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How was your 2013?


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Sales down 10% despite 35% increase in number of images, but income up 6%.

 

2012 45 sales (1nu)     $1572.83 gross   22928 views   144 zooms    av ctr 0.63    2131-3010 images   rpi $0.61

 

2013 41 sales (1nu)     $1672.48 gross   42136 views   222 zooms    av ctr 0.53    3010-4045 images   rpi $0.47

 

John.

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Big G: $17500 gross for 2013 (waiting on the 20th jan for dec's sales). Up from $2900 in 2012.

Alamy: $456 gross for 2013. Up from $268 in 2012.

 

I'm only interested. May I ask? What % of income do you get from G.? Is this 17,5k yours or before % with agency? As I know they give 20% for author, is it true?

 

And here, everybody is talking about earnings but before % share with agency and the truth is, this is not your income :)

 

 

 

Not quite.

 

20% for RF. Apparently this stems from a RF library they bought.

30% for sales outside of your country of residence.

40% for sales to your country of residence.

 

It may be the gross sales but G are out-stripping Alamy many times over. It could be because of the name. Clients go there as they know the collection has been edited but here at Alamy they have to wade through treacle to get something.

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I've added about 4,000 this year. I calculate the earnings per image using an average image count for the year (15,000) as obviously recently-added images haven't had the opportunity to sell yet.

The fall is partly due to the increase in Alamy's cut, of course, but the rest of it seems to be a general decline in fees.

I have had almost exactly the same number of sales this year as last (9 fewer) despite the large increase in portfolio. I have had quite a few sales from images added this year - largely to newspapers, and we all know what their prices are doing - so it means my existing stock of photos performed much worse than the last few years.

The income per image had been almost identical for the previous three years. As I said, this year down 50%.

 

I picked the wrong year to go full-time. (If anyone knows of a job vacancy for a multi-lingual, guitar-playing ex-librarian with teaching experience and juggling skills, please get in touch).

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But even that is not your income, real income is the profit you make - shoot expenses are not being mentioned, even the CODB is not being mentioned....and those pesky taxes as well.

 

When I look at my real income per image from Alamy, I have to ask myself if adding images will make me money - sales are for show, profits for dough.

 

 

 

My policy with Alamy has always been to put in work that I have shot anyway.  Sometimes work that I think is passable, but editors didn't, sometimes the bi-product or overspill from a shoot, occasionally personal work, often work that has already been keyworded.  In that way I always make a profit.  In the past this has been somewhere between £1 - 2k (net profit p.a.).  Along with DACS this has been a useful sum of money for hardly any work. 

 

Now it's dropped below £1k, I have to ask myself whether I should carry on supporting a supplier that in many ways is undermining the system that I depend upon for my income.

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The huge problem that Alamy has is that the collection is not edited. 

 

Images that have been sent here are, in the main, keyworded by us the photographers. Being a keyworder and being a photographer are two entirely different vocations.

 

I don't mind getting less from G as they are the ones doing the keywording and furthermore they are actually SELLING my product!!!

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I just started contributing and made my first sale this year  :D

Goal is to upload 500+ images in 2014 and see what it brings.

I actually like Alamy because of the openness of this forum. My normal commercial stock work doesn't sell at all throught Alamy, mainly through Getty and Corbis.

For Alamy I try to shoot more RM editorial, images that I would be shooting anyway for personal use.

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"Being a keyworder and being a photographer are two entirely different vocations" JE

 

Not necessarily, because if you are thinking as well as visualising, framing, editing etc, then words and concepts are likely to pop into your head that encapsulate what you are doing visually.

 

It’s what makes the difference between a happy snapper and a photographer

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I disagree. I have better things to do with my time that keywording tons of images. The way Alamy splits things out into the three levels obviously works for them but for me I have then have to wade through more things sorting out what should be essential; comprehensive etc.

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Keith, as far as I know, the images here on Alamy have all relevant keywords. There is no reason why they shouldn't be getting sales.

 

It's as I said earlier. Too much rubbish among the good stuff.

 

Didn't someone post a while ago saying they were a former picture editor. They came to Alamy for that "odd" image they wouldn't find elsewhere. 

 

Personally, I will see how the new found agency does against Alamy over the next few months. If sales start appearing there then it will show very quickly if all is not well here.

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I have not done the math but my feeling is that, for me, 2013 was pretty close in net income as 2012. I think any growth due to more sales and more images, was eaten up by the change of the fee split and lower average value per sale.

 

Having said that, I was very pleased with Decembers sales. Had one sale for nearly $800 and a bunch at $180, making it the second best month of 2013!

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A good year. A bum year.

 

 

Charles Dickens expressed much the same idea, on the first page of A Tale of Two Cities, but less eloquently, of course...

 

 

I have better things to do with my time that keywording tons of images.

 

Then you are driving with the handbrake on...

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I would dearly love Alamy to be producing the kinds of sales that I get elsewhere.

 

I second that,  unfortunately  Alamy is running at the bottom of the list in my yearly sales,  hoping for some improvement in 2014.

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I have not done the math but my feeling is that, for me, 2013 was pretty close in net income as 2012. I think any growth due to more sales and more images, was eaten up by the change of the fee split and lower average value per sale.

 

Having said that, I was very pleased with Decembers sales. Had one sale for nearly $800 and a bunch at $180, making it the second best month of 2012!

Yes, 2013 was a "treading water" year for me as well, for the reasons that you mentioned, I suspect.

 

Interesting that no one has started a "How was your December?" thread yet. Too many New Year's Eve hangovers perhaps?

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Alamy fell from my number 3 to my number 7 agency. Although the RPD is 19$  they only provide 10% of my total earnings. SS and FAA blow Alamy out of the water. I had a 6 month drought in sales from July to December. Thats about it. 

 

All the best for 2014

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I too have had more usage through an agency I joined last summer (mostly different market to Alamy) in last third of 2013. I am not sure of earnings yet (reports are just starting to come through) but initially fees look similar to Alamy.

 

I am starting afresh in 2014 and continue to analyse my options. Alongside my existing channels (inc Alamy) I suspect I will be promoting more extended features sets (words & pictures) directly in the absence of suitable agencies (I have one in mind for some stuff that will not be my core work)

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The huge problem that Alamy has is that the collection is not edited. 

 

 

 

Personally, I think the biggest problem is that there are still many contributors who don't edit their own work. Perhaps this should be a mandatory New Year's resolution.

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The huge problem that Alamy has is that the collection is not edited. 

 

 

 

Personally, I think the biggest problem is that there are still many contributors who don't edit their own work. Perhaps this should be a mandatory New Year's resolutio

 

I agree but it is probably too late to put that genie back in the bottle.

 

I keep looking at my own portfolio and think it should be culled hard; then I look at what I have sold and can't see how. My own sales (including some decent fees) vary from out of focus to the exceedingly banal - there are few I would put on a wall or in my "book".

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The huge problem that Alamy has is that the collection is not edited. 

 

 

 

Personally, I think the biggest problem is that there are still many contributors who don't edit their own work. Perhaps this should be a mandatory New Year's resolutio

 

I agree but it is probably too late to put that genie back in the bottle.

 

I keep looking at my own portfolio and think it should be culled hard; then I look at what I have sold and can't see how. My own sales (including some decent fees) vary from out of focus to the exceedingly banal - there are few I would put on a wall or in my "book".

 

True, anything can sell, which is what makes Alamy different from all the other guys. You can find stuff here that you can't find anywhere else. I was thinking mainly of all those similars that litter Alamy's back pages. But this isn't exactly breaking news. In fact, it's pretty much a dead horse. Sorry to veer off-topic.

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A good year. A bum year.

 

 

Charles Dickens expressed much the same idea, on the first page of A Tale of Two Cities, but less eloquently, of course...

 

 

 

 

The Period

 

a-tale-of-two-cities.jpg

 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

 

I couldn't have put it better myself.

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Despite a serious decline in my Alamy sales I am taking the positive points from Dickens and majoring on hope, wisdom, season of Light with everything before me. I am going to work full time on my photography and writing and make of it what I can. It is surprising how many successful businesses were created in times of despair.

 

I was sort of adopting this approach even before I saw this article on www.entrepreneur.com. It will be a refreshing change after a career with a surfeit of goals, often unachievable!

 

Happy New Year to all, and that is my personal aspiration for me and mine.

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Well, in the first half of the year i committed heavily to the newsfeed. In the last 4 months this dropped off for a number of reasons.

 

Image sales count almost tripled. (2.95 times more images sold this year than 2012).

Total value dropped very slightly though due to lack of 4 figure sales this year as opposed to 2012. This resulted in the average price per image dropping from $149.30 to $61.7 .

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