How was your November 2019?

[Cryptoprocta]

3 hours ago, chris_rabe said:

Well, so much for turning a corner, few sales finally came in couple of months before Nov, only for last month to return nothing at all.

I doubt if many of us have enough sales here to detect a pattern.

[Bill Allsopp]

A great month, quite a few calendar licences. 12 sales for $458 gross.

[Marianne]

On 02/12/2019 at 14:35, British Gent said:

1 sale for $30 right at the death. To be fair, that's about average for me (sigh). Didn't help when I heard from a friend who largely gave up with Alamy a couple years ago and switched to creating art work for Fine Art America. By half way through the month he had made $2k worth of sales and that's not unusual...

 

$$$ at FAA for me this month, higher $$$ than average but under last November. I usually garner at least low $$$ monthly there with 650 files, easily made with a single print sale. Last year I made more there than at any stock photo site, so I guess my efforts there are paying off. I've added far more new files here this year, but have started rethinking where I should be focusing my energy. 

 

Third dismal month in a row here, after robust licensing fees through the first of the year all the way through the summer had caught up to 2018 revenue. Seeing RM files go for $ has been very disheartening. Autumn has been a bust. Sad when I make more in a day with micro sales than I do for an RM license here. But things can always change drastically here from month to month. I'm still uploading here, but also at several other sites. 

[John Mitchell]

52 minutes ago, Marianne said:

 

$$$ at FAA for me this month, higher $$$ than average but under last November. I usually garner at least low $$$ monthly there with 650 files, easily made with a single print sale. Last year I made more there than at any stock photo site, so I guess my efforts there are paying off. I've added far more new files here this year, but have started rethinking where I should be focusing my energy. 

 

Third dismal month in a row here, after robust licensing fees through the first of the year all the way through the summer had caught up to 2018 revenue. Seeing RM files go for $ has been very disheartening. Autumn has been a bust. Sad when I make more in a day with micro sales than I do for an RM license here. But things can always change drastically here from month to month. I'm still uploading here, but also at several other sites. 

 

Good for you. I manage to make only a few sales per year on FAA, but it's still enough to make it a worthwhile venture. However, I don't upload much to POD sites these days. I find the number of images available on them to be somewhat overwhelming...😶

 

P.S. I could of course say the same thing about stock sites.

[geogphotos]

When I look at my FAA stats I seem to only get views from Hollywood and one or two other places - always he same places.

 

I assume that it is the more 'arty' sort of photo that sells on FAA.

 

Where else is any good for FAA - I look around but don't see anything that stands out.

[John Mitchell]

46 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

When I look at my FAA stats I seem to only get views from Hollywood and one or two other places - always he same places.

 

I assume that it is the more 'arty' sort of photo that sells on FAA.

 

Where else is any good for FAA - I look around but don't see anything that stands out.

 

I find that the images I manage to sell on FAA tend to be more stocky than arty.

 

The only other POD site that I currently use is Artflakes, which has a quirky website. Strictly tumbleweeds there this year for me. At least you don't have to pay them an annual fee as you do on FAA.

 

 

[Cryptoprocta]

On 08/12/2019 at 20:57, geogphotos said:

When I look at my FAA stats I seem to only get views from Hollywood and one or two other places - always he same places.

These are generally search bot locations.

I get lots from Cupertino (AppleBot)

MountainView (apparently Google)

also bots are known, and I get hits from:

- Kiez, Germany
- Kiev, Ukraine
- Beverley Hills, CA (apparently a server for a wirEless phone company)
- New York, NY

Some of the common 'visitors' are mobile phone hubs.

It's discussed over on their forum quite regularly. (Well, it used to be. That forum was super-toxic, so I haven't been there for a while (may be better now?).

[dunstun365]

It looks as if you need several 1000 images to make reasonable money. How can you get to upload so many images when alamy rejects all the photos if even one fails OR do they get more lenient the more photos you have accepted? 

[NYCat]

Never lenient, I hope, but we get better.

 

Paulette

[AlexG]

No sales Oct and Nov here. 😕 I'm on FAA as well, but with free account with less than 20 images. Waiting to see if something will sell and for how much before paying for am unlimited account. Nothing so far in 2-3 months.

[Marianne]

I made more in the last two weeks on FAA than I have grossed all year here. I was nervous because November there was slower than usual - I find that about 50% of my sales there are generally made between late October and mid- December. Thankfully, starting with a sale on Thanksgiving, sales ramped up. I've got around 660 images there - less than half of what I have here. I sell some artsy stuff but mostly travel scenics, particularly lighthouses.

 

Speaking of lighthouses, on the positive front here, my CTR is starting to head back to normal. It had tanked about a month ago after being high all year. It is now back from the doldrums (it was at 0 since November ) to 0.96 thanks in part to a search for "lighthouses," could the client be more vague? I have lighthouses from all over the world and they zoomed on one from the midwest's Lake Erie, which I actually wasn't sure about uploading - that search actually didn't help me much CTR wise since I had so many hits, but I had a flurry of activity today. Another zoom was on a New Years 2018 concept image - (it has 2018 covering most of the image) - weird stuff. Why zooms count for so much is really beyond me sometimes. I don't see how much of this can lead to sales but maybe it means my luck is changing for the better. 

 

Once I hit 500 files on FAA I went from occasional sales to regular sales. I market my stuff on twitter fairly regularly and a little on FB & pInterest - all organically - I don't pay for ads as when I have in the past I find my organic following drops for months afterwards.  I'm at more than double what I made last year there, and last year it beat my highest stock site, as it has again this year. 

 

800 files was the magic number for me here a few years back, but at around 1500 now I feel like I'm just treading water. 

Edited December 11, 2019 by Marianne

[British Gent]

I stumped up the $30 a couple of weeks ago on FAA, on the basis that doing it a month before Christmas was probably the best time to do some serious uploading. On the plus side I made a low $$ sale quickly, but on the downside it was one of my original 25 images from the free account days. It had sold before so I don't consider my return on investment to have begun yet. It's a twelve month 'project' so we shall see. There's no doubt marketing and other types of targeted activity seems to breed sales which in turn breeds more sales and credit to people who have broken through (like Marianne and my pal in North Wales). I've paid my dosh so it makes sense to give it a proper go.

[Charles Stirling]

Bit poor, 12 sales for $663 which was up on revenue. Sales had been a bit better earlier in year.