June Sales Updates:

Gordon Brown - good sale on Pond5

 Just as May saw Alamy going from hero to zero June saw Pond5 going from zero to hero!

So, straight into first place were Pond5 with 5 custom licence sales of archive images of former British Prime Ministers. Margaret Thatcher, Ted Heath, John Major, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. These were all for decent amounts and I got the usual 50% commission for each. Whilst photo sales on Pond are not frequent when they do happen they are for reasonable amounts (though whether that will last now they are owned by Shutterstock we will see).

Shutterstock took second place with a big increase in downloads and 8 On Demand sales plus 3 modest Single sales making up over 50% of the total. They would have been an easy winner but for that nice Pond surprise.

Third place went to Istock with 37 downloads. A low RPD this month pulled them down a bit.

Fourth place went to FineArtAmerica with a T shirt sale. FAA never seem to break through in mass

Tony Blair - sticker sale on Redbubble

sales for me but always do enough each year overall to make them worthwhile.

Dreamstime took fifth place with 6 downloads including two rare credit sales of my former home town of Hastings. Just a few cents until payout now.

Alamy made a small comeback in sixth place with a $ sale. This was another from my set of WW2 ration books and Identity cards. I'm really pleased with how this series is doing as they seem to be getting regular sales across all my agencies.

Seventh place went to Bigstock with 4 downloads. No sign of the Bridge returning.

Redbubble disappointed in eighth place with a single sticker sale of Tony Blair (making another outing this month. Not sure what you do with a sticker of a former Prime Minister but there you go.

Bringing up the rear in ninth place was a very rare appearance from Mostphotos with a single subscription sale. I don't know if anyone does well with this site but it certainly has never worked well for me. The big plus is that you can download your own images for free so it's another form of backup.

Food Ration book - gathering sales

Missing from the rankings list above is Adobe where I didn't get a single sale during June. I still hope for the day when they take proper editorial images and not just the limited (no people) Illustrative Editorial. Hard to figure why they are so adverse to this when just about every other agency going accepts them.

As mentioned in my last post shooting was concentrated on my Greek islands trip to Ithaca. I have yet to start editing and uploading these. I'm still continuing to go through my archives looking for further images to scan and upload.

July now takes us into the famous Summer Slowdown so we'll see what the month brings. Regards, David.

September Sales Updates:

 

Blair and Brown: New Labour, new print sale

A near full house of results in September with only Picfair and Mostphotos (as usual ) failing to make an appearance.

Back in first place were Shutterstock with a good crop of On Demand sales pushing up the results. Two of these  paid way more than under the old structure so more of those please :)

Second place went to FineArtAmerica with two sales including a print of Lech Walesa the former President of Poland.  

Alamy made third place with a record 6 downloads. Sadly, none of these were very high value hence their ranking. 

Fourth place went to Redbubble with 3 product sales. Two prints including an archive shot of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and yet another greeting card. I'm hoping that the Christmas build up will start soon as in previous years.

Fifth place went to Istock with a disappointing 15 downloads. I keep adding to my portfolio there but

Petrol queues: traditional UK panic buying

never seem to see a big growth in sales.

Adobe perked up to make sixth place with 8 downloads (including three editorials).

Seventh place went to Pond 5 with a single download of the Tentertainment music festival. After my super month there a few weeks back it was nice to see another regular sale. I'm still continuing to upload my back catalogue to them so we'll see what they can do going forward. Still, given that you can set your own prices and get 50% royalties there really is nothing to lose by uploading to them.

Bringing up the rear were Bigstock in eighth place with just 2 downloads and, sadly, Dreamstime in ninth place with just one download. A subscription sale at that :(

Lech Walesa: print sale on FineArtAmerica

New shooting included a visit to the postponed Tenterden Food and Drink Festival (back properly for the first time since 2019). I also visited my local petrol station as the UK went into panic buying mode due to fears of shortages caused by lack of delivery drivers. The resultant queues backing up down the road were too good a subject to miss.

New uploading in addition to the events mentioned above included, as I said, pumping more into Pond 5 (as well as filling in some gaps in my Picfair portfolio and POD sites at the same time). I also revisited my 2013 trip to the Greek island of Alonissos for a few additional shots. Luckily, most of the small Greek islands tend to be pretty timeless so even older images are still valid.

October so far has started off fairly slowly but there's time yet. More next month. Regards, David.

December Sales Updates:

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - archive sale at Alamy

A steady if unexciting month in December which, of course, saw the Christmas through to New Year holidays for many buyers.

As normal Shutterstock took lead place (despite a total of seven zero sales days). A reasonable single download pushed the income up a bit here.

Second place went to Redbubble with a pleasing six product sales (including, for the second month running, a print sale). I would assume that a good number of these items were destined to be Christmas presents. Sadly, I have yet to sell my first calendar there -despite having a number of different ones available.

The Arc de Triomf in Barcelona

Alamy took third place with 3 downloads -all from my political archives. An early image of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (before they both went on to be Prime Minister) was amongst these. I have high hopes that the work I put into Alamy in 2017 will continue to pay off in the coming year.

Istock made fourth place with 36 downloads. A lack of high paying commissions brought the revenue down here this month.

Fifth place was taken by Bigstock with 6 downloads.

123rf were in sixth place with 6 downloads (a big change from November's surge). They also seem to have stopped reviewing my new uploads again with several batches still pending after some weeks.

Seventh place was another sad month for Dreamstime with (as November) just 3 subscription sales.

The famous La Rambla in Barcelona

Bringing up the rear were Fotolia with just a single sale. Maybe 2018 will be the year they throw open the doors to editorial submissions. I'm quite sure they'll be climbing my rankings if they do.

Recent uploads continued to focus on my Barcelona trip including a series of the Arc de Triomf (the Barcelona one!) and an image of the iconic La Rambla -the pedestrianised road that every tourist (and photographer) goes to. The regional elections which took place in Catalonia in December helped put the spotlight on Barcelona so I have hopes for these images in 2018.

Wishing all readers of this blog a happy and sales filled New Year. Regards, David.

April Updates (finally):

A rather late update on my stats for April. Blame that on Veer as I have been busy "dashing for cash" (no results on that one yet but 121 pending).
Meanwhile over at Shutterstock (where my portfolio passed the 800 mark) I totalled 53 downloads in April ($14.88). The hoped for General Election boom for my archive political images didn't happen there (or anywhere for that matter). Certainly there were some sales but probaly no more than average. A Conservative party election poster on SS and a polling station sign at Dreamstime being the only specific election related sales. Staying on Dreamstime, April brought 15 sales (netting a healthy $12.04). Istockphoto produced no regular sales but 7 partner program downloads at 25cents each ($1.75). British agency PictureNation produced another 3 web resolution sales at £0.40 each (£1.20). Bringing up the rear in April, Bigstock had one editorial sale at 50cents.
No action last month for Veer, Yaymicro, or Mostphotos. Nothing at 123RF as none of my editorial images were live in April. As for BritishImages -who knows. They do not have a views/download counter and I am still unable to change my contact details for payment on the site.
April also saw a return to my editorial archives as I finally got round to scanning and uploading more of my B/W negatives. Highlights included Ted Heath, former British Prime Minister, and a new (old) one of Gordon Brown (now, of course, also a former Prime Minister). Regards, David.

And Another:

Signed up to another new agency last week. 123RF hovers around the bottom of the so called "big six" microstock agencies (according to the rankings on http://www.microstockgroup.com ). I would have gotten around to them at some point but what prompted this now was their announcement that they are going to start taking Editorial images. They are in a gathering stage at the moment with a launch scheduled for the end of February. With my celebrity and political archive images doing well on most other agencies that take Editorial this was too good an opportunity to miss. With 123 you have to submit (a minimum) of 10 images for initial approval before you can contribute freely. I just went for the usual "big guns" from my portfolio (Margaret Thatcher/Boris Yeltsin/Gordon Brown etc) for my initial batch - with a recent shot of The Red Arrows in action at the Eastbourne airshow added (just to prove I know what a colour photograph looks like!). Still waiting for approval nearly a week later but I'm hoping this is because they have been inundated by Editorial images and not because they are not interested in mine. I'll update in due course. Regards, David.

Made "Image of the Day" on Yaymicro:

http://www.yaymicro.com have a new Image of the Day feature on their blog. One of mine was chosen today! A reluctant donkey resisting being pulled up a ramp into its trailer. "A case of the Monday's" as they captioned it. The strapline says "One of many historical images from Newsfocus1", with a valuable link direct to my portfolio there. Must admit, I would have thought that my archive shots of Margaret Thatcher or Gordon Brown would qualify more for the "historic" tag, but anything that directs buyers to my portfolio is more than welcome! Regards, David.