David and I both sell photos through a microstock agency. One of their terms and conditions for buyers is that they publicise the fact that they’ve used your image. DM occasionally does a trawl through to see what his photos have been used for and a few days ago he found this. His photo is on the cover of a “for Dummies” book. Yep, a real, actual book that’s been published by a real publishing company and is available widely in bookstores across the globe. Hee hee – he’s a superstar. Yesterday, the New York Times for Ikea Hacking, today the illustrious “for Dummies” brand, tomorrow…who knows.

When he found out, I bought a copy that has arrived today and so here he is, playing some chords from the book on a mandolin exactly the same as the one he photographed his friend Mike playing when he made the image and sent it to the stock agency. I have to say it’s a little bit of serendipity that the neck of the mandolin in the image lines up exactly with the neck of the one he’s playing, although that has been made more likely because it’s the same type of mandolin.

In terms of success from stock images, he’s a lot more successful than me but that’s partly because his most successful images are vectors not photos. (Even his photo sales beat mine.)