Picture: Sunset light on vineyard along the Silverado Trail, Napa Valley Wine Country, Napa County, California
I was beginning to think it would never happen. Yesterday, I almost thought it was an April Fools joke, but luckily, it wasn’t. But there, in bold relief, was a reported sale of one of my images sold through the Digital Railroad (DRR) Marketplace.
I’ve been using DRR for over a year as a basic archive of low res images that I could use for its search and lightbox capabilities. It has taken just over 6 months since first submitting images into the Marketplace to see this first sale. Goodness knows, if I was one of those crazy microstockers that needs to see instant gratification, I might have given up five months ago. But as a professional, I understand that it takes time to ramp up sales through a new avenue. I continue to have high hopes that DRR will capture an ever increasing market share of photo editors and buyers coming to their doorstep when searching for images. High hopes notwithstanding, Marketplace has had some issues with the quality of their search results. If people are interested, I might expand on this in a later post.
If you keep your eyes peeled, you’ll see this image as a cover shot for a 2009 California Travel Guide book. In the meantime, you can see more Napa Valley Wine Country photos in my online web gallery.
Gary,
Congratulations on your sale. I’ve been with DRR for about the same amount of time as you and have made only one small sale so far. I agree wholeheartedly that things take time in this business, sometimes it feels like geological time. I believe that DRR will do well in the long run for those that are patient.
Gary,
Thanks for sharing your DRR experience. I would be interested in hearing more about your thoughts on the search functionality and DRR’s positioning in the market.
Best regards,
Deb