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.

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.

July Sales Updates:

 

Pond5 sales: Robert Maxwell

A lively month in July in what should have been the height of the usual Summer Slowdown.

Straight in at number one (as they used to say on the music chart shows) was Pond5 making their sales debut here. Four custom license downloads of the late media tycoon Robert Maxwell brought me close to $30 each (50% of the total license). For anyone who hasn't sold on Pond5 before you might like to know that they send you a sales email. That was quite an exciting email to receive. Even better, this was their payout day (15th) for balances over $25.00 and within hours I had actually received payment. Can't complain about that.  

Why Robert Maxwell? Hard to believe that it is ten years ago that I posted on this blog about it being the twentieth anniversary of his death at sea. Here we are then coming up to the thirtieth anniversary so I would expect some more activity around that. Not surprisingly I am now pushing the remainder of my back catalogue to Pond5.

Second place went to Shutterstock with a decent month for downloads. On Demand sales made up around 40% of the total along with a couple of modest Single sales.

Istock took third place with 31 downloads. Music festival and travel images again reflecting the gradual

Second World War identity cards

return to normality.

In fourth place FineArtAmerica surprised with no less than three T Shirt sales (all to the same buyer).

Alamy came in fifth place with 3 modest sales. I was especially pleased to see my image of long defunct newspaper Today getting used.

Sixth went to Redbubble with 4 product sales ( 2 greetings cards, a poster, child clothing).

Dreamstime managed seventh place with 4 downloads.

Eighth place went to Adobe with 4 downloads  (two of which were editorial - John Lewis and Laura Ashley store fronts).

Post war ration books

Finally in ninth place we had Bigstock with just 2 downloads (returning to form after the extremes of a few months ago!).

Uploading in July continued with my archive material to Pond5 and also filling in gaps in my Picfair catalogue at the same time. 

New material consisted of a series of post Second World War ration books and identity cards. These all came from my family memorabilia and certainly made for something a bit different to upload. 

Already a few positive things in August, so more next month. Regards, David.

August Sales Updates:

The Flying Saucers, sold and unsold on Alamy

Apologies for the late posting. Regular readers will know this is often because nothing especially exciting happened and, yes, here we are in the Summer Slowdown with a Pandemic thrown in for good measure. 

That said there were a few highlights in a rather turgid month. 

 Straight to first place we had Redbubble with 4 product sales ranging from stickers to mug and best of all a framed print of the Greek island of Agistri. 

 Shutterstock took second place in what was my first full month back with them since re-activating my portfolio after a seven week protest shutdown. Still plenty of the pathetic 10-17 cent subscription sales but a number at higher rates such as 44, 59, 66 76 cents (all of which obviously better than my old fixed 36cent rate. On Demand sales have varied from lower to higher than my former $2.70 rate (from $2.25 up to $3.25). Note that this is for level 3 at 25% commission. I anticipate reaching level 4 (30% commission) in October before, of course, being plunged along with everyone else to level 1 on January 1st. 

 Third place went to Istock with 23 downloads. A low RPD dragged them down this month. 

 In fourth place were Alamy, not with sales but an unexpected small amount from ASCRL (American

El Salvador church, Seville

Society for Collecting Rights Licensing). It's the US version of a DACS payment and not one I had seen before. There should have been sales at Alamy as I had two personal use sales of the 1976 Rock and Roll Radio campaign march in London. Guess what's coming next! Both refunded the following day presumably once the "buyer" had downloaded the unwatermarked image. Pretty annoying but not a lot to be done about it as RF (Royalty Free) images on Alamy do not have an opt out for personal use sales. Rights Managed images do but as my images are RF on other sites they have to be RF on Alamy too.

 Moving to the lower end we had Dreamstime in fifth place with 4 downloads. These included a couple of my archive b/w images of actors Jeremy Sinden and Michael Gough.

 Bigstock only managed sixth place with just 2 downloads. Never a big seller but they have really slowed in recent months. 

Agistri island, framed print sale on Redbubble

 Seventh place went to Adobe with just a single small subsciption sale. As mentioned many many times before I will never make much at Adobe unless they start taking regular Editorial. 

 No sales as yet at Pond 5, but I am continuing to upload to them and now have several hundred images online. They have said publicly that they intend to give more of a marketing push on images if we supply the content. Well, who knows but I am certainly willing to give them a chance. 

 Recent uploads have been curtailed whilst I put my effort into Pond 5 uploading but I did add one of the El Salvador church in central Seville. September is showing signs of improvement so more to come next month. Regards, David.

July Sales Updates:

Plaza Virgen de Los Reyes, Seville

 An overall unexciting month in July with one main highlight sales wise. First off, though, I need to address the Shutterstock issue. Having deactivated my images on June 6 to support the boycott against their commission cuts it became clear to me that not nearly enough contributors were joining in with this to make an effective protest. It was with no great sense of joy that I decided to reactivate my portfolio on July 22. I held out for over six weeks which is a lot more than some that just deactivated for a week or so. I had really hoped that enough people would join in to force a reversal of the cuts. I had also hoped that I would see an increase in sales at other sites (especially on editorial images which were no longer available at SS). That didn't happen so, for now, I'm back. I'll make a longer term decision once I get a few months actual sales figures in. Difficult, but everyone has to make their own decision on this.

So to the actual monthly sales: First up were Redbubble with 5 product sales. Several T shirts and other merchandise were topped by a framed print sale of the Greek island of Skiathos pushing RB into a well deserved first place.

Alamy took second place with 4 downloads. A couple of low paying distributor sales from Russia and a

MetroCentro tram, Seville

couple of reasonable $$ direct sales. Three of these were from my b/w archives but the best selling one was a modern image of the St.Leonards Festival.

Third place went to Istock with a disappointing 15 downloads. Only a reasonable RPD pulled them up a bit.

Despite not been switched on till near the end of the month, Shutterstock still managed to make fourth place. Varied amounts - rubbish 10-17 cent subscription sales but then one paying $0.73. Overall, I still expect to make less but, as I said above, I want to see some actual results for this.

Dreamstime made fifth place with 4 subscription sales. DT were one of my big hopes for an uptick in sales whilst not on SS but, sadly, it wasn't to be.

Sixth place saw Bigstock with just 2 downloads.

New products for my art sites with added text

And, finally, we had Adobe with just a single sale during July.

One good thing to come out of the Shutterstock debacle was that it pushed me to finally start uploading to Pond 5. No sales yet but I now have over 200 images online (and rising). The contributor interface takes a bit of getting used to but once you find your way around it gets easier. Just a reminder - they pay 50% royalties (for images) and you can set your own pricing so they are certainly worth a try. They are known as a footage agency but recently said (roughly) give us your image content and we'll do our best to build up sales. I'm happy to support them on that.

Recent uploading saw some more of my 2019 Seville trip going up. For my art product sites I have been mucking around with adding captions to a bored looking (yawning) cat image. I hope they might appeal to someone as a T shirt or whatever. Adding the text was done in Photoshop and doesn't take long -so worth a try I thought. More next month. Regards, David.

June Sales Updates:

Symi island - sold on Fine Art America

A strong month in June with a few exceptionally good sales and a marked changing in my results line up.

Alamy took a commanding lead in first place with 3 downloads (all from my b/w archives). A couple of very modest sales of politicians Richard Tracey and Ken Clarke were topped off on the last day of the month by an excellent $$$ sale of Seventies band The Fabulous Poodles (specifically violinist Bobby Valentino playing live on stage in 1978). A great end to the month!

Second place went to FineArtAmerica with a substantial canvas print sale of Yialos harbour on the Greek island of Symi. I am certainly seeing an upturn at FAA in recent months.

Third place place was taken by another print site Redbubble with 3 product sales. Two posters of Majorca and a sticker of Tony Blair.

Istock made fourth place with a disappointing 18 downloads. Only a reasonable RPD held things up

Fabulous Poodles - sold on Alamy

here.

Fifth place went to Dreamstime with 5 downloads. Three of these paid out the 10% bonus commission offered from new sales after June 1. Thus a $0.35 sub sale rises to $0.38 and the $2.00 sales are now $2.20. Note, the bonus does not apply to plans purchased before that date. It's a nice touch in these times.

Making their final appearance (for now at least) in Sixth place were Shutterstock with 11 downloads. As previously posted, I deactivated my port on June 6 in protest at the new commission structure so this just represents sales for the first week of June - many of which were for paltry $0.10 amounts. My withheld portfolio may be small (compared to some) at 2600 files but I am certainly leaving them some gaps in their coverage. Margaret Thatcher anyone? I even had an email from them saying a buyer wanted to purchase one of my archive images and the fee would be $5.00. Would I consider re-activating to allow this sale? Politely declined with my reasons. The #boycottshutterstock goes on. Check out the newly formed https://stockcoalition.org/ for news of action here.

Bigstock made seventh place with 4 downloads. As mentioned before, my portfolio here will not get bigger as my SS uploads were mirrored to them. Cannot see it would be worth uploading directly for those sort of sales. That said, they did get another sale of my Coronavirus letter image -the only place to have sold it so far.

Plaza de Espana in Seville

Bringing up the rear in eighth place were Adobe with just a single small sub sale. If I had hoped they would be announcing a full editorial image offering to capitalise on the Shutterstock carnage I was to be disappointed (so far).

Recent uploading saw me returning to my 2019 trip to Seville for a number of images including one of the rowing boats you can hire at the stunning Plaza de Espana. I look forward to the day when I can actually return for real.

Looking for other outlets for my images I decided to sign up to Pond5 My portfolio page . They are mainly known as a video agency but do take other media including stock photographs. They quite often supply archive footage for television documentaries and the like so I thought my archive images (at least) might make a good fit. I wasn't at all sure if my b/w scans would get accepted but my initial test batch of 11 images all passed. You can set your own prices or let them do it and they pay 50% commission on photo sales. I've set my own for now but really have no idea how Pond5 will work out for me. Obviously, I will report any sales if they happen.

Stay safe. Regards, David.