May Updates:

A steady, rather than exciting, month in May. Shutterstock, as ever, led the way with 42 downloads ($12.69). Dreamstime produced 11 dls ($7.87). Istock achieved 2 partner programme sales ($0.50) and 1 regular sale ($1.56). 2 dls on Bigstock ($1.00) and as previously posted 1 regular sale at Yaymicro (1 euro) and a further 9.70 euro from their 3rd party seller. Nothing this month at Picturenation, VeerMarketplace and Mostphotos.

123RF went live with their Editorial collection at the start of May. I have around 470 live there with a further 40 pending review (in fact, some have been pending since April -which seems a bit slow by anyones standards!). Sadly, no sales there yet but they are only now just starting to market and promote the Editorial collection. I am also hoping that some editorial might also be added to their parent company site Inmagine.com in time. A note in the FAQ there says that they are considering taking Editorial. Certainly some 123RF commercial images already appear in the Inmagine "value images" section.

May also saw a new bit of photo kit. A Giottos aluminum monopod (Model: MML 3270B). Light enough to carry around easily it provides a really sturdy shooting platform (after a bit of practise). I did look at some cheaper options but decided the £40 price (from Jessops in the UK) was a worthwhile investment. I can also combine it with the pan & tilt head from my Giottos tripod for greater flexibility -for example shooting portrait format images.

Regular readers will notice a new image of the late footballer George Best on the left. This has had a flurry of sales in the last few weeks. I believe there is some sort of football competition going on which may explain that!

Meanwhile the Veer "Dash For Cash" payment for uploads continues. To date I have about 30 accepted (the same low acceptance rate that I have always had at Veer!). The promotion goes on until the end of June so I'll see where I am then. What is interesting (and encouraging) is that my views there have shot up in the past few weeks. Will update further on that later. Regards, David.

January Updates:

After the Christmas slowdown, the new year got off to a flying start. Best month ever on Shutterstock with 72 downloads ($22.94) and a BDE of 14 downloads. Meanwhile, another milestone as my SS portfolio passed 700 images.

Over at Dreamstime I had 13 downloads ($9.64) bringing my total sales there to 52 since joining.

Bigstockphoto continued its flurry of sales with a further 5 downloads (most of which were my archive politician images -the General Election is coming soon in the UK so I am expecting my political images to show an increase in sales).

Istockphoto brought 4 downloads ($3.10) of which two were my first sales on "Partner Programme" site Photos.com.

And Yay! Finally had another sale at Yaymicro (o.5 Euros). Well it all helps! What was pleasing was that it was one of my Editorial images (Poll Tax riots in London). So hopefully my Editorial there is starting to get some attention.

Nothing yet from Mostphoto, but I've only uploaded 23 images to them so far so no surpise there. British site Picturenation also zero but they have only been back online for a couple of weeks. However, lots of new images accepted on PN with some lightning quick reviews (including my fastest ever approval -about 30 seconds after submission! They were obviously reviewing my batch as I was adding captions and submitting. It started to feel like a bit of a race at one point).

Meanwhile at 123RF my trial Editorial submission got reviewed and all were accepted (11). There was a delay there as I wasn't previously signed up to them. Turned out that they were not set up for people joining with just Editorial images. One of their people was posting on the Microstockgroup.com forum so I queried why mine were still waiting approval. Pleased to say that they dealt with it within a day or so. Looking forward to uploading a load more ahead of their forthcoming Editorial launch. Regards, David.