Is Alamy turning into a Microstock agency?

[cbimages]

48 minutes ago, Tom Reichner said:

I have sold at that agency for the last 7 years, and have consistently averaged right around $1.00 USD commission per sale.   Every month there are several commissions of $25 to $35, sometimes even significantly more, which keeps the average well above the $0.38 minimum.

I agree Tom. I have 338 images with "that" agency, just adding a few each year. My earnings (my share, not the gross) is $10, 916.81 as of today. Not a bad return on so few images.

[John Mitchell]

5 hours ago, cbimages said:

I agree Tom. I have 338 images with "that" agency, just adding a few each year. My earnings (my share, not the gross) is $10, 916.81 as of today. Not a bad return on so few images.

 

About how many years did it take you to get to that amount?

[cbimages]

1 hour ago, John Mitchell said:

 

About how many years did it take you to get to that amount?

About 10 years John. But please realise that the early years only had a few images. I think I added about 50 the first 18 months or so, and trickled a few on from time to time since then.

If I counted my share of $$ from all of "those" sites, that have the same images, it's a tad under $27,000. Plus they often get licenced on Alamy as well, I've not counted that income of course. 

[giphotostock]

No, on a per-sale basis Alamy is not quite microstock.

 

However, the industry is dominated by the big one that rhymes with Jetty, which had essentially become microstock. I quite often get sales for which my share is <$0.10 (big Jetty via an aggregator). I believe I recently got several for which my share was $0.01. Talk about depressing sales.

 

On the PIPY basis the big Jetty still beats Alamy heads down. So is the leading microstock subscription site.

 

Interesting times we live in.

 

GI

[Cryptoprocta]

3 hours ago, Olivier Parent said:

 

I thought such ridiculously low prices were to be expected on their EyeShock platform only, but not for their Jetty collection.

Three low value scenarios are all via G, not iS:

1. Connect: tiny fractions of a cent on a pay-per-view deal with certain buyers. Generally we don't see this as it has to aggregate to 0.01c in a month

2. Very small cents sales are limited-time, sometimes literally four hours on the web (effectively RM). That seems to be monitored, as I've never personally managed to 'catch' one of my files licensed that way, but not otherwise, online. Nor have I read of anyone else having caught out a buyer this way. Of course, it's not really possible to check files which have other sales, which most have ...

3. Small cents sales are 'premium access', which seems to mean that buyers pay a premium to buy files cheaply over G and iS, and we only share part of the low price sale (though that's not what their t&c say, maybe these buyers are buying so many thousands of files that our share of the premium, as divvied between all the sales, is seriously minute). Occasionally, these sales are for large values.

IIRC, The lowest direct iS sale is a sub. But of course, G want to sell as much as possible via G, as they cream off more of our money that way (e.g. I get 30% via iS but 20% via G).

Edited March 5, 2019 by Cryptoprocta

[dustydingo]

2 hours ago, Cryptoprocta said:

Three low value scenarios are all via G, not iS:

1. Connect: tiny fractions of a cent on a pay-per-view deal with certain buyers. Generally we don't see this as it has to aggregate to 0.01c in a month

2. Very small cents sales are limited-time, sometimes literally four hours on the web (effectively RM). That seems to be monitored, as I've never personally managed to 'catch' one of my files licensed that way, but not otherwise, online. Nor have I read of anyone else having caught out a buyer this way. Of course, it's not really possible to check files which have other sales, which most have ...

3. Small cents sales are 'premium access', which seems to mean that buyers pay a premium to buy files cheaply over G and iS, and we only share part of the low price sale (though that's not what their t&c say, maybe these buyers are buying so many thousands of files that our share of the premium, as divvied between all the sales, is seriously minute). Occasionally, these sales are for large values.

IIRC, The lowest direct iS sale is a sub. But of course, G want to sell as much as possible via G, as they cream off more of our money that way (e.g. I get 30% via iS but 20% via G).

 

I don't submit to IS, but with the abominable-snowman's "main" mob I get 30% for my exclusive-to-abominable-snowman RM images' licenses, and 20% only for RF images. So of course RF get priority on their website, and submissions are often under pressure to become RF, not the (by me) stipulated RM. Needless to say, I argue for RM status wherever possible.

 

And yes, as with all of us there, I too get the micro fractions as you describe above, but to be fair, that's nowhere near the whole picture . . . quite frequently . . . well, let's just say that quite frequently I see licenses that keep my images there and leave me more than happy for folks to call it what they like 😉

 

DD

[Abiyoyo]

Country: Worldwide
Usage: Student Projects, For non-commercial use in projects such as dissertations, presentations or essays.
Industry sector: Education
Image Size: Any size
Start: 04 March 2019
Duration: In perpetuity

 

My first Student Project  by nearly a $. Is this a new usage? even much lower than a PU?

Can I opt out to sell my images for Student Projects?

 

Edited March 5, 2019 by Abiyoyo

[Robert M Estall]

I tried to read a bit of this CultureTrip guff. Main points seem to be friendly dogs at the door and rather a lot of staff with doctorates. But I'm not at all clear what they are selling. A lot of the characters seem very heavy with the make-up, maybe that's their strongest line? I've got a very friendly dog at the door but she doesn't seem to be pulling in the sales. Oh, and  I don't have a doctorate. My Dad did, but he wasn't selling anything. Neither of us seem to have got things figured quite right

Edited March 5, 2019 by Robert M Estall

[Tom Reichner]

1 hour ago, Robert M Estall said:

I tried to read a bit of this CultureTrip guff. Main points seem to be friendly dogs at the door and rather a lot of staff with doctorates. But I'm not at all clear what they are selling. A lot of the characters seem very heavy with the make-up, maybe that's their strongest line? I've got a very friendly dog at the door but she doesn't seem to be pulling in the sales. Oh, and  I don't have a doctorate. My Dad did, but he wasn't selling anything. Neither of us seem to have got things figured quite right

I apologize, Robert; I have no idea what you are talking about, but  I really want to know what you are saying.  Would you be so kind as to re-write your post, but to do so in a way that a layperson could understand?  

 

Specifically, the things you wrote that I don't understand (or understand what they have to do with stock agency image sales) are:

the expression "dog at the door"

Culture Trip guff

"characters" .... "heavy with makeup" (perhaps you are talking about models?)

doctorates, and how they might be connected to what we are discussing here

 

Thank you

 

Edited March 5, 2019 by Tom Reichner

[Robert M Estall]

it was being suggested that the customer for these many $1.25 sales was  https://theculturetrip.com/about-us/

 

My comments were after trying to read the stuff on that site. I clearly wasn't the only one found the text hard to follow. But lots of corporate speak is like that! And why indeed did they think describing friendly dogs at the doors to their offices was worth mentioning?

[Tom Reichner]

Thank you for the explanation, Robert.

[MizBrown]

Looked at The Culture Trip website.  A number of travel and retirement sites get people writing for them for free or low dollars (one friend wrote an article on his retirement town for International Living and was paid something like $70).  They are always upbeat and simply ignore  countries that have current major problems (apparently from a report by two Estonians tourist I met in Jinotega, Nicaragua, today, tourism in Honduras is down considerably in even secure sites like Copan Ruines). Tourism in Nicaragua collapsed following the US giving the country "Reconsider Travel Plans" rating, and the country has been dropped from International Living promotions.   The money is in the ads, harvesting emails, and kickbacks from rentals and real estate sales.  Nice that they are paying anything -- lots of these sorts of things rip off text and photos from web forums and social media.

 

The Costa Rican expats call the whole thing "selling rainbows and unicorns."    The friend who wrote for International Living saw them change "shacks on the hillsides" to "cabins on the hillsides."

 

The only way these sites can make money is to paint as delightful a picture of foreign travel as possible to get advertising and referral fees.  

[Cryptoprocta]

In answer to the title question: maybe. I've had four sales this month, which is unheard of (for me!) in only six days, two of them weekend days, but all under $12 gross.

 

Also, it's only just occurred to me that UKNS sales are considerably cheaper than extended/enhanced licences on the two main micros for publications of over 500k circulation (but of course that's excluding any special deals which might be possible there).

 

Changes seem to be afoot, unless my sales are just random coincidence. We'll see what happens. But certainly as prices go down, Alamy needs to attract a lot of new buyers.

[Brasilnut]

The strict definition (at least for me) of a micro site is one that offers a subscription service.

 

Alamy appeared to be heading in that direction, not sure what happened to that plan. 

 

[dustydingo]

On 05/03/2019 at 14:08, Olivier Parent said:

As long as photographers will sell their images for peanuts on MS websites, or even give them for free on others, there is no way for the prices to rise up again.

 

By my reckoning, gleaned from irregular sorties into the forum over many years, this used to be the predominant sentiment here. Of late many appear to have abandoned it in favour of the lure of multiple peanuts elsewhere.

 

Perhaps it's just me, but it seems that hopes of rising prices here are in danger of being stymied by the planned movement of portfolios to, or replication on, certain MS sites.

 

DD

[John Mitchell]

3 hours ago, Brasilnut said:

The strict definition (at least for me) of a micro site is one that offers a subscription service.

 

Alamy appeared to be heading in that direction, not sure what happened to that plan. 

 

 

Hopefully they came to their senses and realized that going down that road would be self-destructive.

[Cryptoprocta]

3 hours ago, Brasilnut said:

The strict definition (at least for me) of a micro site is one that offers a subscription service.

That's because you're a new kid on the block.

The first micro site had no subs until relatively recently. The first subs site started to undercut the first.

[John Mitchell]

4 hours ago, dustydingo said:

 

By my reckoning, gleaned from irregular sorties into the forum over many years, this used to be the predominant sentiment here. Of late many appear to have abandoned it in favour of the lure of multiple peanuts elsewhere.

 

Perhaps it's just me, but it seems that hopes of rising prices here are in danger of being stymied by the planned movement of portfolios to, or replication on, certain MS sites.

 

DD

 

No, it's not just you. It seems to me that a bigger danger than Alamy becoming a microstock site is the micros becoming more like Alamy. Personally, if I were going to experiment with microstock, I'd create a separate portfolio with different images than the ones I have here. That makes more sense to me than duplication. Contributors are of course free to do whatever they think best with their work. 

Edited March 6, 2019 by John Mitchell

[Bill Brooks]

On 05/03/2019 at 03:59, Olivier Parent said:

 

I thought such ridiculously low prices were to be expected on their EyeShock platform only, but not for their Jetty collection.

 

Nope, here is what a friend, who is moving all of his JETTY exclusive rf over to exclusive Alamy rf, said to me recently.

 

"Bill (J)ETTY is exclusive rf Images and pays 20 shitty percent on a sale but there is so much subscription clients that sales are like a buck 20. It’s sickening." 

 

It seems that we are in the midst of a great migration.

[John Mitchell]

9 minutes ago, Bill Brooks said:

 

It seems that we are in the midst of a great migration.

 

In all directions by the sounds of it.

 

 

[Cryptoprocta]

25 minutes ago, Bill Brooks said:

Nope, here is what a friend, who is moving all of his JETTY exclusive rf over to exclusive Alamy rf, said to me recently.

"Bill (J)ETTY is exclusive rf Images and pays 20 shitty percent on a sale but there is so much subscription clients that sales are like a buck 20. It’s sickening."

That's true, but still I earn half here (RM) than I do there (RF), though I get (a paltry) 30% for the iS sales.

 

However, it may be that RF will do better here going forward than RM will; time will tell.

 

[wiskerke]

2 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

In all directions by the sounds of it.

 

 

It's not a Wryneck is it?

- Yes I can see it's a goose -

Translation from German: Wryneck = Wendehals.

 

wim

[John Mitchell]

55 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

It's not a Wryneck is it?

- Yes I can see it's a goose -

Translation from German: Wryneck = Wendehals.

 

wim

 

I'd never heard that term before, but it does seem somewhat à propos. 😎

 

AFAIK it's a boring old Canada goose (like me) who's not quite sure which way the wind is blowing, so he's planning to stay put.

[Starsphinx]

I think the problem with the analogy to peanuts is that when an image on microstock is sold lots of times those peanuts add up to more than the steak dinner a single sale elsewhere brings.  Maybe it would help if people considered it a different way - one man wants one car for his own personal use - he pays one large price.  A group of neighbours want one car to be shared among them each using it for part of the time - each pays a much smaller amount.  Has the second car been sold for peanuts?  No.

So one customer wants one photo (or photos from one shoot) for their exclusive use they pay one lump sum 
If another customer wants use of one photo or shot from a shoot but is happy to share that with lots of others they pay one small amount

The validity of the pricing model and return model is if I can look at a photo or a shoot and say it has brung in x amount of money.  If I do a shoot that I would quote £150 for to a single customer, put the images on microstock, and find that I have sold 300 copies from the shoot at 50p each then I have not worked for peanuts - I have worked my usual rate.  Of course, the difference is that with the single customer once that £150 is paid that is it - on microstock I could see another 300 sales in the following decade and bring in another £150.

Maybe instead of thinking of microstock as peanuts, a better analogy would be a timeshare apartment.  Lots of people who cannot afford a whole holiday home buy one week a year through timeshare.  Now sometimes this works and sometimes this does not but I do not hear anyone saying the original owners of the properties being sold this way are selling them for peanuts.

[Niels Quist]

1 hour ago, Starsphinx said:

I think the problem with the analogy to peanuts is that when an image on microstock is sold lots of times those peanuts add up to more than the steak dinner a single sale elsewhere brings. 

 

What people often forget is that images on microstock are more quickly watered down and will more often be copied and used for free and infringements are nearly impossible to trace.