LOW AS WE CAN GO?

[Betty LaRue]

1 hour ago, John Mitchell said:

 

LAX is the worst. Last time I went thru there, I got charged US$4.50 for a small plastic bottle of water.

Sounds like the American football games I attended. After 9-11 we couldn’t bring in our own 89 cent bottle.  I use to freeze two bottles and my hubby stuck them in his socks under his pants during the early games blazing hot weather!  He walked funny through security stations.  Said “security” was a joke, obviously!  Soon as we got in the stadium, he pulled them out.

I think it was mostly a way for the university to rake in the dough, because they obviously weren’t stopping some contraband from coming in.

[domf]

Unbelievable, last week had a sale for $175 and thinking this is good then I wake up this morning and find 4 sales at $1.25 each and I am now wondering why bother?

[Colblimp]

4 hours ago, domf said:

Unbelievable, last week had a sale for $175 and thinking this is good then I wake up this morning and find 4 sales at $1.25 each and I am now wondering why bother?

You bother because of the $175 sales and no other agency that I'm aware of matches up to Alamy.

[Bryan]

Country: Worldwide
Usage: Editorial
Media: Editorial website
Industry sector: Travel & tourism
Image Size: Any size
Start: 11 February 2019
End: 11 February 2024
NU Editorial website and app multiple use, in perpetuity

 

$1.25

 

Wil be waving goodbye to NU come April, if I remember....

[Phil Preston]

This came in today.

 

$1.25 gross. 

Country: Worldwide
Usage: Editorial
Media: Editorial website
Industry sector: Travel & tourism
Image Size: Any size
Start: 11 February 2019
End: 11 February 2024
NU Editorial website and app multiple use, in perpetuity

 

With my relatively small portfolio and sales, I used to think any sale was beneficial, ie, good for Alamy rank, so better search placement, so perhaps better sales numbers. But at 62 cents net for a sale, I would rather not sell in the first place (and dissapointed that Alamy sells such licences at these prices).

 

 Come 1 April 2019, I'm out of Novel Use, its just not worth it.

[gvallee]

26 minutes ago, Phil Preston said:

I used to think any sale was beneficial, ie, good for Alamy rank, so better search placement,

 

Alamy recently stated that current ranking is nothing like the old method, but NU used to be excluded from ranking due to its low prices, ever since the inception of the scheme many years ago. These NU low prices are nothing new, they do not reflect current price trends.

 

[Paul Mayall]

Alamy without question was once the best image suppliers to be with for the individual photographer.

 

Slowly over the years prices have been dropping at the contributors expense and will keep dropping, i cannot help but have the impression Alamy dose not care as they now have a very large archive and now one of the big players thanks to the hard work and expense of their contributors "both individual and partner agencies" and of course the recent change in commission dose not inspire us.

I know there is nothing we contributors can do accept complain and get some satisfaction to vent our thoughts on this forum.

Years ago i would have given Alamy a 9 star rating from 10, today i can only give 3, quite a drop, no doubt buyers would give Alamy 9 as images have become cheaper than chips.

 

Like most i live in hope Alamy will lift their game in increasing the value of our images.

[Futterwithtrees]

I also had a massive sale today. $1.25 gross. Why would anyone bother with Microstock agencies when we can earn as much as this on Alamy.  This is my second sale recently and have grossed $7. I don't want to be greedy but I remember a little boy called Oliver once upon a time asked for MORE. Please Sir More

1 hour ago, Paul Mayall said:

Like most i live in hope Alamy will lift their game in increasing the value of our images.

Sadly the full proverb as I remember it is "Live in hope should you die in Despair" 

[spacecadet]

1 hour ago, Paul Mayall said:

 i cannot help but have the impression Alamy dose not care as they now have a very large archive and now one of the big players thanks to the hard work and expense of their contributors "both individual and partner agencies" and of course the recent change in commission dose not inspire us.

I'd be surprised if Alamy didn't care very much indeed- I'm sure it would be delighted to be paid more for our images. But the market is where it is.

[imageplotter]

On 01/02/2019 at 11:41, NYCat said:

 

NU means Novel Use and I suspect you have the same website that I have had. I've had two of them. I'm going to opt out in April because I just don't see that sort of sale as novel use. The app use in perpetuity seems particularly awful.

 

Paulette

 

Yep, me too. 

[Colblimp]

15 hours ago, spacecadet said:

I'd be surprised if Alamy didn't care very much indeed- I'm sure it would be delighted to be paid more for our images. But the market is where it is.

I don't think Alamy actually does care because it has the volume.  All those $1.25's add up to a lot of money.

[Normspics]

Yes there are low $ sales but overall is your total yearly income from Alamy worth it, mine is.

[Paul Mayall]

2 hours ago, Colblimp said:

I don't think Alamy actually does care because it has the volume.  All those $1.25's add up to a lot of money.

I have always said it is a numbers game, unfortunately we photographers don't sell thousands of images per month at $1.25.

Like many i had the idea many years ago to have a great deal of images online for this to happen, as time went on i could see the future as we see it today and lost interest in going mad uploading as if my life depended on it.

I am happy to be  past the challenge and just calmly upload a few images here and there as some kind of interest outside my normal life.

[andremichel]

20 minutes ago, Normspics said:

Yes there are low $ sales but overall is your total yearly income from Alamy worth it, mine is.

 

Clearly no longer worth it for the 72,000 Alamy contributors who are no longer actively uploading or the unknown number who have removed their ports altogether. 

[Normspics]

4 minutes ago, andremichel said:

 

Clearly no longer worth it for the 72,000 Alamy contributors who are no longer actively uploading or the unknown number who have removed their ports altogether. 

 

Staying power is probably the one skill needed for stock photography and not everybody has it, life can get in the way. Is it too crass to say yippee to your quoted figures (tongue in cheek).

 

[Cryptoprocta]

5 hours ago, Normspics said:

Yes there are low $ sales but overall is your total yearly income from Alamy worth it, mine is.

My Alamy income is lower than from my 'other place' (a micro).

This looks like my third consecutive dire month on Alamy despite increasing my port by over 1/3rd last year.

I've certainly given up the idiocy of supplying Alamy alone. That was a wasted 2.5 years.

(I am of course aware that my images may not be what Alamy buyers want, but many others say the same, individual Alamy sales might be more, the rpd might be more, but the total earnings  ... not so for most.

 

[Normspics]

11 minutes ago, Cryptoprocta said:

My Alamy income is lower than from my 'other place' (a micro). Many others say the same, individual sales might be more, the rpd might be more, but the total  ... not so for most.

This looks like my third dire month on Alamy despite increasing my port by over 1/3rd last year.

I've certainly given up the idiocy of supplying Alamy alone. That was a wasted 2.5 years.

 

 

I agree with you, Alamy is a portion of my overall stock photo / video exposure and that total income from all sources is my full time income and I do understand the frustration of growing a portfolio to seemingly stand still.

[Sally]

And yet, four figure sums are still possible. Alamy Content has just liked a Tweet from Jeff Morgan who has announced a $1200 sale.

 

[andremichel]

3 hours ago, Normspics said:

 

Staying power is probably the one skill needed for stock photography and not everybody has it, life can get in the way. Is it too crass to say yippee to your quoted figures (tongue in cheek).

 

 

Staying power is obviously very important, but so is knowing when it is time to walk away and go do something more productive with ones life. 

[Steve Valentia]

On 2/1/2019 at 08:46, imageplotter said:

And no, I don't care if I get a whole load of "don't post the value, it'll let buyers know how low they can go". I no longer give two hoots, frankly. We're already there. This is Black Friday, Monday-Sunday, 365 days a year. Welcome to the quality agency that is Alamy. Personally, I've given up on them a long time ago.

 

Absolutely agree with you, and I've also published low fees here - and got myself into bother with some forum regulars. The more we say about this nonsense,  hopefully the more @Alamy might start to look after it's contributors, many of whom are seasoned professionals.

[Cryptoprocta]

6 minutes ago, Steve Valentia said:

 

Absolutely agree with you, and I've also published low fees here - and got myself into bother with some forum regulars. The more we say about this nonsense,  hopefully the more @Alamy might start to look after it's contributors, many of whom are seasoned professionals.

Yeah, they might; but realistically, going by precedent at other places, and what's already beeh happening here, they won't.

And compared to all the furore at other places, there's just a tiny number of complainers on here.

[chris_rabe]

19 hours ago, Sally said:

And yet, four figure sums are still possible. Alamy Content has just liked a Tweet from Jeff Morgan who has announced a $1200 sale.

 

 

I saw that and thought "Wow"!

 

But then I thought I'd be constantly worried about a refund somewhere down the line!

 

Anyway, my port is growing on each of my agencies now. It's been a lot of work trying to get through a chunk of my backlog, but things are moving forward, finally, with Alamy no longer my single distribution point. Now I just need to see how it all plays out - and get back to taking more photos!

[Martin P Wilson]

On 12/02/2019 at 14:46, Paul Mayall said:

Alamy without question was once the best image suppliers to be with for the individual photographer.

 

Slowly over the years prices have been dropping at the contributors expense and will keep dropping, i cannot help but have the impression Alamy dose not care as they now have a very large archive and now one of the big players thanks to the hard work and expense of their contributors "both individual and partner agencies" and of course the recent change in commission dose not inspire us.

I know there is nothing we contributors can do accept complain and get some satisfaction to vent our thoughts on this forum.

Years ago i would have given Alamy a 9 star rating from 10, today i can only give 3, quite a drop, no doubt buyers would give Alamy 9 as images have become cheaper than chips.

 

Like most i live in hope Alamy will lift their game in increasing the value of our images.

 

It is the pound/dollar store model, volume is all. If a 5% fall in price increases volume by 6% or more then it is a win, at least for the sales aggregator. But probably not for most individual suppliers who are constantly squeezed on margin for the benefit of the end seller.

[riccarbi]

30 minutes ago, Martin P Wilson said:

 

It is the pound/dollar store model, volume is all. If a 5% fall in price increases volume by 6% or more then it is a win, at least for the sales aggregator. But probably not for most individual suppliers who are constantly squeezed on margin for the benefit of the end seller.

 

True, yet such a situation also depends on photographers uploading to Alamy a gazillion pictures - many of which were arguably not their best ones - just to have the largest port possible.
That has caused an "oversupply" of pictures on Alamy which, as one could expect, is leading to lower prices, on average.
Now Alamy has two possible strategies. On the one hand, they can go on increasing the number of photos as much as possible in order to compensate their dropping median value, with a view to secure their overall income (thus, reducing their difference from a Microstock agency) OR, on the other hand, they can focus more on artistic and technical quality, as well as on providing the clients with photos with original subjects, reducing the number of images available on Alamy, for example by tightening QC and artistic/creative standards.

 

It looks like they are preferring the first scenario, which can be (possibly) acceptable for Alamy, but much less acceptable for us, because we'll reach a point in which the time spent for editing and keywording an image will be paid peanuts and not worth the effort, from an economic point of view.
 

[chris_rabe]

27 minutes ago, riccarbi said:

 

True, yet such a situation also depends on photographers uploading to Alamy a gazillion pictures - many of which were arguably not their best ones - just to have the largest port possible.
That has caused an "oversupply" of pictures on Alamy which, as one could expect, is leading to lower prices, on average.
Now Alamy has two possible strategies. On the one hand, they can go on increasing the number of photos as much as possible in order to compensate their dropping median value, with a view to secure their overall income (thus, reducing their difference from a Microstock agency) OR, on the other hand, they can focus more on artistic and technical quality, as well as on providing the clients with photos with original subjects, reducing the number of images available on Alamy, for example by tightening QC and artistic/creative standards.

 

It looks like they are preferring the first scenario, which can be (possibly) acceptable for Alamy, but much less acceptable for us, because we'll reach a point in which the time spent for editing and keywording an image will be paid peanuts and not worth the effort, from an economic point of view.
 

 

I think you are right.

 

But, that is OK I guess. There are other agencies catered more towards creative, highly curated collections, and they have a lot of things that wouldn't even make it onto micro, so I still kind of think they are a bit unique - and there is certain content I would only think of listing here.

 

I still think it's collection is worth more than they are charging, as I see stuff on the sold threads that I just don't think would be accepted to a great many other places - I'm just not sure Alamy sees the value, and in constant fear of Micro. And like you say, eventually, it won't be worth the effort of keywording, uploading, etc, etc.

 

Part of me wonders if this will all level out - is it a fad for most? Will the majority get bored or come to the conclusion it's not worth the effort? And contributions dry up? I fail to imagine that most people actually want to spend much time researching and keywording. 

 

I think the company needs someone else at the helm - when the guy in charge states they are still finding their way after so many years.... well, that doesn't instill confidence in anyone.

 

But what do I know, I have not been in this game long.