November Sales Updates:

Today launch issue from 1986 -new upload

A slow month in November with only one standout performer and nothing at all from my two POD sites -FineArtAmerica and Redbubble (so much for my hoped for Christmas surge).

Way out in first place were Shutterstock. A good Single sale of a Poll Tax Riots image pushed them up here.

Second place went to Alamy. Though I only had two modest downloads a worthwhile sum of DACS payments came in. I always count this in my totals as it is, in effect, secondary income on previous sales - and much appreciated at that.

Istock took third place with 22 downloads. The usual suspects of music festival and travel images did well here.

Fourth place went to Adobe with 10 downloads. My electric vehicle charging point sign continued to feature here. That is one good example of a saleable stock image taken just a few minutes walk from
home.

Dreamstime were in fifth place with 5 downloads. A rare credit sale from them this month.

Finally in sixth place were Bigstock with just a single download. I suspect the lack of new material

M & Co in the old Embassy Cinema building

going into my portfolio (thanks to the ending of the Bridge to Bigstock scheme) doesn't help matters here.

November also saw the ending of my Picfair store subscription (as mentioned in my last post) so I will decide what to do about them going forward. It does mean that I am no longer able to upload any further images as Unlimited Uploads was a feature of the paid store. 

Recent uploading included an image of my local branch of fashion chain Mackays (trading as M & Co) which has just gone into administration. With 170 UK stores this is quite a big business story here and a worrying time for their near two thousand staff. I took a longer shot of the building (rather than just a close up of the store sign) to show the historic Embassy sign as this was once the home of any Embassy Cinema until its closure in the sixties. 

Poll Tax Riots - good sale on Shutterstock

I have also been uploading more historic newspaper mastheads including the launch issue of National daily Today which was first published in 1986. I really liked this newspaper and was sorry to see it close in 1995. Sadly, as a former Fleet Street person, newspapers are becoming a thing of the past with constant news updates available on television news channels and our friend the internet. That said, I cannot remember the last time I actually purchased a newspaper so I am as much a part of the decline as anyone else.

As we near the end of the year I'll take this chance to wish readers  a happy Christmas (should you celebrate it) and every best wish for 2023. Regards, David.

August Sales Updates:

 

Poll tax riots: biggest Alamy sale to date

A slow month in general as you might expect from August (the height of the annual Summer Slowdown). However a couple of bright spots kept things interesting.

Alamy jumped straight into first place with 3 downloads. One of these was my biggest ever ($$$) sale there - a poll tax riots image used for a corporate video. I did have this set for Editorial Use Only but Alamy telephoned me and asked if I was prepared to waive this restriction for this particular usage. The buyer accepted all responsibility for use of the image so I was happy to grant this with a nice payout in return.

Second place went to Istock with 29 downloads. What boosted this was that one of my images of the Greek island of Meganissi was clearly some sort of Extended License judging my the larger amount I got. This, of course, pushed the RPD for the month to a very respectable figure.

Shutterstock could only manage third place this month not least because of only a single On Demand

Meganissi island: extended license on Istock

sale and two tiny Single and Other sales. As I have said before, it is the number and value of these non subscription sales which makes or breaks the month. On a plus note I have now moved up to Level 4 so any of those sales will pay out at a higher rate for the remainder of the year.

Adobe took fourth place but only by a upfront payment for adding some images to their free collection for one year. They actually had zero regular downloads in August which was a bit disappointing.

Fifth place went to Redbubble with 2 product sales (T shirt and poster). Looking forward here to the Christmas boost that I have seen in recent years. 

Dreamstime came in sixth place with 5 downloads. It seems a long time since I saw a big credit sale at DT.

Tom Robinson Band: archives now all on Pond 5

Finally in seventh place we had Bigstock with 4 downloads. My massive aviation inspired boost of a few months back seems like a distance memory now.

Nothing interesting to report in new shooting but in terms of uploading I continued to get my back catalogue onto Pond 5. I have completed uploading all my archival (politics etc) material to them and am now working through modern travel/music festival etc images. Let's see what they can do with them! Meanwhile, they have just launched a new customisable Artist Page. As well as your avatar image you can now add a cover photo (or logo). There is also a 500 character space to write a bio about yourself and your work as well as space to add social media links. I especially liked the Featured items section at the top of the page where you can add six photos/footage clips that you wish to highlight. You can change the sequence of these and change the chosen items as often as you want. For now I've gone with featuring my archive material (Robert Maxwell/Margaret Thatcher/Boris Yeltsin etc) most of which is pretty unique on Pond. Check out the link on the right of the page to see what it looks like. 

September has started slowly so far so we'll see what the rest of the month brings. Regards, David.

January Sales Updates:

Poll Tax Riots - poster sale on Redbubble

A pretty slow month in January overall with some highlights here and there.

Leading the field in first place was Alamy with 3 downloads. Two small sales of a Lidl supermarket and a good $$ for my archive shot of tv mogul Lord Lew Grade. There was also a modest payment for ASCRL (the US counterpart to DACS) fees.

Second place went to good old Redbubble with 4 product sales. Three T shirts and a poster print from the 1990 Poll Tax Riots in London.

Lord Lew Grade - archive sale on Alamy

Shutterstock could only manage third place with only one paltry Single download and one On Demand. Being bounced back to Level 1 didn't help matters here though I expect to be up to Level 2 during February.

Istock had another slow month with 20 downloads and a low RPD.

Fifth place went to Dreamstime with 5 downloads. Their new upload interface went live for me this month and so far I seem to have made it work. It didn't seem to have made the process any easier and the changes seem mainly cosmetic. 

Bigstock scraped into sixth place with 2 downloads.

Back to life (just) were Adobe in seventh place, also with 2 downloads. My hoped for surge of Illustrative Editorial downloads is yet to happen here.

Medieval windmills in Rhodes Old Town

Apart from getting my back portfolio onto Pond 5 (still no sales as yet) uploads were limited to a set from my 2019 trip to the Greek islands Rhodes and Tilos, including the medieval windmills in Rhodes Old Town.

Some early good sign in February but, then again, I said that about January. We'll see. Regards, David.   

April Sales Updates:

Poll Tax Riots sold on FineArtAmerica

A surprisingly strong month overall given the Coronavirus pandemic with an unexpected number two in the rankings.

Just retaining their first place were Shutterstock with a decent but lower amount of downloads causing me to miss payout by just a few cents. Never mind, it will be a bumper payment next month with May already off to a good start. On Demand sales made up some 40% of my downloads as is so often the case.

A surprise second place (only just behind SS) were Redbubble with 10 product sales. I wrote last month that maybe people weren't buying art products in the current climate but April proved me wrong with T shirts, prints and sticker sales coming in every few days.

Istock took third place with a reduced download tally of 22 but a decent RPD and a bunch of Connect commissions pushing up the total.

In fourth place it was welcome back to FineArtAmerica with 4 coffee mug sales. These featured my

Coronavirus letter sold on Bigstock

images of the 1977 Rock and Roll Radio campaign march and the 1991 Poll Tax Riots. Firstly an order for two small mugs and then for the same images on two large mugs!

Alamy made fifth place with 2 modest paying downloads. Both from my B/W archives - tennis player Annabel Croft and Robert Sheldon MP (the latter I spotted in the obituary page of one of the Daily newspapers).

Adobe took sixth place with 2 downloads (one of which was a decent paying Custom use).

In seventh place were Dreamstime with just 3 downloads.

Finally we had Bigstock with 5 downloads (all sub sales as they tend to be on BS but, on the plus side, I had my first two sales of my coronavirus letter image. This is the information communication sent out by the UK Government to every household which I photographed laying on a door mat. Not especially original as I found out later - just about every stock photographer seems to have photographed that letter - so I was pleased to get some interest in mine).

Stormy seas at Cala San Vicente in Majorca

I haven't mentioned Picfair for a long time for the very good reason that I haven't had any further sales there (not since 2017). However, I did think it time to have another play with my pricing using their excellent bulk pricing change feature. I've previously tried the premium pricing of £49 per image (with no takers). Went down to £31 (the same as Alamy's Stockimo images on the site). Nothing. So I am now back to £10 (my cut) which is the price point I had my previous sales at. Worth mentioning that Picfair are currently waiving their commission which normally adds 20% to your own price. This continues until July 9 so helps make the images even better value. We'll see if anything happens. Essentially, I see Picfair as like having your own photo selling site. You upload what you want, price how you want and you can group images into albums to promote on social media. And it is free (unless you want to upgrade to a customisable store front there). Uploading is easy enough so I'll just keep going with it for now.

New uploads recently included my previously mentioned Coronavirus letter. I also returned to my 2018 trip to Majorca for some more images of a stormy sea at Cala San Vicente. Travel? You remember that? Maybe next year. Regards, David.

August Sales Updates:

Poll Tax Riots -sold on Alamy

Not a bad month in August considering it is the height of the annual Summer Slowdown but as usual the best agencies did the business and the others did what they do as well.

First up we had Shutterstock with a respectable number of downloads pushed up by (as mentioned previously) an Enhanced Download on the first day of the month. This was, yet again, from my local Tentertainment music festival images which continue to sell pretty much every day.

Istock took second place with 45 downloads. A lower RPD (rate per download) dragged the dollars down here but Istock continues to be a worthwhile agency notwithstanding their paltry 15% commission rate and a few very low paying sales each month. Luckily the higher paying sales continue to dominate here.

Alamy made third place with a single sale for a modest $$ figure. Once again this was from my old B/W archive images -in this case the 1991 Poll Tax Riots in London.

Fourth place went to Redbubble with two product sales. I really like the way this site continues to tick away each month.

Fishing boats on Aegina island, Greece

Dreamstime made fifth place with just 2 downloads. Luckily one of those was a higher paying credit sale which pulled them up my rankings.

Sixth place went to Bigstock with 6 downloads. As I have said many times, Bigstock takes no effort
on my part as my Shutterstock images get mirrored automatically (via the now closed Bridge to Bigstock scheme) so I am happy to collect the small amounts they rack up each month.

Seventh place went to FineArtAmerica with the sale of a coffee mug featuring one of my airshow images. Nice to see something from them again.

City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia

Bringing up the rear in eighth place were Adobe with 2 downloads. Given my tiny portfolio there  (just over 300) I'm always quite surprised to get anything much from them. Adobe are now, finally, taking a very limited approach to Editorial with so called Illustrative Editorial being accepted. Still no general editorial (e.g. street scenes, parades, celebrities -anything with unreleased  people in) allowed. Whether that will follow later they haven't said but I have my doubts. Even the Illustrative Editorial is currently limited to high level contributors though I do expect that to be opened up in due course.

Uploading in August included backtracking to my 2017 trips to Aegina island in Greece and the Spanish island of Majorca. I do like to revisit old sets from time to time as, being human, I often move on to my latest images before fully working the older ones.

The end of August saw me making my first ever trip to the Spanish City of Valencia. The photographic highlight of Valencia was the stunning City of Arts and Sciences with a bunch of modern architecture on display. I made two visits during my time there to take advantage of different light and perspectives. More on Valencia next month no doubt. Regards, David.

***Edited on Oct 13 to add in the FineArtAmerica sale***

July Sales Updates:

Margaret Thatcher - now at Alamy

A slowish month as expected in July as the usual Summer Slowdown continues. However, one agency did buck the trend to leap to number one position ahead of Shutterstock (probaly the only time I can remember SS not being at the top).

So, in first place we have Alamy with 3 downloads. One smallish amount, one good double figure amount and finally one mega sale netting me not far short of $100. This was for an archive image of British/Danish broadcaster Sandi Toksvig. British television viewers will know that Sandi is one of the new presenters of The Great British Bake Off which returns to screen shortly - presumably prompting this sale. The other two sales were both of the Greek island of Tilos, so nice to see some diversity of sales going on here.

In second place, of course, were Shutterstock with a slow month in terms of downloads. Only the fact that over 50% of the total income was for On Demand downloads brought the value up. No doubt they will be back to their top place next month.

Phil Lynott - now at Alamy

Istock continued doing well in third place with 53 downloads. Many of my subscription downloads are netting well over the old fixed 28cent flat rate and far outweigh the few that received a pittance rate. Others over on the Microstockgroup forum are also reporting increased sales at Istock.

In fourth place were Dreamstime with 5 downloads. A credit sale netting over $10 pushed them up the rankings this month (more like that please!).

Fifth place was taken by Bigstock with 9 downloads. My images of the first ever Food and Drink Festival in
Tenterden, Kent seem to be doing well here with a number of sales.

Redbubble took sixth place with one good product sale.

Seventh place went to Mostphotos with 2 modest subscription sales.

Finally Canstock came in in eighth place with 1 small download.

Poll Tax Riots - now at Alamy

Sadly nothing at all in July from Fotolia.

Uploading in July saw me, again, concentrating on uploading my portfolio to Alamy. This has been a twin track operation with me uploading regular batches of digital images and awaiting QC (Quality Control) passes before uploading the next batch. At the same time I have been working through my (mainly B/W) archive image scans from the 1980s-1990s. As I have written before you have to be approved for this archival route by submitting link/s to your archive images online somewhere. The great thing is that once given the OK your uploads bypass the QC process and are ready to put on sale as soon as the uploads are processed at Alamys end (usually within an hour or so).  The upshot of this is that I have pretty much had a continuing flow of new images ready to put on sale taking my portfolio now to around 1700 and rising. Not bad considering I had less than a hundred images back in February before they allowed Royalty Free Editorial images. This months post is illustrated by some of those archive images. More updates in September! Regards, David.

January sales updates:

Avro Vulcan XH588 -sadly flying no more

An interesting month in January with the holiday season still in full swing for the first part of it. The diversity between my best sites and the bottom ones seemed more pronounced than ever.

Shutterstock made first place as ever with earnings greatly exceeding my other agencies. A fair number of On Demand sales and a worthwhile Single download for nearly $20 kept my sales up here. The holiday effect led to no less than Seven zero sales days in January. What was also heartening here was a noticable increase in acceptance rate for my new uploads. At one point I was wondering if I was going to get any rejections at all -until I did :) A pleasant change from being told all my images are out of focus, wrong colour balance, poor lighting et al. It remains to be seen if this will last.

Second place was taken by Redbubble with two products sales. A framed print of cruise liner Norwegian Jade and a T Shirt featuring one of my Poll Tax Riots images. It looks like my images are starting to get some traction here (I already have more sales in February).

Hastings Pier - set to re-open in April 2016

Third place was taken by Istock with five credit sales and a further 19 sub/PP downloads. Editorial images continue to figure highly here.

Fotolia took fourth place with four downloads. Several of these paid larger than usual (for me) royalties which helped push them up my rankings here.

Fifth place went to Bigstock with eleven downloads. Several of my archive celeb images (Alan Alda, Leslie Nielsen etc) sold there.

Sixth place was taken by 123RF with eleven downloads -mainly subscription sales. Reviews continue to be an issue for them with many images just sitting in pending week after week. I do hope I am not going to have to email them yet again asking them to review my uploads. To add to the fun, 123 also had over a week in which their uploader failed to work. You could go through the usual process but at the end the files just weren't there. Waiting for them to turn up didn't work -they never did. At least that did get fixed in the end although it disrupted my workflow by having to backtrack to the missing images and re-uploading.

Halki island - the stunning view from my apartment in 2015

In a sad Seventh (and bottom) place were Dreamstime with just 4 downloads making under $3 in commission. I do not think there is anything I can do about Dreamstime other than keep uploading and hoping things improve there.

New uploads saw a variety of images including a set of the re-construction work on the Victorian pier here in Hastings (now scheduled to re-open in April). As work nears completion, this seemed a good time to get them out there. Other new images included my last photographs of Avro Vulcan bomber XH588 appearing at the Dunsfold airshow in 2014. Sadly, XH588 had her last flight in October 2015 and there are now no more flying Vulcans. I just feel priviliged to have seen this iconic aircraft in flight several times. Finally, I continued to upload images from my 2015 trip to the little Greek island of Halki. This utterly charming small island is right up there in my favourites list and I have now booked again for 2016. Hopefully, I'll still find something new to photograph when I make, what will be, my fourth visit there! Regards, David.

Redbubble popping up some sales:

Margaret Thatcher - sold as T shirt

As I briefly mentioned in my last post, I signed up with Print On Demand (POD) site Redbubble.com in May. With around 190 images uploaded so far I have already had three sales of products featuring my photographs which is a very encouraging start for just a few weeks. Sold so far are a T Shirt featuring Margaret Thatcher, A laptop cover featuring the Poll Tax Riots and finally a babies one piece outfit featuring cruise liner Norwegian Jade.

The site is very well presented and sets off the various products extremely well. These products cover a large range but include prints and posters, t shirts, skirts, scarves, bags, leggings, mugs, phone and laptop covers, calendars, duvet covers, greeting cards, and more.

Signing up is totally free and you get to set your margin (how much you will make per sale) over and above the basic manufacturing price. How much you set is entirely up to you but obviously the higher you set it the greater the cost to the customer and, therefore, may reduce your sales. You can choose the same margin across your range of products or vary it for each individual item (this can be changed at any time). For now I have mainly set a 30% margin with a higher 50% for greetings cards and stickers. You can also choose your currency to get paid in when you sign up -in my case £GBP and there is a very reasonable payout level of £20 to reach before you are paid.

Poll Tax Riots - sold as laptop cover

Uploading is quick and simple but only one image at a time - this isn't really a disadvantage as having uploaded you then have to spend a few minutes editing your image for the various products and adding your caption and keyword information. To edit you will see a series of templates which show how your image will look on the product. These can each be changed to optimise the look of your product. Obviously, prints and posters etc are going to look OK to start with but for something like leggings or a skirt you will want to do some work. Top tip here is to use the "repeat" button and then the "image size" slider. This will then produce multiple repeats of your image across the garment. Vary the size until your image forms a pleasing pattern. For some items such as a laptop cover you will find that an upright format photo will be cut off and only cover a strip in the centre. Again, use the repeat/size controls to fill across the product until it looks good.

Don't forget to fill out your profile details and include an avatar - this is your sales platform so tell potential customers something about yourself and your work. You can also group your images into collections (e.g. "Halki, Nisyros and Tilos islands") and these collections will show on your profile. Even better, you can choose to highlight images from one of your collections across the top of your profile (changing the collection highlighted whenever you want).

Norwegian Jade - sold as baby outfit

There is quite a lot to learn and get to grips with on the site so take the time to explore and understand the various features. Don't worry, if you get stuck there is an active forum with a help section! Find the forum by clicking on the Redbubble logo at the top left of the page. This takes you to the home page where you will find the link to the forum at the bottom of the list on the left side.

Each time you get a sale you will get an email giving you the details and you can also access your sales information on your account page.

I'm certainly excited by the possibilities here and, so far, consider Redbubble to be a worthy addition to my roster of agents. I'll obviously keep updating in my regular posts (if) and when I have further sales.

You can view my portfolio here www.redbubble.com/people/davidfowler

Do check out the site whether you're a buyer or contributor and I hope you find it interesting. Regards, David.

March Sales Updates:

Poll Tax Riots, London -top Micro sale

March proved to be not only my Best Month Ever (BME) on my Number One agency Shutterstock but also my BME in Microstock.

So beginning with star performer Shutterstock the start of the month saw not only an Enhanced Download of the Tentertainment music festival (at $28) but on the very same day my highest ever sale with a Single Download of the Poll Tax Riots in London. Shutterstock Terms of Service do not allow me to give the exact amount -let's just say it wasn't a million miles away from $100 in commission. After that great start the rest of the month saw a bumper crop of On Demand downloads and above average subscription downloads. Images sold were a good mix of the usual suspects -Margaret Thatcher (the anniversary of her death is in April), Professor Stephen Hawking (new biopic film winning awards), Tentertainment music festival (the season of outdoor events and festivals approaches) and a host of Greek Island images (time to book that holiday). A few more months like that on SS would be very welcome.

Istock took second place with a strong 10 credit downloads and a further 22 Sub/PP sales.

Margaret Thatcher -a timeless selling image

In third place were Dreamstime with 12 downloads and unusually $0.49 in referral earnings when one of my very few referred photographers got some sales. A diversion here on Referrals -this is when an agency gives you a "thank you" for sending a new contributor (or buyer) their way in the form of a few cents when the contributor makes a sale or a buyer purchases an image. Some of my portfolio links on the right here contain a code that tells the agency the referral came via me. Not all agencies do this and most limit the time for which you receive these. Way back in 2008, when I started this blog, I had hopes that hordes of grateful readers would sign up with my links and generate some additional income. Sadly, I think my grand total amounts to around four contributors and somewhat less than $1.00 in earnings! Oh well.......

Tentertainment - music festivals and Summer image

123rf came in fourth place with a slightly perkier 11 downloads. Mainly subs.

Bigstock were fifth with 12 downloads. These were all subs with not a credit sale to be seen.

Finally, Fotolia produced 3 downloads to come in sixth and final place for my selling agencies this month.

Obviously, March was an exceptional month due to that one big exceptional sale and isn't really an indicator of anything. That said, April looked to be starting well until it all crashed to a near halt for this Easter weekend. I'll see how things pick up after the holidays. Regards, David.

Great Move At Dreamstime -Older Images Saved:

Boris Yeltsin, April 1990

As I briefly mentioned in my last sales update, there was excellent news from Dreamstime in May when they announced a change in policy regarding older (over four years) unsold images.
Previously contributors would have got an email offering two choices for the future of such images. Either donate to the free images section at Dreamstime or permanently disable (delete) the files. Donating to the free section could, in some cases, make sense for exclusive contributors as a way of driving traffic to their paid images. But for non exclusives such as myself, with the same images still for sale elsewhere, deletion was the only option.
This was especially relevant to me as I joined Dreamstime in 2009 and recently, four and a half years later, had started to receive a series of emails passing a death sentence on a substantial number of images.

Italian street party, July 1990

After the third email I really felt I had to try and do something to avert this and opened a new thread in the Dreamstime forum stating my case for keeping the images online (Link here: http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_37221 ). I'm not so arrogant as to think my post was wholly responsible for the subsequent change of policy but I hope it helped to move along something they were already looking at. The clearing out of older images was, anyway, looking at odds with the massive increase in upload limits of late (I can currently upload some 3000 or more images per week based on my circa 73% acceptance rate!). Storage space and bandwidth (for them) clearly isn't an issue.

Anyway, they subsequently announced the change (it's described as a test at this stage but I do not expect them to reverse this). Now your commercial images will still get the email -but offering the options of donate or keeping online for sale. Editorial images will not get the email and remain for sale on an ongoing basis. For anyone who might be concerned at the possibility of their images ending up in the free section -you can set your default choice in your account settings at any time. You can still change your mind on an image by image basis when the email arrives.

Poll Tax Riots, March 1990

You can read my full argument for keeping these older images online (especially the editorial ones) in the Dreamstime thread but in essence I suggested these form a part of history as buildings/fashion/signage etc change and, if anything, become more of interest the older they get. Some of my images are around fourty years old and it seemed a shame to give them just a four year life on the internet. I have images online over four years old that that subsequently sold proving that you just never know when a buyer might have need of that image. Once deleted, that sales possibility is gone forever. So from one relieved editorial photographer - Great Move Dreamstime! Regards, David.
(Note: I am using some older editorial images to illustrate this post -but these do all have sales, so wouldn't have been up for deletion).

December sales updates:

With a few honourable exceptions it turned out to be a fairly Dismal December overall.
Shutterstock (as ever) led the pack with 101 downloads ($49.38). Old favourites such as Margaret Thatcher, Professor Stephen Hawking and the Tentertainment music festival continued to get regular sales.
Picturenation (as previously posted) pulled in 2 downloads of my archive image of politician Sir Geoffrey Howe making a worthwhile £6.40 GBP in commission.
Istockphoto produced 6 downloads ($5.44) with a further $2.24 from 8 PP sales.
Bigstock perked up with 6 downloads ($5.90).
Dreamstime plunged to just 6 downloads (mainly subs) producing a miserable $3.77 in commission. My worst month there in a long time.
123rf  (what can I say?) managed just 3 downloads producing just $1.66 in commission. This was my worst month there since my first sales back in 2010. When they announced their 2013 commission cuts (now in effect) they talked of a big increase in sales there. I'm certainly not seeing any signs of that. Actually, to my surprise, I scraped into level 2 of the new rates (35% commission and $0.25 for subs). The problem is lack of sales and the low rates they charge customers. Superficially, at least, 35% doesn't sound so bad compared to some agencies but my 15% at Istock generally brings in $1-$2 in commission per sale. Even on 50% at 123rf actual income was lower. I'm just waiting to see how the new rates pan out in income over the month. Meanwhile, I have ceased uploading any new images to them.
New uploads for December included a further image from the Poll Tax Riots (showing the South African embassy on fire) and more images from my September trip to the Greek island of Alonissos (this one is of freight ship Ioanna Chrisoula docked at Patitiri harbour).
Hopefully, as The World gets back to work after the holidays sales will improve. Meanwhile, I'll wish everyone a happy and successful 2013. Regards, David.