First Payout At Yaymicro:

Yaymicro.com yesterday posted our "third party" sales for the first quarter of 2010. It always takes a few weeks after the end of the quarter to get all the results collated and payment received by Yay from their re-seller.
This time my share came to just under 10 euros. That, and a co-incidental Editorial sale yesterday (Guinot wing walking display team at the 2009 Eastbourne airshow) took my Yay sales to 39 euros -well above the 30 euro payout level. I'd heard they were fast but after clicking the request payout tab the money was in my Paypal account within two minutes! That's impressive. Yay also announced two new re-seller arrangements (the first of a number of deals they hope to do this year). Best known amongst these is German owned agency Polylooks which has been getting quite a bit of attention lately.
Yay has been a slow site to build but things seem to be starting to move now. In addition, this has got to be one of the easiest and fastest sites to upload to and editing is fast using their bulk edit feature for similar images. I am certainly sticking with them for now. Regards, David.

April Updates (finally):

A rather late update on my stats for April. Blame that on Veer as I have been busy "dashing for cash" (no results on that one yet but 121 pending).
Meanwhile over at Shutterstock (where my portfolio passed the 800 mark) I totalled 53 downloads in April ($14.88). The hoped for General Election boom for my archive political images didn't happen there (or anywhere for that matter). Certainly there were some sales but probaly no more than average. A Conservative party election poster on SS and a polling station sign at Dreamstime being the only specific election related sales. Staying on Dreamstime, April brought 15 sales (netting a healthy $12.04). Istockphoto produced no regular sales but 7 partner program downloads at 25cents each ($1.75). British agency PictureNation produced another 3 web resolution sales at £0.40 each (£1.20). Bringing up the rear in April, Bigstock had one editorial sale at 50cents.
No action last month for Veer, Yaymicro, or Mostphotos. Nothing at 123RF as none of my editorial images were live in April. As for BritishImages -who knows. They do not have a views/download counter and I am still unable to change my contact details for payment on the site.
April also saw a return to my editorial archives as I finally got round to scanning and uploading more of my B/W negatives. Highlights included Ted Heath, former British Prime Minister, and a new (old) one of Gordon Brown (now, of course, also a former Prime Minister). Regards, David.

Veer launch "Dash for Cash" incentive:

Not often I have much to say about Veer Marketplace but there's an interesting announcement today. From May 5 until June 30 they will be paying from 30c to $1.40 for each accepted image uploaded during this period. The amount depends on the quantity you get accepted. Full details via this link http://bit.ly/dflggq. After initially having high hopes for Veer, I soon found the high rejection rate and low views (and sales) off putting and have had them firmly on the back burner in recent months. I was always going to get round to uploading the rest of my portfolio eventually but this is certainly an incentive to do it sooner rather than later! Aside from the cash incentive what is interesting here is that parent company Corbis are clearly showing their committment to building Veer. There had always been a slight feeling that Corbis weren't really that interested in their Microstock side, but with a Veer re-launch coming soon and this new promotion it looks like Veer might start to get interesting. Certainly my views there have risen of late (sadly, not sales as yet). If you are not already a contributor to Veer you need to submit an initial 10 images for review and get 7/10 accepted before you are in. Good luck to anyone taking part in this promotion. Regards, David.

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.