Veer's marathon Dash for Cash runs out of puff:

End of an era as Veer closes and makes final payments

That's it then. I've finally received my Dash For Cash uploading bonus from Veer which I earned way back in 2010.

New readers can be forgiven for not knowing what I'm talking about so backtracking to 2008 or so we had the launch of microstock photo agency Snap Village. SV was the first attempt at microstock from long established traditional photo agency Corbis (owned by Bill Gates -founder of Microsoft). Corbis was well known for editorial imagery and very much in a battle with Getty Images for dominance in that market.

Snapvillage (the very first online agency I signed up to) was never a great success -for them or me -and in 2009 its closure was announced with key portfolios being moved over to the Veer agency (another Corbis brand). Not surprisingly, my portfolio did not make the grade for transfer but they did allow photographers to sign up to the new Veer Marketplace (the budget part of the Veer site) and upload there. Most of my uploads got rejected -usually with snooty notes about being too journalistic or not meeting the aesthetic qualities their clients expected. It was very much an old school, traditional agency not having a clue about microstock and what sells. Worse, they never accepted editorial images -surprising given the background of Corbis (or maybe avoiding a conflict of interest?).

In 2010, Veer wanted to boost their image library so announced their Dash for Cash scheme. Essentially, for a limited period, they paid a fee for each image uploaded and accepted. I actually did quite well out of that and earned around $75 in bonus money. The problem with that was that Veer has a payout level of $100 (way too high for a slow selling site). Over the six years since I have had one Extended License paying out around $20 and a handful of minor sales -bringing me to just over $98. Close, but so far, from payout!

Acceptance actually got a lot better in the last year or so with virtually all my uploads making it into their library. The trouble is Veer was and remained a very low selling site. Over at Microstockgroup they never made it beyond the Low Earners section of the monthly polls. I did start to wonder if I would ever make this payout and considered closing my account just to get the money.

However, 2016 brought the news that the Corbis empire had been purchased by Visual China Group which would distribute Corbis images to the Chinese market and to the rest of the World through a partnership deal with Getty Images. Shortly afterwards is was announced that the Veer brand was being closed down altogether and that all contributors would be paid out (regardless of amount).

So, there we are then. The end of the second attempt by Corbis to crack the microstock market. I'm sorry for anyone at Veer who will no longer have a job and I will say that when I have needed to contact them they have never been less than friendly and helpful. The end of an era -with a direct link back to my start in microstock. Regards, David.

January sales updates:

A strong start to the year in January. After a slow start around the holidays things picked up nicely as the month went on.
Needless to say, Shutterstock came out top with 89 downloads ($41.96).
Dreamstime saw a good performance with 13 downloads ($21.17).
Bigstock also saw a flurry of sales with 9 downloads ($5.50). Five of the sales were of Hastings.
Yaymicro reported 4 partner subscription sales making 0.64 euro. They also continued to annoy with a number of random editorial rejections.
Picturenation produced a web res sale of an old b/w archive image (£0.40).
Fotolia saw 2 downloads (1.20 credits).
123rf produced 7 downloads for a miserly commission of $3.75. They're off my upload list and I am considering deleting certain images. I don't really want good selling images like Margaret Thatcher going for 25cent subs or 69cents large sales.
Finally, with supreme irony given all the drama at Istockphoto, I had my BME there with 16 downloads ($22.96) and a further $1.68 from 6 partner sales. At one point sales, and sometimes multiple sales,were coming in daily -with all but two being editorial images. Editorial certainly seems to be taking off there. For anyone that doesn't know "the drama" involves a recent deal between Getty Images and Google. Here's a (long) thread on Microstockgroup  for all the information. At this stage I intend to keep my images on sale there.
No sales yet at FineArtAmerica but I am getting views and I feel positive about the site. I am now going to upgrade to the paid membership and upload a lot more images.
Uploading in January saw a large number of my old archive images as well as some new ones from the 2012 Jack In The Green festival (pictured). Regards, David.

From Woohaying to No Waying (Istock in turmoil):

Well, I was about to post some stats for August when Microstock events overtook me. Istockphoto announced major commission changes (cuts) from next January. Instead of your commission rate being set by your "cannister" level (based on all time sales) it will now be based only on sales from the previous year. For small and independent contributors (like myself) commission will drop from an already poor 20% to what I believe to be an industry low of 15%. Even many of the successful exclusive contributors are anticipating a drop in earnings. Not surprisingly this has led to an outcry on the forums (link here:http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=252322) with the main thread now running to over 3336 (mainly hostile) postings. Several statements by IS chief Kelly Thompson to justify the move seem, if anything, to have made matters worse with many posters cancelling their exclusive status and halting new uploads. Others are calling on image buyers to boycott IS. This is where it gets interesting because IS seems to have overlooked the fact that many contributors are also buyers in their "day job". An increasing number are now posting that they and their companies will not buy images from IS again.
Istock are part of Getty images who are owned by equity group Hellman and
Friedman. This whole move looks like an attempt to up profits (possibly before a sell off, as some have speculated) and seems to have been done with complete disregard for loyal contributors. The so called Istock Community is fast looking like a thing of the past with many now posting four letter word abuse in the forums.
I should say, that none of this has much impact on me financially. I only have a small portfolio there and not many sales. But I do feel really sorry for those who rely on IS for a big part (or all) of their earnings and especially those making a full time living from stock. It remains to be seen how this all pans out in the coming weeks. Regards, David.

Istock Partner Program goes live:

Istock have just announced that their long awaited "Partner Program" will go live tomorrow (November 12). Announced many months ago, this program allows Istock contributors to also have their images for sale on Getty owned subscription sites Photos.com and Jupiter Unlimited. You only have to submit once (to Istock) and tick any that you want to be available on the other sites. You can opt out totally if you want or put all or just selected images on. I've opted in my entire (small -138 ) portfolio on the basis that it is potential extra sales for no extra work. I'm looking forward to seeing how many extra sales this brings. The losers here are the contributors who have portfolios on micro site Stockexpert (also owned by Getty). Their images are being pulled off the two other sites in favour of Istock contributors. Regards, David.