Another low point?

[John Richmond]

8% of my net income to date has been from distributor sales.  Not a vast percentage but one I can't afford to give up.

[York Photographer]

10 hours ago, John Richmond said:

8% of my net income to date has been from distributor sales.  Not a vast percentage but one I can't afford to give up.

 

I can't afford to sell at these ridiculous prices, or to subsidise large publishers

[Sultanpepa]

On 26/09/2018 at 20:31, John Richmond said:

8% of my net income to date has been from distributor sales.  Not a vast percentage but one I can't afford to give up.

 

I can't stomach the idea of two agencies taking the lions share from my efforts.

[Rolf Adlercreutz]

I am really tempted to leave "Presentation or newsletters" behind as I have done with PU since a few years back. 10 dollar sales don't sit well with me and I can't understand how it can be a good business for Alamy either. The cost of each transaction must be over 5 dollars no matter the size of the bulk.

Rolf

[losdemas]

4 hours ago, Rolf Adlercreutz said:

I am really tempted to leave "Presentation or newsletters" behind as I have done with PU since a few years back. 10 dollar sales don't sit well with me and I can't understand how it can be a good business for Alamy either. The cost of each transaction must be over 5 dollars no matter the size of the bulk.

Rolf

Sorry, Rolf, but I didn't know that you could opt out of presentation sales. Where's the button to push? 

[Rolf Adlercreutz]

You do it in the AIM and you can do it in batches.

 

[BobD]

I rarely get pu sales, but my last 2 have been just that.

One of an animal which could very well be for personal use but the second is beyond understanding. Who in the USA would want a picture of a UK shoe shop front.

I don't like restricting my images (NU aside) but its time Alamy put a stop to this nonsense. Also why do US contributors seem to get 19.99 for a pu sale and yet a sale to the US only gets $9.99 in the UK?

[losdemas]

4 hours ago, Rolf Adlercreutz said:

You do it in the AIM and you can do it in batches.

 

 

Again, I'm not with you.  I see:

• Don't sell for advertising and promotion
• Don't sell for consumer goods
• Don't sell for editorial
• Don't sell for personal use including single copy, non-retail wall art prints

Nothing about Presentation or newsletters

 

[Jill Morgan]

We have all been moaning about prices falling here on Alamy, even though they are way better than elsewhere.  We can't ignore the basic business premise of supply and demand.  There is tons and tons of supply out there and the demand doesn't match it.  We can't change progress as it gets easier and easier with technology and software for almost everyone to come up with semi decent images they can sell.  I sold a couple this month that were terrible in composition and post processing.  But they served someone's presentation needs. Benefit was probably the unique subject matter.  The best way to remain in the top end is having the photographic and PP skills that perhaps the "everyones" don't have.  Knowing what buyers are looking for and not just uploading every image that you took also helps keep rank up.  Some contributors seem to upload everything, over saturating their port with similars which will eventually sink them to the bottom of the ranks.

 

I also had a real decent seller this month as well.  You have to take the good with the bad.  As the saying goes, it all averages out in the end.  For someone who hasn't taken or uploaded one image this year (real life has me so busy) I have still managed to make some money.  That is hard to complain about.  My only cost has been maintaining my PS subscription, but I use it mostly for graphic work right now, so it isn't really a photographic expense.

 

Jill

[John Mitchell]

1 hour ago, Jill Morgan said:

 

 

I also had a real decent seller this month as well.  You have to take the good with the bad.  As the saying goes, it all averages out in the end. 

Jill

 

That's the way I look at it --  despite two PU sales, one presentation sale, and one really low commercial electronic license, my average price per image for September will still be about $50, not great but not that bad either.

[Sultanpepa]

51 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

That's the way I look at it --  despite two PU sales, one presentation sale, and one really low commercial electronic license, my average price per image for September will still be about $50, not great but not that bad either.

 

Despite a rather good month in terms of numbers of sales, my average price comes nowhere near $50, that's not unusual either. I could have saved more money by not doing stock but I probably wouldn't have seen so many nice places or had so much fun just taking pictures. I do feel however that as sales for print use declines and prices with it, there should be an increase in demand for web use and therefor an increase of their prices. That balance hasn't happened I think due to a reluctance on the part of the big agents who seem more concerned with grabbing a larger share of the growing market. 

[Gordon Scammell]

4 hours ago, losdemas said:

 

Again, I'm not with you.  I see:

• Don't sell for advertising and promotion
• Don't sell for consumer goods
• Don't sell for editorial
• Don't sell for personal use including single copy, non-retail wall art prints

Nothing about Presentation or newsletters

 

Nor me.  Can't find that 'button' anywhere - which means you probably can't opt out.  Now that Alamy seems to have allowed opting out of PU without majorly affecting distribution sales I wonder how long it will be before we see a surge in 'Newsletter' sales.

[gvallee]

17 hours ago, Rolf Adlercreutz said:

You do it in the AIM and you can do it in batches.

 

 

No Rolf, you cannot drop out of Presentation/Newsletter. It has never been allowed.

 

 

[BobD]

14 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

That's the way I look at it --  despite two PU sales, one presentation sale, and one really low commercial electronic license, my average price per image for September will still be about $50, not great but not that bad either.

 

My average sale this month is $17.49, by far the worse ever and well below the threshold I will accept to keep uploading should the yearly average drop that low. It is just not worth the effort processing and keywording at that level.

[Rolf Adlercreutz]

4 hours ago, gvallee said:

 

No Rolf, you cannot drop out of Presentation/Newsletter. It has never been allowed.

 

 

Sorry, you are right!

Rolf

[John Mitchell]

7 hours ago, BobD said:

 

My average sale this month is $17.49, by far the worse ever and well below the threshold I will accept to keep uploading should the yearly average drop that low. It is just not worth the effort processing and keywording at that level.

 

I guess it depends a lot on the type of licenses one usually makes. For instance, those depending heavily on UK newspaper sales will likely see low per-image averages. That said, my average price per image this year is down about 15% from 2017 -- i.e. falling prices overall continues to be the trend, it seems.