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All these suggestions are interesting, but I doubt that Alamy would go for any of them (not being fatalistic, honest). Personally, I still think that the most realistic collective "offer" to make is to split the difference -- i.e. reduce commission across the board from 50% to 45% rather than to 40%. That way our incomes would be reduced by 10% rather than by 20% and Alamy would still have extra revenue to help finance its plans, which hopefully would focus on generating more sales for its contributors rather than seeking the questionable status of a "Tier 1" agency. Those who understandably can't live in anything but a 50/50 world would just have to pull up stakes and look for greener pastures.
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I don't understand this either. If we all submit 10% more images next year it doesn't mean Alamy will earn more revenue than last year. More likely the RPI goes down by 10%
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I must admit I did think I should put tightening right up on novel use and personal use abuses in my email to James - but forgot.
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Thanks. I'd be willing to continue with novel use if I thought there was a real justification for it but this one makes me think I will opt out in April. Hard to be optimistic right now. I did sell this image once before for a good price. Paulette
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Make sure its a pure white background. Even if you use white card it will still show as being white card. In your post processing you can select the background and fill with white, which is what I do. With a thousand to do its probably worth while getting a light tent and setting up your lighting to get the background white in camera.
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In 2019 only. As a way to a. retain 50/50 b. contribute $$ towards 2019 upgrade costs Assumption: 10% more images vs. one's 2017-2018 average = some percentage more $$ for Alamy in their 50% share; images must not be fillers to meet 10% additional goal -- how to monitor that, I don't know...
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I'm wondering whether an editor might think of that as being a bit of a faff. Depending on the quality and subjects of your images there could still be good money to be had on Alamy for wildlife images as long as you can accept the rough with the smooth, knowing you'll only get rough on [other] micros.
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Maybe not a popular strategy, but I buy lightly used macs retired from schools. There are companies on the big auction site that do this. Been very happy with 13" MBP w/SSD for <$450. 11" MBA for even less is in daily use with no issues.
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I'm not a great contributor currently, which gives me a lot of flexibility. I had an idea of how I was going to move forward - wait til I had 1000 to 2000 wildlife photos before I started approaching wildlife/nature agencies. Alamy was going to be for everything else. But, to be honest, it's taking a while, and I need to start seeing some kind of return sooner rather than later - understanding that stock is not going to make me big bucks. I'm loathe to put my images on microstock (including alamy there now) sites, as it just feels like exploitation. But I may have to give in to that to a degree. I have my, and in a perfect world, that would suffice, but there are a lot of challenges in that. What I'm thinking is, list pretty much all my images on various ms sites, but only up to 12mpx, and keeping everything over 12mpx on my site only. Of course, they'd have to to know there was a higher res version available. I could allude to that on profile page on respective ms portfolio page. This isn't a fully formed idea yet, but does it sound like the beginnings of a sensible strategy? Or a waste of time?
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People definitely need to get emailing - the response suggests emails are being read.
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Are you suggesting that each year someone has to contribute 10% more photos than previously? I hope not because that's completely unsustainable.
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False advertising maybe?
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You'll find all their annual accounts filed at Companies House.
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That was actually kind of my point - I want James to read the email, snigger or snort at the naivety of him paying people to do it, and if he is as decent as people believe the thought of how much it would cost to employ people will play against the 60/40 decision.
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Sounds good to me, except that I think some kind of mechanism / criteria would have to be included that would allow new contributors to eventually reach the 50/50 level.
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My average so far this year from 212 sales is $29 gross. So not just a small exaggeration.
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Someone referred to Alamy's annual figures recently, I can't find them. Numbers anyone?
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There is no harm in trying it out but Macs are Macs and, aside from the recent problems with the SSDs, these 13" MacBookPros are superb machines and he can trust very experienced photographers like Alan and myself as well as many thousands of others that we are not sending him in the wrong direction. That is the thing with Macs. The downside is the cost. Anyway there are lots of Apple Stores and John Lewis around to have a play. The advantage of the latter is the extended guarantee.
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You sorta lost me there, Jeff. Sounds awfully complicated. What does "greater new images" mean? Oh, OK, I get it now -- 10% greater number of new images.
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There's plenty of images here, but they soon age and need constant updating... new buildings, changing landscapes, new tech, trends, etc, etc. I'm not going out of my way to provide any new material, I get the impression that a lot of the people who helped to build this business won't bother either. It's no longer worth the effort for Alamy.
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I don't think we will have to worry about Alamy doing keywording. Their idea is to reduce costs not increase them.
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Agree 100% about keywording. One of the things I like best about Alamy is being in charge of my keywording. I'd be very disappointed indeed if that disappeared.
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Had this sale today $1! where are we heading? 4
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Whatever you decide on I recommend trying it out in a shop first if you can - a couple of years back I ordered a laptop mailorder that looked perfect setup wise according to its list of bits etc. When it arrived I found the screen tended to display like JPEG edited and saved multiple times (shading was in lines). I had one hell of a fight to get refunded as for any ordinary use the screen was not an issue - and 4k video was OK - but I could not use it to edit photos. In the end, I had to take it to the ombudsman to get it sorted. An ordinary user would probably not have noticed - so see if you can try something out before purchasing so you know it will do what you need it to.
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+1 Suggest win-win alternatives to 40/60 in emails to James@ & Alan@... There are infinite possibilities & it need not be only one. There can be combos. For example, contrib gets 50/50 each month they submit 10% greater new images than their 2017-2018 monthly average; &-or 50/50 in 2019 until contrib reaches their 2018 total net, & ONLY THEN a greater contribution towards 2019 upgrades; 2020 to be determined in late 2019...
