March Updates:

March saw a good month on Shutterstock with a total of 71 downloads ($23.81). This took me over the payout threshold for the second time resulting in an $82 payment. I also had my BDE in March with 24 downloads (23 from my 70's pop music archives and 1 of the Hastings "Jack In The Green" festival).
Dreamstime slowed a bit with 10 downloads ($5.56). Yaymicro finally paid out the Third Party royalties from the last quarter 0f 2009 (Euro 10.68). This took me tantalisingly close to their E30 payout level. Just E1.60 to go. One sale could do it!
As posted earlier Picturenation produced 3 sales (£4.80). Since the announcement of the forthcoming General Election (May 6) PN have been using a number of my archive politician shots on their homepage, which I'm hoping might generate further sales.
Bigstock bring up the rear in sales with just 1 (50cents). Mostphotos/Istock/Veer all produced zero sales in March.
Meanwhile at 123RF I continued to upload Editorial images ahead of the launch of their Editorial section. I emailed them about this and they say they are looking at May for launch, though I think that will depend on them having enough images to make a worthwhile offer. My first attempt at getting some non-editorial online there resulted in all 20 being rejected (poor lighting/composition). They'd pretty much all been approved elsewhere.
Finally, still nothing back from Britishimages in response to my letter and the site still has my old contact details (and no way to change them). I'll just leave that one well alone for now. Regards, David.

Britishimages showing signs of life:

Well here is a surprise. British image library http://www.britishimages.co.uk/ seems to have been re-activated (in part anyway). I joined them at launch (2007?) and have 445 images online there. Not a single sale to date. When I tried to update my email and address details over a year ago I just kept getting "internal server error" messages. Soon after that it became impossible to access the site at all and I assumed that was it. However, the site seems to be back up. Still cannot change my details -which is important because their payment method is to post a cheque (remember them?) to the address on file. Emails to the site just get bounced back and a written letter asking them to change my info at their end received no response. I did try uploading a test photo and that worked fine. Plus points of the site? they do have a nice collection of British landscapes and architecture and the commission is high at £25 (hi res) & £10 (low res). Minus points: well no good to me if I can't get paid, no views or sales counts, and most importantly -they do not appear to contactable or responding to post. The site also still states that they are members of BAPLA (British Association of Picture Libraries & Agencies) even though BAPLA told me last year that they (BAPLA) had cancelled their membership. I'm holding off uploading any further images at this stage. Obviously, other photographers may have a different experience of them and I can only speak for myself. Anyone else tried this site or got any sales? Regards, David.

Going green for Spring:

It's getting warmer. The clocks have gone forward and the seagulls on my window ledge are preparing to nest. Yes, Spring is here at last in the UK (though there's a threat of snow next week!). To mark this I've gone for a slight visual change on this blog. Out goes the headache inducing Orange header and in comes a fresh Spring like green. Not quite the radical changes that Bigstock and 123RF made to their sites recently but I hope it gives it a bit of a refresh.
Any opinions welcome. Regards, David.

PictureNation sales

Since their return online I have been busy uploading my backlog of images and, of course, hoping for some sales. Pleased to report three Editorial sales in the last week. A Medium resolution of the ever reliable Margaret Thatcher (netting £4 commission) and two Small web resolution sales of La Toya Jackson and Mohamed Al Fayed (netting £0.40 each). Hopefully, this is a start to more regular sales here as PN push their marketing now that they are back. I have a lot of archive British politicians images online with them and I'm hoping the forthcoming General Election here will generate some sales as commentators look back to previous elections (as they tend to do). PN's new lower rates (which they brought in shortly before going offline) make them much more competitive with the Micro sites whilst still offering photographers a better than Micro commission. At 40% they pay £0.40/£4/£6 for small, medium & large res sales. They also now offer Extended Licences which pay £14/£20/£30 respectively. They also have a referral programme but (rather dissapointingly) only for referring buyers and not new contributors as most of the Micro sites offer. I'm hoping that they'll look at that in the future. Regards, David.

February Updates

The shorter month of February proved a touch dissapointing with a drop to 62 downloads on Shutterstock ($20.39) despite new uploads. This is still my first year on Shutterstock so I don't know if February is normally a slower month for everyone or it's just me. It was certainly worrying to see a number of zero sales days throughout the month. Barring the odd Sunday I had got used to seeing some sales each day.

Dreamstime continued nicely with 11 downloads ($10.24) and it was pleasing to see a mix of both Editorial and Commercial sales (and also that the majority were credit sales and not subscriptions).

Yaymicro produced another Editorial sale, Margaret Thatcher (1 euro). Bringing up the rear was the ever dissapointing (for me) Istockphoto (3 downloads netting just 74cents!). Not even any subscription sales from their Partner Program. Clearly my images are not a good fit with the type of buyers Istock have, as many photographers achieve huge numbers of sales there. I cling to the hope that one day they might start taking Editorial images, which seems to be the trend with other Micro sites.

Bigstockphoto, Picturenation, Veer and Mostphoto all a zero for me in February. 123RF have yet to launch their Editorial collection online so nothing there yet either.

Meanwhile, PictureNation have added a link to this blog on their site. They had looked at ShootingStock when I was in touch with them whilst their site was down. They felt it would be of interest to some of their members so asked if they could link. Any extra traffic through this is very welcome, though I certainly won't feel obliged to just say nice things about them! My Google Adscence earnings have jumped up a bit since this link went on -so it looks like it has helped. Regards, David