Bill Brooks Posted February 27, 2019 Share Posted February 27, 2019 For the photographer I agree RF is RF and can be non exclusive on multiple agencies. Why not, unless there are financial incentives to to the photographer to make their images exclusive RF to one agency? Regarding exclusivity, one of the tier1 microstock agencies is running an advertising campaign with the slogan "Its not stock, its (insert name of tier1 microstock agency here)" So you can see the thinking of the tier1 microstock agency about making their collection unique, and a possible indication of the future regarding image exclusivity. Image exclusivity is not only a way of making their collection unique, but also a way to deprive competing agencies of image content. If you are going the non exclusive RF microstock route, you should not have the same image as RM on Alamy, and as RF on a microstock site. So you could change over exclusive Alamy RM images to non exclusive Alamy RF if you are going to put those same images on a microstock site. Years ago I was with another agency, that sold my identical non exclusive RF images at the same time as Alamy. The other agency told me that they had a new policy because they were relaunching their RF division. I would have to take my non exclusive RF off of Alamy, and make my RF exclusive to the other agency, if I wanted to continue with them for my RF images. My exclusive RM images on that agency were not involved in the new policy. There was no immediate financial incentive to do so, so I declined the other agencies offer, removed my RF images from the other agency, and left my RF images on Alamy. Ironically the other agency then proceeded to put their relaunched RF division on Alamy and other places. Selling images through the other agency on Alamy I would have received only 24% of the sale of their relaunched RF images on Alamy, compared to the 60% I was receiving from Alamy at the time. The times they are a changing. In the future I think stock agencies will offer an extra financial incentive for RF exclusive. Either a financial incentive, or a lot of arm twisting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted February 27, 2019 Share Posted February 27, 2019 Reality struck today with my first 40% sale --- a $$$ one no less. Ouch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted February 27, 2019 Share Posted February 27, 2019 On 26/02/2019 at 12:52, kay said: Sorry, I maybe wasn't as clear as I could have been. The odd cents I suppose have to go one way or the other (mine all went Alamy's way) but the two I was referring to $101.48 and $9.02 were like Lynne said earlier - not an odd cent that couldn't be split, but a round amount that could have been split exactly in half, and for some strange reason wasn't. $101.48 should have been $50.74 each, not $50.75 and $50.73 etc - that's what's really puzzling me. I'm struggling to think of any reason why they've been split the way they have??? There are potentially 2 lots of rounding going on here involving currency conversion as well as commission split. Looks like Alamy might need to revisit their algorithm. Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted February 27, 2019 Share Posted February 27, 2019 On 26/02/2019 at 18:46, Bill Brooks said: Timing is everything, and the timing for wide placement of the non exclusive image was 10 years ago. It is too late to have the same non exclusive RF image at 5 stock agencies. The future is exclusive images. Stock image exclusivity is the future of the industry, because all different agency collections are starting to look the same. Looking the same as your competition is a problem stock agencies need to solve. Prices will never rise if clients can buy the same non exclusive image from many different agencies. All stock agencies should encourage image exclusivity by offering photographers a better deal for exclusive images. This better deal could be higher commission rate, better position in the search order, quicker selection process, refusing new images offered on a non exclusive basis, etc. This does not mean that photographers would have to be photographer exclusive to one agency, only image exclusive to one agency. For instance you could photograph the local city skyline exclusively for one agency on Monday, and photograph the same skyline exclusively for a second agency on Tuesday, and on to the other 5 days remaining in the week. This would allow you to save money on travel, save time keywording and captioning, and service 7 agencies on an image exclusive basis. If you are starting out on none exclusive multiple agencies you may want to consider leaving your present images exclusive to Alamy for an extra 20%. You could build and future proof your new agency collection with newly shot images exclusive to each agency. If image exclusive to Alamy for your present collection is not possible, then you might start to think about RPI (Return Per Image) at each of your agencies. You could then consolidate your present collection between fewer agencies for a better deal. Another benefit of exclusivity, (besides the extra 20% payment from Alamy), is it helps identify and track down infringements. Having identical images available via multiple agencies, makes identifying and chasing infringements increasingly difficult. Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cryptoprocta Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 On 26/02/2019 at 09:03, kay said: Mmmm, that is weird. I've just checked back. I see now that out of my reported sales since the commission change, 2 aren't as expected. One for $101.48 has been split $50.75 and $50.73, and another for $9.02 split $4.52/$4.50 - both in alamy's favour. I can't imagine this is an intentional thing, but it is strange that something that seems so straightforward is sometimes being miscalculated. I will send an email querying it Any feedback? I had an even number sale today and it was split exactly 50-50. Strange that only 2 sales this month have been even numbered! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sally Posted March 17, 2019 Share Posted March 17, 2019 On 01/03/2019 at 08:32, kay said: Sorry, yes, got a reply yesterday apologising and saying that they were fixing the issue (the incorrect split of even number sales) and that 'you shouldn't receive any more sales like this' and that an adjustment would be made to my account. I had 3 even numbered sales yesterday, and they were split evenly, so it's looking sorted as far as I can see so far I got that feedback too. New sales are fine but sales for around a month between approx 25th January and end of February are still not sorted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Lavers Posted March 19, 2019 Share Posted March 19, 2019 I started off with exclusive Alamy images, and later on out of curiosity I put just a few on SS and forgot about them. Then one day I looked and hey presto those few were starting to show downloads and I was still getting nothing on Alamy. Since then I have loaded most of my current portfolio to both, gone non-exclusive and still not showing any downloads here and just 1 zoom although the guy on the Alamy stand at TPS said it takes a few months. I am included in plenty of searches but I obviously need to work on getting them noticed. If I start to see a pattern of what sells on Alamy better than elsewhere then I would revert to back to exclusive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 21 hours ago, Rob Lavers said: I started off with exclusive Alamy images, and later on out of curiosity I put just a few on SS and forgot about them. Then one day I looked and hey presto those few were starting to show downloads and I was still getting nothing on Alamy. Since then I have loaded most of my current portfolio to both, gone non-exclusive and still not showing any downloads here and just 1 zoom although the guy on the Alamy stand at TPS said it takes a few months. I am included in plenty of searches but I obviously need to work on getting them noticed. If I start to see a pattern of what sells on Alamy better than elsewhere then I would revert to back to exclusive. You have a tiny portfolio by Alamy standards, so it would be a nice surprise if you licensed anything on Alamy. Yet. You need to have many more images, several thousand, then you’ll begin to see some action. (Yes I know some of you have sold a single image with a few hundred uploaded, I’m talking about steady action) Remember to keep similars down. Pick your best 3 or 4 from a shoot to upload. Within these, a mix of portrait and landscape. Room for text is nice when the subject lends for it. When you are ready to upload, do a search on Alamy to see how many of your subject are offered for sale already. Unless your image of the subject is unique or exceptional, it will be lost in the herd if there are many thousands already offered. Also ask yourself “how might a prospective buyer use this image to illustrate something? Remember that Alamy’s strength is editorial. Betty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.