ShootingStock goes viral:

Decided this weekend to start using more technology to promote this site and (hopefully) my various portfolios. So you will now find a ShootingStock page on Facebook and on Twitter. The links are further down on the left of the screen. Twitter is really easy to set up but, I must admit, I struggled with Facebook. Way too many settings and options to contend with. Still it's done and I have linked the pages up with my photo agency sites and other photo related sites. Now let the "viral marketing" get going!

Meanwhile September (that seems a long time ago) saw a total of 71 downloads on Shutterstock despite hardly any new uploads, whilst I concentrated in building up my Dreamstime portfolio. My port on Dreamstime has grown to about 480, with 17 downloads to date, so a good start there I think. So far I have only uploaded Editorial images, with an acceptance rate of about 96%. I expect that rate to drop (fast!) once I start sending my landscape and cat images. We'll see.

British image agency Picturenation is having a bad month. They went offline on October 9, and are still not back. This obviously caused the usual speculation about their future. However, as best as I can piece together from their Twitter and Facebook pages there has been some kind of legal dispute going which locked them out of their own site. They have moved to a new host and say they should be back in the next few days. Probaly best not to go into further detail here but you can read it on their pages. Ironically, I had my first sale there in a while, just before they vanished. Anyway, fingers crossed for a swift return online. Regards, David.

Now at Dreamstime:

Last week I extended my roster of agents by joining http://dreamstime.com. This agency is generally listed in the top two or three earners by most photographers, so it seemed time to check it out. Of most interest to me was that they take Editorial images, so they looked like another possible outlet for my celebrity photo archive. I really didn't know if they would be interested in old B/W shots of Margaret Thatcher etc , but of my first 41 archive shots submitted all have been accepted. They even put three of them on their home page today. Best of all, I have already had six sales in just a few days of being online. I'm sure I will get my fair share of rejections in time but certainly a great start. There is also no application test to endure on this site. Just sign up and upload! Regards, David.

First sale at Veer Marketplace:

Having said just yesterday that I hadn't had any sales at Veer yet I logged in today to find my first sale! A pleasing $1.75 for a shot of two Jack Russell dogs that I had grabbed in the street in Hastings (grabbed the shot, not the dogs, obviously). Suddenly all those pretty little graphs Veer provide on their "dashboard" page looked much more interesting. They'd been flatlining up to now. The first sale on a new site is always the most exciting and this had been a few weeks coming. I am still concerned about their rather erratic review process (see earlier posting) but hopeful this could turn out to be a good earning site. Regards, David

August update:

August was another cracking month on Shutterstock. A total of 64 downloads with my Best Day Ever (BDE) netting six downloads. Grand totals to date are 135 downloads with $35 commission earned. So well on the way to my first $75 payout. A few sales on Istock and two on Bigstockphoto helped boost the month. Over at Veer Marketplace, my very small portfolio of 60 images has had a few views but no sales as yet. I am currently uploading a lot more images to them so (hopefully) might see that first sale soon. Nothing last month at Yaymicro or at British agency Picturenation. Picturenation introduced a new (lower) pricing structure in August with hi resolution sales dropping from £75 to £15. Commission remains at 40% of this amount. My hope (and theirs!) is that their much more competitive prices will now boost sales there. With over 1200 images online with them this could make a real difference to my sales.

Meanwhile, for a very interesting read check out Milan Keser's blog at http://photogress.blogspot.com . This San Diego based photographer is, like me, at the early stages of his stock career and charts his ups and downs along the way. Unlike me, Milan has one big advantage -a very photogenic young daughter who features in a lot of his stock images. I've just got my seagulls on hand to photograph! Regards, David

Shutterstock going well:

July was my first full month on Shutterstock. Downloads totalled a respectable 40 for the month on a portfolio of circa 124 images. I also had one "On Demand" download which paid out a welcome $1.88 in commission. It is certainly exciting to be with a site that gets you daily sales (5 in one day being my best so far) and this is with (in microstock terms) a tiny online portfolio. Acceptance rates on my editorial archive images remain around 99% ( presumably for the simple reason that Shutterstock do not have any, or very few, of these subjects on file already. For example, I have the only images of Margaret Thatcher there). Non editorial images have a lower acceptance rate but I'm pleased to say that those that do get on sell just as well as the others. I didn't realise there was such a demand for pictures of seagulls but having had some accepted last week they have been flying out (so to speak). A word of caution, however, many photographers believe that the Shutterstock search engine favours new contributors and that things slow down after a bit. I am hoping that I can counter balance that by continuing to upload on a regular basis. I'll report back in due course. Regards, David.