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We have nearly completed another year of Alamy sales and it is time to reflect, review and learn lessons. 

 

This chart I am very happy with :

AlamySales2016.jpg

This chart I am not so happy with :

AlamyRevenue2016b.jpg

 

Sales increasing nicely year on year, efforts being rewarded, careful keywording resulting in customers finding my images.

 

But all that work, all the hours invested, to end up with a declining revenue stream feels like pedaling backwards on my bike or kayaking up a waterfall. Too many photographers I guess, too many images for customers to choose from, too easy to just use Google Images and grab any image you see without even thinking of consequences, it all drives the price per image in one direction only.

 

But high value sales do still turn up once in a while. I had one $650 sale this year, two sales of £225 and 5 others over $100. When they happen, I am reminded that Alamy is still the right place to be.

 

I had a look at distribution of prices across all my sales this year, here are the results :

 

AlamyChart1.jpg

AlamyChart2.jpg

 

So about 60% of my sales are in the $20-80 gross price band. 

 

I also had a look at the price trend over the last 5 years. As expected, this shows a declining average price, but a RECOVERY in the gross price THIS YEAR. Unfortunately, in my case, the net price has continued its decline this year, probably due to the proportion of distributor sales increasing. See chart below :

 

AlamyChart3.jpg

 

So since 2012, my average net price has declined by more than 50%, ouch ...... what happened to inflation?? Aren't our prices meant to go up with inflation? Every other business seems to manage it, but not us ;-)

 

I hope this is enlightening, or at least informative, for forum members. If you feel so inclined, please share your own data, but I understand many people won't want to.

 

Who knows what 2017 will bring, the new search algorithm and contributor tools have made all that even harder to predict. I was at the top of page 2 on BHZ, then dropped to page 13, now on page 9. It is too early to say whether views/zooms are adversely affected ...

 

Happy New Year!

 

Marc

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Well, it ain't over yet in my book. I'm currently three sales away from equaling my best year (2014) on Alamy for total number of licenses.

 

However, gross revenue is another story, down a full 30% from 2014. The very noticeable decline in $100+ sales is the main culprit.

 

On the bright side, 2016 has been a much better year for me than 2015, which saw a major slump in sales.

 

P.S. That was an impressive job of number-crunching, Marc. Thanks.

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For me it has been my best year yet in both volume and gross revenue.

 

I dont know how accurate my data can be, since the first couple of years here I really didnt really upload images, and only within the last year and a bit have uploaded somewhat regularly.

 

I had one cracker of a sale worth four digits, but even taking that one anomoly sale out, it still would have been my best year.

 

Just from generally reading the forums, it seems that Alsmy has sold record number of licences, but the average rpi has gone down.

 

I like Alamy as a fair agency, and wish for them and all of us a prosperous 2017.

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First post in the forums

 

Same $/month this year compared to last year, and since I almost doubled the amount of photographs in a year... 

 

I'm working to increase my sales/number of photos by diversifying.

 

But also important to me, I'm proud to have photos published - this year - in The Guardian, Vogue, National Geographics and some other known newspapers and websites.

 

 

Best wishes!

 

Michael

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The lady has not yet sung afaik.

My record is already in the bag, now hoping for the proverbial cherry.

 

Marc, great presentation! How did you go about it?

 

Re inflation: Brexflation?

 

gbp-usd-365-day-exchange-rates-history-g

 

wim

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Only 4 sales missing to double last years amount.

Although revenue has already been doubled exactly, compared to 2015. 

A 30% more images where added over 2016.

 

2014 - $89.72

2015 - $43.48

2016 - $44.83

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Average prices since 2004:

 

04 …   $166

05 …   $147

06 …   $166

07 …   $251 (Three very large sales boosted this out of proportion)

08 …   $173

09 …   $66

10 …   $68

11 …   $65

12 …   $47

13 …   $41

14 …   $47

15 …   $73

16 …   $45

 

As Philippe says, the beast is hungry, even on my fairly small port I've added almost 1,000 images this year, and intend to keep that input going.

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Current figures for 2016: 73 sales for $2494 gross. A pretty rubbish average price, but I accept that my bread and butter subject (aviation) results in many news website and paper uses. Total sales are thankfully fairly constantly increasing - the graph showing a 45 degree incline by volume, a 30 degree line by revenue.

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Compare to 2015, number of sales increased by ~ 40%, total gross about even. Average $$/sale =~ $66, dropped from $93 in 2015. Sales >$100 are roughly 20%, dropped from ~34%. The saddest part, only ONE over $200.  -_-

 

:)  :lol:  :rolleyes:   2017  :o  ^_^  :D

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Record number of sales. However, revenue hasn't kept pace mainly due to the demise of the 3 figure $ sales after May.

 

Best wishes for 2017

 

Steven

 

Similar pattern here. Three-figure sales started to decline midway through the year. What happened?

 

 

I've had a couple of 3 fig sales more recently but both through a distributor; better than a slap in the face with a wet fish, but a substantially lower net income from them. I wonder if this is the shape of things to come?

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Is that the Fat Lady, Wim?  My 2016 is twice what 2015 was, so I can't be moanin'. 

 

She sure ain't thin! I do wait for that last little cherry to drop though.

- Let's hope it's not a tsunami of refunds, oops.

 

wim

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We have nearly completed another year of Alamy sales and it is time to reflect, review and learn lessons. 

 

This chart I am very happy with :

AlamySales2016.jpg

This chart I am not so happy with :

AlamyRevenue2016b.jpg

 

Sales increasing nicely year on year, efforts being rewarded, careful keywording resulting in customers finding my images.

 

But all that work, all the hours invested, to end up with a declining revenue stream feels like pedaling backwards on my bike or kayaking up a waterfall. Too many photographers I guess, too many images for customers to choose from, too easy to just use Google Images and grab any image you see without even thinking of consequences, it all drives the price per image in one direction only.

 

But high value sales do still turn up once in a while. I had one $650 sale this year, two sales of £225 and 5 others over $100. When they happen, I am reminded that Alamy is still the right place to be.

 

I had a look at distribution of prices across all my sales this year, here are the results :

 

AlamyChart1.jpg

AlamyChart2.jpg

 

So about 60% of my sales are in the $20-80 gross price band. 

 

I also had a look at the price trend over the last 5 years. As expected, this shows a declining average price, but a RECOVERY in the gross price THIS YEAR. Unfortunately, in my case, the net price has continued its decline this year, probably due to the proportion of distributor sales increasing. See chart below :

 

AlamyChart3.jpg

 

So since 2012, my average net price has declined by more than 50%, ouch ...... what happened to inflation?? Aren't our prices meant to go up with inflation? Every other business seems to manage it, but not us ;-)

 

I hope this is enlightening, or at least informative, for forum members. If you feel so inclined, please share your own data, but I understand many people won't want to.

 

Who knows what 2017 will bring, the new search algorithm and contributor tools have made all that even harder to predict. I was at the top of page 2 on BHZ, then dropped to page 13, now on page 9. It is too early to say whether views/zooms are adversely affected ...

 

Happy New Year!

 

Marc

 

Wow! Marc did you get nearly 200 sales from 3383 images?

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Wow! Marc did you get nearly 200 sales from 3383 images?

 

 

Yes, 173 sales from 3383 images. I wish I had more free time to upload more of them. I have a large back catalogue of images (more than 20k) but they all need quite a lot of work and then keywording of course. I have only managed to upload about 600 this year. Must try harder next year ....

 

Marc

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Marc, great presentation! How did you go about it?

 

Wim

 

Hi Wim,

 

I downloaded the data from Alamy using the "Build a downloadable sales report" facility on the contributor page. For those who have never used this or are new, this facility is also useful for compiling your DACS claim and for getting the quickest notification about sales. Sales show up almost immediately in this download, long before they appear in the "Recent Sales" section on the contributor page. You don't have to download all the fields, you can select the fields you are interested in. In any event, it only takes seconds to download.

 

Once the data is downloaded as a .csv file and imported in Excel (or any other spreadsheet software), I created five different "Sheets" in Excel, one for each year. I then sorted each sheet by gross sale value (highlight all columns, then select data, sort by column). If you then highlight the cells that fall within the price band you are interested in, and look bottom right in the Excel information bar, you will see how many cells you have selected (plus other information). This tells you how many sales you had within the price band. Enter this in an empty cell somewhere. Then do the same for the other price bands. From this information you can then make a bar or pie chart. If you highlight all the gross sale value cells for the whole year, the information bar at the bottom will tell you the average. You can then do the same for the net values and make a chart.

 

I was just trying to do it quickly. Of course, there are better ways using formulas and macros, and perhaps I'll put one of those together for everyone to use if I can find time .... you can then have an input screen at the front to select what you want analysed.

 

If I can be of further help, let me know.

 

Marc

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