Picturenation to close:

A very sad day for me yesterday with the news that Picturenation is to close their site on August 17, 2013.
There is a message on their home page (and also on Facebook and Twitter) giving the news and more details.
It seems that a new site was paid for in 2011 but never completed or delivered to them and the costs and effort of trying to keep the current (circa 5 year old) site functioning were too much. Regular contributors will know that the upload hasn't been working properly over the last few weeks - just another problem to resolve.
Just what happened to the new site isn't revealed.

Importantly, the notice states that all outstanding commission will be paid to contributors (regardless of the amount). Contributors should send in their user name with a request for payment. Thereafter, their account will be closed. Buyers can still use outstanding credits up to the shut down date, although PN warns there may be technical difficulties with some images but that they will use every effort to get the image to the buyer.

I joined Picturenation back in October 2007, back when my only other agency was the (badly named and since closed) Snap Village. I soon realised that they were accepting editorial images which paved the way for me to digitise and upload my archive political images. This formed the basis for my Microstock future as I later found the other sites I could upload these to as well.
Over the last six years sales have never been as frequent as I would have liked but the higher (than microstock) commissions helped balance that. My total PN earning are way higher than some of the micro sites I contribute to.

Above all, this has always been a site that I liked and trusted. PictureNation founder Jane-Luise Green has always sent me ultra fast personal responses to any problems or queries I had and we have had many enjoyable email discussions about the stock business over the years.

For any PictureNation contributors reading this, especially if this is the only site you contribute to, do take a look at the microstockgroup.com forum where you can find a wealth of information and views on alternative sites to sell through.

With all best wishes for the future to Jane, her team, and all PictureNation contributors.
Regards, David.

 

 

April sales update:

Anyone familiar with this blog or my portfolio will realise that April was never going to be a normal month for me following the death of Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of Britain. My archive B/W images of her from 1991 were in great demand after the announcement with Shutterstock alone having 72 downloads on the day and many more since.

Starting with Shutterstock then I had a BME with a stunning 278 downloads ($122.79). I'm pleased to say that these weren't all Margaret Thatcher images, with a whole variety of subjects being downloaded. As Summer approaches my other good selling subject, the Tentertainment music festival, saw an uplift in sales.

Dreamstime also produced a superb BME with 26 downloads ($63.22). Much of this income was generated  by the levels system there, with repeat credit sales of Margaret Thatcher producing over $6 in commission each time.

Istockphoto rebounded from its recent slump to produce 12 downloads ($21.01) with a further $1.12 in PP sales. No Thatcher images there yet - though they do now accept "celebrity" images they do require accreditation details (or the images to have been taken in a public place). I'm trying to think of a way round that as, obviously, I don't have accreditation details from 22 years ago.

Yaymicro had a good month with 6 downloads (8.25 euros). Surprisingly, no Thatcher images sold but, on the day, three sales of politicians of the same era -so I presume they were related.

123rf produced 24 downloads ($8.03). I have had a re-think with them. After months of not uploading I was still seeing regular monthly sales and decided that, really, I was just leaving money on the table by not uploading there. The debate, as ever, is do buyers shop around looking for the cheapest sites and are my sales at higher priced sites harmed by having images at 123rf? For now, my personal conclusion is that this isn't the case. Sites have their own sets of buyers that, by and large, stick with that site. Microstock prices are low enough to make shopping around a waste of time (therefore money) for most buyers. Just my view. It took a couple of days of intensive uploading to catch up with the backlog but I'm pleased to say a 100% acceptance on editorials and a surprisingly high acceptance on commercial images as well.

Bigstock did well with 11 downloads ($7.64). The much criticised new subscription plans didn't have much effect with most of my downloads being regular credit sales.

Fotolia saw just 2 downloads (1.65credits).

Mostphotos saw a sub sale of Thatcher (0.28 euros).

Picturenation proved disappointing as despite a number of my Thatcher related images on their home page they got just one web size download (£0.40).

Overall then, an excellent month which demonstrated just how much events can dictate the success of editorial images. Regards, David.

Paid account at FineArtAmerica:

As I said on my previous posting about FineArtAmerica I was always pretty sure that I would upgrade to the  paid version. The basic free account allows unlimited uploads but you can only have a maximum of 25 images for sale as prints and posters at any one time.
I finally upgraded a while back and paid the $30 annual fee. In the UK this converted to around £18 so did not represent a huge investment.
The main advantage of the paid account is that there is no limit to the number of images you can offer for sale. They also give you your own artist website to help market your images. If I'm honest I am not sure how useful that is compared to just having your images on the FAA site itself. I assume it may help generate more traffic having the images in two places. There is some scope for customising your artist website and the facility to post blog messages and news items. Thankfully, you only have to upload once to either site and the images automatically get mirrored on the other.
Other perks of the paid version include a $5 referral commission should anyone use your link to sign up for a paid account. Here is my referral link for anyone interested: 4-david-fowler.artistwebsites.com.
You also receive 5% commission on materials and accessories (frames etc) should you sell an image.
So, how it all going? I'm now up to 253 images online and over 5000 views (though these include an unknown number of automated visits from search engines) but, as yet, no sales.
That said, I wouldn't expect many sales on that number of images on regular stock sites, so I will just keep uploading and be patient.
One feature I didn't discover at first is the Limited Time Promotions. This is accessed from your control panel and allows you to have up to three images at a time on a special discounted promotion. You set the duration of the offer (up to a limit) and how many copies are available at that price (up to 25). Most importantly, you still choose how much money you make from each sale (whatever you like). These promotions are available on both the free and paid for version, so are well worth trying.
As I said before, I have no idea what images might be purchased so I am just uploading a whole variety from archive celebrities through to Greek islands ones such as the chapel of Agios Kosmas on Alonissos (pictured). I am looking forward to posting about my first sale there, hopefully fairly soon. Regards, David.

The Boyfriends make Editors Choice at Dreamstime:

Pleased to report that one of my archive Seventies images is currently an Editors Choice at Dreamstime and is featured on their home page. This is my third ever Editors Choice there and, interestingly, all were archive images of bands.
This time my recent upload of British power pop band The Boyfriends was chosen. Formed circa 1977 by former Vibrators guitarist Patrick Collier the band were signed to United Artists Records. I had the pleasure of seeing them play live a number of times and these band pictures were taken before a London gig on August 20, 1978.
For anyone not familiar with the term Power Pop this (in the UK at least) was what followed Punk. Whereas punk was more raucous and often featured acts with limited singing and musical ability, Power Pop saw a move to a more melodic and tuneful style -whilst still maintaining a fast paced guitar based style.
The welcome exposure seems to have worked as the image has been downloaded since being featured. As ever, I have no way of knowing if the buyer was looking for this specific band or just wanted a generic Seventies pop band image.
Either way I'm delighted to have the image highlighted in this way. Regards, David.

March sales updates:

An excellent month overall in March, with the usual suspects doing well and some surprise sales elsewhere.
Way out in front was Shutterstock producing a BME (without any Enhanced Downloads) of 143 downloads      totalling $100.27 in income. Two big factors here: I had a single download of an archive photo of former Prime Minister Edward Heath paying $13.19 and, virtually every day, multiple On Demand downloads which totalled some $46.44 of my overall sales. Especially pleasing was the wide variety of images downloaded -both editorial and commercial. If there was any sort of theme, certainly the Greek islands of Meganissi and Halki sold especially well.
Dreamstime also had a good month of 19 downloads ($31.92) with their levels system working well with three of those downloads paying over $6 each in commission.
Picturenation bounced up the league in March with two medium resolution sales paying £4.00 (GBP) each in commission. Both sales were 1990s b/w images of British politician Eric Ollerenshaw (now Member of Parliament for Lancaster and Fleetwood).
Istockphoto had another dissapointing month with just 7 downloads ($5.59) plus a further $1.12 from 4 PP sales. Not sure where all their increasing editorial sales vanished to.
123rf produced 12 downloads ($5.26).
Bigstock managed 8 downloads ($3.52) with four of those being $0.38 sub sales.
Fotolia saw four downloads producing 1.70 in credits.
Mostphotos produced one sale of Margaret Thatcher - a sub sale paying Euro 0.22. Of significance here is that was my first ever celebrity image sale on Mostphotos.
Finally, Cutcaster produced my fourth ever sale - a large archive image of  British Airways chief Sir Colin Marshall making $1.84 in commission.
Uploading in March saw my returning to my 2008 images of Croatia - complete with a re-edit on a number of images. It was really interesting, some five years on, to see the improved results I was getting from the images. Pictured are the Church of St.Mark at Makarska and boats in the harbour at Brela. We'll see what April can bring. Regards, David.

February sales updates:

As ever, another great month at Shutterstock which pulled in 136 downloads ($65.18). Is there anything bad to say about them? Well, their Facebook contributor app doesn't always work and just misses days out. Ironically it always seems to miss when I have a good (for me) day. I recently had 15 downloads in one day and, of course, the app didn't post that one.
Dreamstime produced 18 downloads ($11.99) though, sadly, that included quite a few sub sales bringing down the actual income.
Istock didn't repeat their strong performance from January but managed 7 downloads ($9.71) plus a further $1.12 from four PP sales. Further (mainly) editorial uploading brought my portfolio there up to 670. I also hit   my 250 downloads which means, woohay, that I am now elligible to go exclusive there! I'll pass on that one, thanks, but what was interesting was that my upload limit rose from 18-20. Not sure if that was just for becoming a "bronze" level contributor or not. Couldn't find anything on the site saying you get a rise in upload limits.
Bigstock saw 8 downloads ($5.88). Their new subscription packages are now live and I have had 2 so far at  $0.38 each.
123rf also saw 8 downloads bringing in just $3.86. Still a wait and see on them but I'm into my third month of halting uploads there.
Yaymicro reported 2 partner sales and one direct sale bringing in 1.25 euro.
Fotolia were up with 8 downloads (1.95 credits). These were pretty much all sub sales.
Uploading in February saw me continuing with my Jack In The Green festival images and also re-visiting my seventies music images such as the one above of "power pop" band The Boyfriends, which I took in 1978. March has started well on Shutterstock so we will see how that goes. Regards, David.

January sales updates:

A strong start to the year in January. After a slow start around the holidays things picked up nicely as the month went on.
Needless to say, Shutterstock came out top with 89 downloads ($41.96).
Dreamstime saw a good performance with 13 downloads ($21.17).
Bigstock also saw a flurry of sales with 9 downloads ($5.50). Five of the sales were of Hastings.
Yaymicro reported 4 partner subscription sales making 0.64 euro. They also continued to annoy with a number of random editorial rejections.
Picturenation produced a web res sale of an old b/w archive image (£0.40).
Fotolia saw 2 downloads (1.20 credits).
123rf produced 7 downloads for a miserly commission of $3.75. They're off my upload list and I am considering deleting certain images. I don't really want good selling images like Margaret Thatcher going for 25cent subs or 69cents large sales.
Finally, with supreme irony given all the drama at Istockphoto, I had my BME there with 16 downloads ($22.96) and a further $1.68 from 6 partner sales. At one point sales, and sometimes multiple sales,were coming in daily -with all but two being editorial images. Editorial certainly seems to be taking off there. For anyone that doesn't know "the drama" involves a recent deal between Getty Images and Google. Here's a (long) thread on Microstockgroup  for all the information. At this stage I intend to keep my images on sale there.
No sales yet at FineArtAmerica but I am getting views and I feel positive about the site. I am now going to upgrade to the paid membership and upload a lot more images.
Uploading in January saw a large number of my old archive images as well as some new ones from the 2012 Jack In The Green festival (pictured). Regards, David.