Back in the Seventies and Eighties I founded and ran several Fleet Street photo agencies specialising in stock images of celebrities from pop stars to politicians. These were syndicated to the National and International press and Television. These days I am active in the Microstock world and this blog charts my journey as well as, hopefully, providing inspiration and ideas to others. Image buyers should also find this blog useful with links to my portfolios and regular updates on new uploads. Unless otherwise stated all images are my copyright and may not be reproduced or copied. Comments are very welcome but will be reviewed before publication. Enjoy your visit. Regards, David.

Thursday 13 February 2014

January sales updates:

It seems like only yesterday that I was writing my December updates post. Hang on, it was! Anyway, here we go straight on to my January updates.

In what turned out to be, in general, a rather slow month the leader of the pack (by a big margin) was, as ever, Shutterstock. Even here though there was a marked lack of higher paying On Demand sales which usually boost the income up.

Dreamstime produced 13 downloads ($13.82) with a mix of credit and sub sales.

Bigstock proved lively with 19 downloads ($8.67) with $0.38 subs well to the fore. Interestingly,one
of their partner sites added two "single merchandise" sales. T shirts? Mugs? Who knows.

Istock saw just 4 downloads ($3.19) with a further $1.68 from 6 PP sales.

123rf managed 8 downloads ($4.08) -virtually all subs.

Fotolia produced 2 sub downloads (0.50 credits).

And finally two sites I do not see much action with: Canstock had 2 downloads ($1.00) and a sale at Cutcaster produced $1.84 in commission.

Recent uploads followed a flight theme with a reworked b/w version of a Herring Gull and some more images from the 2012 and 2013 Eastbourne International Airshow (Airbourne) -a Chinook helicopter and the Breitling wing walking team. The airshow images were accepted everywhere except my best agent Shutterstock who insisted I needed "credentials" (i.e. a press pass/permit or similar). A prompt and friendly email came back from them when I queried this. It seems that ALL airshow images now need credentials. Even the ones that are free and open to the public like Eastbourne. That's certainly a big blow as there aren't any credentials issued for this event -they are not needed as it's held on the seafront for all to see (and photograph). I have sent them another email pointing this out and asking if there is any way forward for airshow images. I'll update this post with any developments. Regards, David.

Edit: Got a fantastically helpful response from Shutterstock. They took a look at the Eastbourne images and agreed they were OK to upload. Now all accepted. Going forward, should I cover other airshows, I will contact Credentials at Shutterstock with details of the show so they can make a decision on it. As they (rightly) said their inspectors wouldn't know the circumstances of each airshow when images are uploaded. So contact Credentials first before uploading. Great response from Shutterstock I thought!

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