Falling revenue

[Sultanpepa]

Last year Alamy warned us that they expected our returns to diminish which they duly have. It's quite obvious to me that Alamy had some facts at their disposal which they were pretty certain of to make that prediction. One might speculate that they new some of their (high content users) customers were leaving for pastures new. They might also have known that they were about to slash pricing. Whatever the facts are it will be a big disappointment for many contributors like myself to see sales remain relatively stable but see revenue plummet like a stone. I know that many are especially unhappy at the almost comical (although no one's laughing) remuneration for newspaper uses.  Whilst were being spoon fed $4.91 gross this news paper is probably making annual profits in the millions. This race to the bottom makes stock photography less interesting and more of a chore every year and little offerings like earlier payouts and if you're lucky, getting five stars instead of three is fooling no one. Why anyone these days would get into supplying stock images is beyond me. Rant over.

Edited November 29, 2019 by Sultanpepa

[Bionic]

21 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

So that is why it is taking so much longer for my images to pass through QC.

Contributors with 5 stars go straight to the front of the QC queue which pushes me further to the back.

I do have the evidence in that my images used to pass QC reasonably quickly. Two days at most. Lately 3 and 4 days.😖

 

Allan

 

I'm still on 3 stars but I'm also still going through QC within 24hrs

[Bionic]

21 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

So that is why it is taking so much longer for my images to pass through QC.

Contributors with 5 stars go straight to the front of the QC queue which pushes me further to the back.

I do have the evidence in that my images used to pass QC reasonably quickly. Two days at most. Lately 3 and 4 days.😖

 

Allan

 

I'm still on 3 stars but I'm also still going through QC within 24hrs

[Harry Harrison]

11 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

Maybe alamy are trialing an auto QC system?

Yes, there is conjecture in the QC Speed thread that this might be playing a part.

[Normspics]

This year has been a turnaround for me, my sales revenue had fallen in 2017 and then fallen further in 2018 (downward graph), this year I have revenues higher than these two years but funnily my sales volume is less. I have $389 more in revenue and 4 less downloads, not big numbers but nice to have a reversal and the graph heading up!

Edited December 3, 2019 by Normspics

[BobD]

2 hours ago, Normspics said:

This year has been a turnaround for me, my sales revenue had fallen in 2017 and then fallen further in 2018 (downward graph), this year I have revenues higher than these two years but funnily my sales volume is less. I have $389 more in revenue and 4 less downloads, not big numbers but nice to have a reversal and the graph heading up!

 

Glad to hear but it does appear that North American contributors are faring better than European.

[Marianne]

To be fair, even with a few tiny licenses of late, I hit last year's revenue with half the number of licenses. It's just that a few months of micro=priced licenses since then has me cranky.

 

@meanderingemu I think your suggestion about the "what to shoot" list is spot-on

 

I also wish they would do more marketing. Like last month they asked us to tag our autumn photos on twitter. I tagged a bunch of mine via Buffer so they'd be spread out but Alamy only RT'd one of them - several have sold so it wasn't that the pix weren't worth the RT - and i had gone and RT'd a bunch of theirs. I have just over 7,200 followers, not huge but certainly worthwhile as it's 50% of the size of this huge stock agency's following, but instead of making me feel noticed for my effort, I felt like it was a waste of time - they have a marketing idea but no one seems to follow up. 

 

Ideas like that on twitter and other social media, getting us involved and then following up and tweeting links to images that, if sold, garner them the lion's share, would be really nice and getting some feedback would go a long way toward making me feel appreciated as a contributor. Sure, my primary goal here is to make some money, but we all like to feel appreciated for our effort. 

 

I used to be able to count on Alamy News to give me feedback and to help me get a press pass when I didn't have an assignment, but then they kicked me out of the scheme (which I had been invited to join when it wasn't originally open to all), thanks to having been sick for a couple of years and so far less active. I'm also at a disadvantage being US based as most Alamy news seems to be directed at the British press. I haven't even re-applied, though I believe I have the requisite credentials. Why spend $24 for a train to Manhattan (& another $5 for the subway) to shoot a protest when the photos are being shopped around for $6? They don't seem too be targeting the local press in my area, and the last sale I had to a US newspaper group for about $15 remains unpaid for nearly 5 months now. 

 

 

[spacecadet]

5 minutes ago, Marianne said:

Like last month they asked us to tag our autumn photos on twitter. I tagged a bunch of mine via Buffer so they'd be spread out but Alamy only RT'd one of them - several have sold so it wasn't that the pix weren't worth the RT - and i had gone and RT'd a bunch of theirs. I have just over 7,200 followers, not huge but certainly worthwhile as it's 50% of the size of this huge stock agency's following, but instead of making me feel noticed for my effort, I felt like it was a waste of time - they have a marketing idea but no one seems to follow up. 

You're not speaking a language I understand! RT? Buffer?

[Normspics]

1 hour ago, BobD said:

 

Glad to hear but it does appear that North American contributors are faring better than European.

 

Maybe the success of the North American Alamy office, it’s odd because you think of Alamy as a UK centric business for customers.

 

[KevinS]

1 hour ago, Normspics said:

 

Maybe the success of the North American Alamy office, it’s odd because you think of Alamy as a UK centric business for customers.

 

Yes, Alamy is UK centered, but it is the US economy that is robust right now.

 

While reading this thread I checked AIM and see that I have 5 stars. Submission from 2 hours ago is passed. Don't know anything more about it. I did struggle with QC failure 3.5 years ago while trying mirrorless with kit lens. Sub that just went thru was Sony RX100 III. Ironically, British subject.

Edited December 3, 2019 by KevinS

[Matt Ashmore]

5 hours ago, spacecadet said:

You're not speaking a language I understand! RT? Buffer?

 

RT = retweet. Buffer... can't help you with that one! 😞 

[Phil Preston]

35 minutes ago, Matt Ashmore said:

 

RT = retweet. Buffer... can't help you with that one! 😞 

 

Buffer is an App that can be used to schedule Twitter Tweets (posts), ie, automates posts rather than having to do each one manually.

[Marianne]

I'm always under the impression that European contributors and particularly those from the UK are doing better here than we Americans. The grass is always greener I guess.

 

Thanks @Matt Ashmore and @Phil Preston for translating my post for @spacecadet   😎

[Steve F]

4 hours ago, Marianne said:

I'm always under the impression that European contributors and particularly those from the UK are doing better here than we Americans. The grass is always greener I guess.

 

Hey Marianne,

The grass is always greener! But based on my (limited) experience, American clients are much more likely to pay higher fees than European clients.... Perhaps we sell more pictures???

 

(p.s. at the moment I'll take any client - no sales yet in December 😭)

[Marianne]

6 hours ago, Steve F said:

 

Hey Marianne,

The grass is always greener! But based on my (limited) experience, American clients are much more likely to pay higher fees than European clients.... Perhaps we sell more pictures???

 

(p.s. at the moment I'll take any client - no sales yet in December 😭)

 

Hi Steve- yes I think that from what I've read here and in my own experience back to 2008, all my $250-450 licenses were American publishers or advertisers, but it certainly seems to me from what I read here that you British (or UK residents, not sure if you are Austrian) sell the most and that your European neighbors are a close second. And I'm looking at what I see here in the forum, the experiences of other American contributors with large portfolios, not just my rather modest sized one.