March Sales Updates:

Professor Stephen Hawking 

March was never going to be a normal month because, as regular readers will know, my archives include an  image of British physicist Professor Stephen Hawking who sadly died on the 14th of March. It is in the very nature of shooting editorial images that sometimes they will sell to illustrate a good news story and sometimes the complete opposite....

Way out in front in first place were Shutterstock with something not far off my BME there. My Hawking image was downloaded 58 times alone on the 14th with many more downloads through to the end of the month. That said, image sales at SS were strong all round this month.

Second place went to Dreamstime with 9 downloads. Again the obvious sales including an extended license which pushed up the revenue.

Redbubble took third place with 5 product sales ranging from prints to T Shirts.

Fourth place fell to Istock with 25 downloads. No Hawking effect there as they do not accept celebrity type images (arguing that they would compete with their own Getty Images coverage). I don't get it, but there it is.

Bigstock made fifth place with 21 downloads (obvious sales again).

The Serra de Tramuntana mountains in Majorca

In sixth place were 123rf with 17 downloads (yes, again). In some ways this was unwelcome as I had been poised to walk away from them once I had heard their "good news for contributors" announcement they had promised for the end of March. The announcement never came but I am now so close to payout amount that I may as well hang on now. They've had no new uploads from me for several months now and I plan to keep it that way.

Fotolia took seventh place with 5 downloads (still no editorial from ordinary contributors allowed).

Mostphotos came in eighth place with 4 downloads of Stephen Hawking.

The road down to Sa Calobra in Majorca

Nothing from Alamy again in March so now making two months of no reported sales. Of course, as previously discussed, sales might have taken place but not been reported yet. I'm continuing to build my portfolio there although I'm now starting to run out of back catalogue to upload to them. Obviously, new images go to them in my regular workflow.


Recent uploading had me working on my Majorca images from last year including a cloudy scene on the Serra de Tramuntana mountain range and a series of the famous hairpin bend road down to Sa Calobra - a popular challenge for the thousands of cyclists that visit and train in Majorca each year. Regards, David.

December Sales Updates:

Professor Stephen Hawking -new biopic

Inevitably, December was never going to be a great month with so many slow days over the Christmas and New Year holiday period. However, taking that into account there were some good moments.

As ever, Shutterstock was the number one agency -by far. A great start on December1 with an Enhanced Download of Professor Stephen Hawking. Sales of this image have increased a lot recently presumably due to the new biopic film The Theory of Everything which has just been released. I also had a good number of On Demand sales and two nice paying Single Downloads through the month.

Dreamstime performed well to take second place with 20 downloads. Greek island images seem to be doing especially well on Dreamstime of late -possibly as a result of the on-site blog I wrote on the subject.

Istock took third place with only 4 credit sales but a good 24 downloads through the PP and Subs schemes. Istock also had some big news that it was to be integrated further into parent company Getty Images. The main change for many is that commission payments will no longer be made "on request" but on a fixed monthly schedule (subject to reaching the $100 payout level). I don't get enough sales on Istock for this to be an issue but for high performers used to requesting weekly payouts this will not be a popular move.

Sopwith triplane at Dunsfold

Bigstock continued strongly to make fourth place with 15 downloads -pleasingly not just sub sales but a
number of credit sales in there as well. It's interesting to note that a good number of my sales on Bigstock seem to relate to my local area of Hastings and St.Leonards.

Coming in fifth were 123rf with a miserly 7 downloads. Sales there seem to be falling below what they were a year or two ago -despite increasing my portfolio size. Especially noticeable is the fall in editorial sales. Just to add to the fun, there currently seems to be a hiatus on editorial reviews with several of my batches still pending since January 1. Normally these get reviewed within hours.

FineArtAmerica came sixth with a sale of a greetings card. Some lucky person was due a Christmas or Birthday card featuring the Poll Tax Riots in London back in the early 1990s!

Rousoum beach, Alonissos island

Bringing up the rear I had a rare sale at Canstockphoto (my first in months) and just a single sub sale at Fotolia. To be fair, I only have small portfolios on those due to them not taking editorial images.

Uploading in December saw me revisiting my 2012 trip to Alonissos island with a set of images of Rousoum. I also carried on working my Dunsfold airshow images with a set of a 1916 Sopwith triplane (it's actually a 1997 replica but certainly looks the part).

Though I am writing this post well into January I'll use this opportunity to wish all readers of this blog a very happy and enjoyable 2015. Regards, David.

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.