Picturenation:

Delighted to report that British site http://www.picturenation.co.uk has finally made it back online today! I've already made my first upload and everything seems to be working fine. My images and commission are all still showing correctly as well. A lot of people were quick to write off this site when they first went offline, but I always remained confident that they would return. Now I have several months worth of images to get uploading. Regards, David

And Another:

Signed up to another new agency last week. 123RF hovers around the bottom of the so called "big six" microstock agencies (according to the rankings on http://www.microstockgroup.com ). I would have gotten around to them at some point but what prompted this now was their announcement that they are going to start taking Editorial images. They are in a gathering stage at the moment with a launch scheduled for the end of February. With my celebrity and political archive images doing well on most other agencies that take Editorial this was too good an opportunity to miss. With 123 you have to submit (a minimum) of 10 images for initial approval before you can contribute freely. I just went for the usual "big guns" from my portfolio (Margaret Thatcher/Boris Yeltsin/Gordon Brown etc) for my initial batch - with a recent shot of The Red Arrows in action at the Eastbourne airshow added (just to prove I know what a colour photograph looks like!). Still waiting for approval nearly a week later but I'm hoping this is because they have been inundated by Editorial images and not because they are not interested in mine. I'll update in due course. Regards, David.

New Year, New Agency:

Signed up today at Mostphotos.com. This Swedish based agency sells all images at a fixed 25euro price and pays 50% commission -so that's a pleasing 12.5 euros for every sale. Better still, you can request payout of your commission after just one sale. No waiting months/years/forever to reach the minimum payout. You can also download your own images free of charge -making it a useful back-up. My thanks to http://www.microstockposts.com for making me aware of that! Too good to be true? Well the downside is that many people find sales are few there. They take Editorial images so I'm hoping my archive political and celebrity images get some sales there. Uploading is lightning fast and your images do not have to be reviewed -My first image (Boris Yeltsin) was online and on sale within a few minutes. My referral link is on the left of the screen should you wish to check them out.

Meanwhile, Shutterstock picking up nicely this month with 39 dowloads to date, with my BDE this week when I had 14. Thirteen of those were Seventies pop stars Thin Lizzy/Motors/Flamin' Groovies/Radio Stars and the other one was from last years Hastings Half Marathon (so probaly different buyers then!).

Finally, delighted to hear from http://www.picturenation.co.uk this week. I cannot go into details here but what I was told left me in no doubt they are coming back online and are currently working full out to make it happen. Regards, David

December Update:

A not unexpected slow down in sales during December due to the Christmas and New Year holiday period. From having sales virtually every day on Shutterstock, I had a whole run of zero days over the holiday. A total for the month of 41 downloads (netting $13.56). Still, sales are starting to pick up this week (with 6 in one day yesterday). Also a slowdown at Dreamtime for a couple of weeks. Total sales to date there have reached 38 (netting just over $25). I uploaded heavily to DT last month, bringing my online portfolio to 619 -so I hope to see the benefits of that in the coming weeks.
A couple of sales on Istock and an amazing 5 on Bigstockphoto. I say amazing because prior to December my all time sales on BSP amounted to 1o downloads and $10 commission. It rapidly went to 15 and 15 in a few days. BSP always puzzle me -they want Editorial images, but then reject my archive images for being "grainy". That's why I only have 200 images on BSP, wheras parent company Shutterstock has approved nearly 700! What would be ideal would be some linking of the two libraries, so that BSP buyers could access SS images.

Nothing to report for Yaymicro and Veer marketplace for December, so no change there then!

Returning to Istock, the November sales figures for their "Partner Program" with Photos.com
came out in December (they had previously intended to merge November and December results). Sadly, nothing for me there but it is still early days. Next results due any day now.

Meanwhile the Picturenation.co.uk saga rolls on. Still not back online after some three months. They have updated the message on their site (today) saying that they hope to be back very soon. At the same time a new UK micro site Workingtitleimages.com is set to launch in February. Other than that they are based in Sheffield nobody seems to know anything about them (I have wondered if this is some sort of Picturenation breakaway). They are a subscription site and will pay photographers 15pence (about 24cents) per download. That sort of payment is one thing from a well established site like Shutterstock, but certainly isn't appealing from a new start up with no customer base. Still, it will be interesting to see how they do (whoever they are). Regards, David.

November updates:

November saw a slight drop in sales at Shutterstock. 49 downloads compared to 67 in October. However, thanks to three On Demand sales income remained virtually the same at $16 odd. Considering I have uploaded few new images to them recently I was quite happy with this. More importantly I hit my first payout at the end of the month and now have $82 on its way to me!

Over at Dreamstime (which I have been concentrating on) my portfolio has reached 547 images, netting 23 sales in November and an all time figure of 34 sales. This amounts to nearly $23 in earnings in just a few weeks (nearly as much as I have ever earned on Istock!). I have now started uploading my non editorial images with (as I expected) a lower acceptance rate than my editorial ones. All the same, I am getting plenty accepted and had my first non-ed sale this week (a landscape shot of Hastings beach).

One or two sales at Istock and Bigstockphoto and a pleasing 11 euros from the Yaymicro "third party sales" scheme (basically, selected images are going to a third party seller and contributors get a quarterly payout). Veer marketplace sales remain at just 1, though my portfolio there has now reached 98. Still getting lots of rejections there ("not quite Veer") and very few views.

Istocks "partner program" with Photos.com is now underway and first results/sales should be available on our Istock page at the end of December. They will normally be updated monthly but because it was mid November before the scheme launched they are merging November/December results. I'm pleased to say my images show up well in searches on Photos.com so I am optimistic about getting some sales there.

Meanwhile British site Picturenation.co.uk remains offline in mysterious circumstances (see earlier posting). Their last Twitter update was on November 1 "back next week". Well that didn't happen. On November 24 they updated the apology notice on their site, again saying they would be back up "next week". They have long weeks in Staffordshire it seems. Just don't know what to make of the situation but I am still keeping my fingers crossed for this site.

Finally, much fun to be had at http://microstockgroup.com/ this week, after they moved to a new server. Most of us have been bounced back and forth from the new server to the old one where founder Tyler Olson (Leaf) has set up a "graveyard chat" page. It's been like being in a parellel universe all week and quite weird. I expect Picturenation would be glad to just have one version of their site up, yet alone two. Regards, David.