is involved in all sorts of marine research work so I have hopes for some sales there. I'll be honest -this was just a harbour shot made while heading out to Aegina island. I only found out how high profile the vessel was when I researched it at home. You just never know what you might capture by chance.

Recent shooting revolved round my week long trip to Port Pollenca in Majorca during which I covered a lot of ground and added a lot of new images to my portfolio including the stunning gorge of Torrent De Pareis at Sa Calobra and the picturesque Old Town area of Alcudia. It certainly made a change from Greek islands and I am already considering a return visit as there were many more sights to photograph than I could manage in a week. 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.

May Sales Updates:

Panagia Tinou ferry listing in Piraeus harbour, Athens

A late update for my sales in May. I was lucky enough to visit the exciting city of Athens for a few days which has put me behind with other things.

The month saw the usual dominating Shutterstock in first place as ever. A good number of One Demand downloads and a reasonable Single Download pushed things higher. Acceptances remain high at the moment and the days of weird lighting/focus/white balance rejections seem to be fading. This, in turn, has encouraged me to start uploading more with my portfolio now standing at 1941 images. I'm looking forward to passing the 2K mark in the not too distant future.

In second place were Istock with 7 credit sales and a further 38 sub and PP downloads. Editorial reviews remain super fast (a few minutes to a few hours) while commercial image reviews have slowed to nearly a month. Hopefully, they will speed this up going forward.

Redbubble made it to third place in May with 4 sales. Three stickers of Greek island subjects and a T Shirt featuring cult Seventies band The Flamin' Groovies. This Print On Demand site has really paid off for me in the year since I joined. By contrast, Fine Art America (for which I pay $30 a year membership) has produced nothing in sales since last December.

In fourth place were Bigstock with 12 downloads.

Skala beach on Agistri island, Greece

Fifth place went to 123RF with 13 downloads. I'm pleased to say that the problem with long review times seems to have been resolved with all taking place in a timely manner.

Sixth place saw Fotolia produce 7 downloads. Possibly a record month (but given it's only 7, not worth checking back to see!).

Almost at the bottom in seventh place were Dreamstime with 7 downloads (all 35c subs). I've said plenty before about Dreamstime, so won't repeat myself here.

Bringing up the bottom in eighth place were Mostphotos with 2 sub sales paying a few (euro) cents each. As ever, the sales were in their home country of Sweden. They just do not seem to have got any traction around the rest of the world -which given that it is an online business is surprising.

Creating a buzz on Hastings pier

Uploading in May mainly concentrated on my Athens trip images. Piraeus harbour provided some interesting shipping images not least the Panagia Tinou ferry boat which was listing badly after taking on water. Research revealed that this once the Folkestone-Boulogne Sealink ferry Hengist which famously beached near Folkestone during the Great Storm of October 1987. I also spent a day on the little island of Agistri which is just under an hour from Piraeus by hydrofoil. This was the very first Greek island I ever visited back in 2001 and it was really interesting to visit it again -this time with a camera. Little had changed there in all those years. You can read about my first visit there on my Greek Islands blog. Back in the UK, I also continued visiting and photographing the newly re-opened Hastings pier and was lucky enough to get an image of a swarm of bees on a life ring -which made for an unusual picture. I'll try and get my June updates posted more promptly next month :) Regards, David.