AlexH

It is not just trust. Unfortunately the stark reality of my experience in recent years is that the prices and volume Alamy are achieving just doesn't warrant exclusivity for images I can place elsewhere with a reasonable expectation of returns. The more esoteric shots that find a home, and ocassionly sales, on Alamy will end up being by default exclusive. I'm hoping for a fairly painless way of going through existing shots to set their status!

Stock is, and I think always has been, ebbs and flows, wheels within cycles and other such unpredicatabilities. Good luck working out patterns or trends to follow! That said there will be some models and/or agencies that will suit some depending on the work they typically produce. The microstock agencies transformed the industry, there is little point bemoaning it now. We're now at a point that the term 'microstock' doesn't really properly describe the place of the bigger players amongst them (top 3). While they are known for their tiny per image returns that's not what they all about any longer. My only four figure sale in recent years was achieved by the micro James referred to as a Tier 1 agency. Even without this individual sale the volume they achieve means the returns there per image have probably been better than here. Its not a perfect comparison because they are different portfolios of images, but it certainly inclines me to focus more where the sales are being made daily. Like many have said I too find slipping below that 50/50 split a bit of a barrier, but at the end of the day I'm primarily focused on actual returns into my bank account and experience tells me that isn't always achieved by the agency offering the biggest cut! As a side note consider Getty, I've seen a few pondering them. Don't imagine you can simply shift your Alamy collection over to them; its a whole different curated kettle of fish. I'd guesstimate at best 10% of a many typical contributors Alamy ports might interest Getty. But here's the thing, that 10% might make more on Getty even on a measly 20% royalty!

I may have missed it, but I'd be interested to see some sort of official response to this question.

Playing with this new feature has been fun and interesting trawling back through older images which has stimulated thought on what to shoot going forward and some keyword tweaking. No bad thing! However I agree with others who have wondered aloud how exactly it will help with sales. I guess most of us are here because we don't deal directly with buyers much, if at all. So it will be interesting to see if Alamy use these portfolios to find and promote images and with any luck boost sales! https://www.alamy.com/portfolio/alexhinds

Thanks for that Jason, good insight.

OK, so Spacecadet thought this might provide a useful starting point for some comparison. . . Looking at my last year on the sales summary page, United Kingdom, editorial, newspaper uses accounted for; 16% of the volume of my sales and 24% of my total sales $. Anyone IN the scheme have figures to compare?

Thanks Spacecadet for your insight. I claim no particular wisdom on this but one or two of my shots seem to find their way to the pic editors desk on a semi regular basis and I've never been in the scheme. I think I'm staying out for now, but it's a personal decision and I'm by no way implying being in the scheme isn't a good idea for others. I could well be blasting off a footfull of toes . .. . .

Did a tiny bit of leg work and found the answer myself . . . "RM (including RM - E) images remain as rights managed and can only be used once for the following uses by a newspaper: Print only, web only, web and print combined "

Does the newspaper scheme allow users to to re-use the same image multiple times once they've taken it through the scheme?

Good question, I've had the same email as I'm currently opted out. I could be a tad off the pace on my understanding but I seem to remember I opted not to be in the scheme originally as I didn't like the idea of the bulk plans the publishers were offered resulting in very diluted sale values. Maybe those who are in can shed some light on their experience? The recent email seems to imply if you're out newspapers can't see your images but I take that with a large pinch of salt as I certainly have UK editorial newspaper sales in my sales history, and my feeling would be for generally better amounts than I'd get if sold through the scheme. I could be wrong though?

Hi all I fired up my Stockimo app for the first time in a while only to find it is freezing up on me at the point of adding caption etc info to an uploaded image. Anybody else having problems? I am using it on an iPad rather than iPhone, not sure if that may be an issue? Alex

..so just to update....yes you need to submit via an idevice that will run the stockimo app, but the images don't have to be shot on iphone. I have now got a few images on stockimo, submitting via ipad but all shot on Lumia phones.

As a vegetarian with a cheese allergy my wife was once served plain boiled cauliflower florets as a starter in France. The chef then presented her with a whole cauliflower on a plate for her main.

George, I know it might not help if you have no access to any igizmo, but stockimo submissions can be produced on other flavours of phone, you just need to submit via the app, which you need an ipad or iphone to run .. ..

Some phone apps can resize your images as part of their built in send/share functions. The intention is obviously to make a smaller file size to save your data transfer usage and as phone shot images are often only sent around for viewing on screens it makes sense. Might be worth checking this isn't happening. Alex