Chuck Nacke Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 On 06/12/2019 at 03:24, IanDavidson said: Hi Alex, I like your portfolio. Mostly well composed and balanced. A good mix of subjects. You are lucky, from a photograph view point to live where you do, excellent light (unlike the UK). And a lot of variety. The captions are OK, perhaps some more detail and the keywords look fine to me. However, you are going to have to upload a great deal more to obtain good sales numbers. It is not until you get in to the mid thousands that sales will appear regularly. You have done well with a sale with just 200 images. I understand your comment on family commitments - I have the same issue. But, my view would be to submit a few regularly. Get into the habit of taking your camera everywhere, malls, etc and just keep shooting. Well done. I need to disagree with Ian, I had my first license via Alamy with less than 200 images online and still in 2019 I am seeing regular licenses and zooms with less than 1,000 on my main psydo. I have always said or written that it is the images, not the number, that is important. Captions and Keywords are VERY important as well. I do believe that most in the stock business do not select the images that they put out in the market tightly enough, but that is just my opinion. Chuck 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacquelin Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 Thanks Ian and Chuck for your responses. The main points are noted. I will continue to upload at the same rate I have been. I hope the images I do upload are those included in Alamy's market demand. I should believe the reviewers do choose quality images, and since my images are being sold on other platforms I have no doubt that the quality of my images is acceptable. It follows then, that I will be watching volume as against time to decide if I'm satisfied with Alamy's sales performance as it is related to the images I upload. it is still early days. Best wishes Jacquelin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vicky allum Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 I have only 271 images on Alamy and in the last 6 months have had 4 sales, total of $ 266 ,i think myself very lucky and fortunate, good luck Jacquelin with your sales i am sure 2020 will be a good year for sales ,Vicky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacquelin Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 Hi Vicky, Thank you for that bit of encouragement. I believe you are uploading since longer than six months, hence I have one question for you. How long since you start uploading to Alamy? Regards Jacquelin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexG Posted December 31, 2019 Author Share Posted December 31, 2019 17 hours ago, Jacquelin said: I am also new at Alamy and is a bit concerned that even though I've exceeded 500 uploads including many of my popular images I have zero sale. Regards Jacquelin Hi Jacquelin, I am slower than you with not even 250 images in a longer time frame. I have a single sale of $5. So you are saying nothing yet at +500 images. Not so surprising I guess here. I am (or perhaps I was) hoping that I could get 1 or 2 monthly sales of say $$, but that's not the case obviously. I know on other sites, ss, there have been about a dozen downloads for just over 60 images, but most are quarter of a dollar, and so I have not even reached $10 in total. I do not have the time and patience to upload tens of images a week and keyword/caption them all for that little return. At least on here at Alamy, they QC you first, and you don't have to waste time keywording and captioning beforehand if the image is rejected anyway. But I've found QC easier here than on others, ss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexG Posted December 31, 2019 Author Share Posted December 31, 2019 16 hours ago, Chuck Nacke said: I need to disagree with Ian, I had my first license via Alamy with less than 200 images online and still in 2019 I am seeing regular licenses and zooms with less than 1,000 on my main psydo. I have always said or written that it is the images, not the number, that is important. Captions and Keywords are VERY important as well. I do believe that most in the stock business do not select the images that they put out in the market tightly enough, but that is just my opinion. Chuck Chuck, Thanks for your input. I think you are right. And it bothers me in general when people post 5 or more variations of the same subject, and the variations are often very minimal. In some cases even close to 10 similar images. People are not aware of the market flooding it creates and the amount of server space and energy required for all that. No wonder stock sites take a huge cut. No one seems to think about these downsides to having huge portfolios. But what do I know, I am not a big seller apparently. I do try to post something of reasonable quality, but I am by no means professional in any sense when it comes to photography. Regards Alex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanDavidson Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 On 30/12/2019 at 13:36, Jacquelin said: Hi Ian, You have just clipped my wings. In my opinion, regular sales at 5,000 is suggesting significant sales will be at about 10,000, and suggest that Alamy marketing strategy is poor. Of course my definition of regular sales is at least 1 sale/month on an average. On another platforms I have been getting regular sales way below that figure. As a matter of fact, on an average, on the other platforms I submit to, sales start at lest than 500 and gradually increases based on my frequency, and possibly volume per upload. The platform that now has most submission, has just last week reached the 2,000 mark and I've been getting regular weekly sales for many weeks now. On another platform that is yielding regular monthly sales, I got my first sale one month after I started uploading. I could be wrong, but in my opinion one should start getting significant sales at 5,000, coupled with regular uploads. I am also new at Alamy and is a bit concerned that even though I've exceeded 500 uploads including many of my popular images I have zero sale. Regards Jacquelin I have bee criticised for my comment and it is true to say that there are some photographers who make good sales from a relatively small (1,000plus) images. The “old” rule used to be 1 sale per month per 1,000 images. But, I am not sure that still works. I don’t think you can usefully compare Alamy with other platforms. Alamy is largely an editorial agency and appears to have a slightly different market segment. It’s prices are, in very general terms and in my direct experience as a news shooter, better than many other agencies. best of luck 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meanderingemu Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 (edited) On 30/12/2019 at 11:33, vicky allum said: I have only 271 images on Alamy and in the last 6 months have had 4 sales, total of $ 266 ,i think myself very lucky and fortunate, good luck Jacquelin with your sales i am sure 2020 will be a good year for sales ,Vicky 271 images, all mainly of editorial nature, and UK based. maybe not a good comparable for Jacquelin's focus. i would even venture, that you actually have more different subjects than her. with half the images Edited December 31, 2019 by meanderingemu 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meanderingemu Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 1 hour ago, IanDavidson said: I have bee criticised for my comment and it is true to say that there are some photographers who make good sales from a relatively small (1,000plus) images. The “old” rule used to be 1 sale per month per 1,000 images. But, I am not sure that still works. I don’t think you can usefully compare Alamy with other platforms. Alamy is largely an editorial agency and appears to have a slightly different market segment. It’s prices are, in very general terms and in my direct experience as a news shooter, better than many other agencies. best of luck totally agreed. one thing i would put a caveat, is as a UK based news shooter. I am still not convinced on soft news stuff distribution model outside the UK. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexG Posted December 31, 2019 Author Share Posted December 31, 2019 1 hour ago, meanderingemu said: 271 images, all mainly of editorial nature, and UK based. maybe not a good comparable for Jacquelin's focus. i would even venture, that you actually have more different subjects than her. with half the images Thanks Emu. I definitely should put more pictures up. But from what I see of people sharing about their sales, you are right that editorial in UK sells well. Not sure how it does in US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nacke Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 (edited) 5 hours ago, IanDavidson said: I have bee criticised for my comment and it is true to say that there are some photographers who make good sales from a relatively small (1,000plus) images. The “old” rule used to be 1 sale per month per 1,000 images. But, I am not sure that still works. I don’t think you can usefully compare Alamy with other platforms. Alamy is largely an editorial agency and appears to have a slightly different market segment. It’s prices are, in very general terms and in my direct experience as a news shooter, better than many other agencies. best of luck Ian, I did not intend to criticize you, I apologize if you felt that I did. What I was trying to say is that I read too often people saying put up more and more images, with little regard to content. I do believe that it is bad for the photographer, Alamy and the business when people do not edit (select) salable images and make sure that they have excellent captions and keywords. As I have written, I still have less than 1,000 images up on my main psydo. which has a current Click Through Rate of 1.1+ and Alamy generates between 75 and 90 licenses for me a year. Not great and I do wish that I had three times the number of images online with Alamy, but there are only so many hours in a day... I do agree with what you wrote about "Alamy is largely an editorial agency" and I spent over thirty years covering news and personalities for magazines around the world. Alamy has been one of the best opportunities to license the images that I've had sitting in my basement or online with other agencies. Lately I've become concerned with the lower license fees that Alamy has been producing. While I would love to continue to exclusively contribute to Alamy, we will see what comes in 2020? PS Just this year I have been experimenting with shooting "General Stock (GS)" (I have another Psydo for GS) and have not been impressed with the results I've seen. Guess I am not much of a "Stock Photographer?" Happy New Year to all, including Alamy Staff Chuck Nacke Edited January 1, 2020 by Chuck Nacke punctuation 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacquelin Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 4 hours ago, meanderingemu said: totally agreed. one thing i would put a caveat, is as a UK based news shooter. I am still not convinced on soft news stuff distribution model outside the UK. That would explain the reason for not getting any sales even though the images I upload here include those that are selling on other platforms. Frankly I am now thinking that I might not do well at Alamy since I do not consider my photos to be editorial material. Regards Jacquelin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meanderingemu Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 12 hours ago, AlexG said: Thanks Emu. I definitely should put more pictures up. But from what I see of people sharing about their sales, you are right that editorial in UK sells well. Not sure how it does in US. the UK bias seems to be linked to the News stuff, and though the ordinals may be higher, you have to remember that the online dailies schemes are generally low payout. If i look at my sales in my first year, it is the non UK based sales that increases my $$ average. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanDavidson Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 9 hours ago, Chuck Nacke said: Ian, I did not intend to criticize you, I apologize if you felt that I did. What I was trying to say is that I read too often people saying put up more and more images, with little regard to content. I do believe that it is bad for the photographer, Alamy and the business when people do not edit (select) salable images and make sure that they have excellent captions and keywords. As I have written, I still have less than 1,000 images up on my main psydo. which has a current Click Through Rate of 1.1+ and Alamy generates between 75 and 90 licenses for me a year. Not great and I do wish that I had three times the number of images online with Alamy, but there are only so many hours in a day... I do agree with what you wrote about "Alamy is largely an editorial agency" and I spent over thirty years covering news and personalities for magazines around the world. Alamy has been one of the best opportunities to license the images that I've had sitting in my basement or online with other agencies. Lately I've become concerned with the lower license fees that Alamy has been producing. While I would love to continue to exclusively contribute to Alamy, we will see what comes in 2020? PS Just this year I have been experimenting with shooting "General Stock (GS)" (I have another Psydo for GS) and have not been impressed with the results I've seen. Guess I am not much of a "Stock Photographer?" Happy New Year to all, including Alamy Staff Chuck Nacke Chuck I have great respect for your views and I take criticism as a learning experience. I absolutely agree Alamy is an excellent agency. I also share your concern over falling prices, but that is the market rather than Alamy. Although having said that my number of sales have doubled every year over the last four (from a low base), although my revenue has not followed that trend. I am not expecting a continuation of the sales trend in 2020. I agree, at least from my own experience, with your comments on people putting up too many images. There are some who use Alamy like a microstock site, but Alamy works best, I think, as a more targeted editorial site. I occasionally try general stock, but I lack confidence in that area: I am a news shooter, it is what I know I guess. I am going to try to do a bit more stock, but not at the expense of my news shoots. A happy new year to you, the contributors who have become my friends on the Westminster beat, (you know who you are) and, of course, the Alamy staff without whom none of this would be possible. Good shooting.... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nacke Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 Ian, LOL, I quit using the word "Shooting" years ago. In 2020 it is probably better to say or write "Photographing." Best, Chuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacquelin Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 1 hour ago, IanDavidson said: Chuck I agree, at least from my own experience, with your comments on people putting up too many images. There are some who use Alamy like a microstock site, but Alamy works best, I think, as a more targeted editorial site. I occasionally try general stock, but I lack confidence in that area: I am a news shooter, it is what I know I guess. I am going to try to do a bit more stock, but not at the expense of my news shoots. That raises another question. If Alamy market targets mainly editorial customers, why encourage mass uploads of commercial images? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacquelin Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 On 31/12/2019 at 02:37, AlexG said: Chuck, Thanks for your input. I think you are right. And it bothers me in general when people post 5 or more variations of the same subject, and the variations are often very minimal. In some cases even close to 10 similar images. People are not aware of the market flooding it creates and the amount of server space and energy required for all that. No wonder stock sites take a huge cut. No one seems to think about these downsides to having huge portfolios. But what do I know, I am not a big seller apparently. I do try to post something of reasonable quality, but I am by no means professional in any sense when it comes to photography. Regards Alex As a user of images I can understand the importance of having multiple variations of a subject. There are several times I see what I want, but not the angle I want. In my opinion, for commercial stock having variation is important. What I see that does not make sense, is conscious multiple uploads of the same image. I do not see the sense of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 (edited) On 01/01/2020 at 02:56, Jacquelin said: That would explain the reason for not getting any sales even though the images I upload here include those that are selling on other platforms. Frankly I am now thinking that I might not do well at Alamy since I do not consider my photos to be editorial material. Regards Jacquelin I don't see why a lot of your pictures could not be editorial. You might increase your chances of sales by using more accurate captions and keywording. Your Landscape of Lilies caption for example (2A7XN49) might be better described as a lily farm or lily crop in Jamaica. Note also there is not a flower in sight which would be expected for a caption such as Landscape of Lilies. Also include the specific localities in your captions and keywords where relevant. In many cases, you only say Jamaica in the location field which is not searchable. Also include Jamaican, Caribbean etc. Removing a lot of the generic keywords may also help. Edited January 2, 2020 by MDM 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 On 30/12/2019 at 07:36, Jacquelin said: Hi Ian, You have just clipped my wings. In my opinion, regular sales at 5,000 is suggesting significant sales will be at about 10,000, and suggest that Alamy marketing strategy is poor. Of course my definition of regular sales is at least 1 sale/month on an average. On another platforms I have been getting regular sales way below that figure. As a matter of fact, on an average, on the other platforms I submit to, sales start at lest than 500 and gradually increases based on my frequency, and possibly volume per upload. The platform that now has most submission, has just last week reached the 2,000 mark and I've been getting regular weekly sales for many weeks now. On another platform that is yielding regular monthly sales, I got my first sale one month after I started uploading. I could be wrong, but in my opinion one should start getting significant sales at 5,000, coupled with regular uploads. I am also new at Alamy and is a bit concerned that even though I've exceeded 500 uploads including many of my popular images I have zero sale. Regards Jacquelin Jacquelin, I zoomed at only a couple of your images because I was curious what country they were taken. Guess what? I still don’t know. One image, the caption is “Beautiful farmland”. Where is that farmland? I didn’t see any identifying tags, either. When any of my farmland images have been searched, they have been by “Oklahoma farm” or “Oklahoma farmhouse” or “USA farm”. Or “wheat harvest Oklahoma “ and such. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a zoom from generic caption or tags. Possibly “wheat harvest USA “. Also, leave out words like “beautiful”. That might occasionally be used by a buyer for “beautiful woman” but even that may be rare. For instance, I may have as a caption: “Red clay field plowed and ready for planting in early spring. Oklahoma, USA.” My tags would be: farm field, red clay field, plowed, fallow, tilled, agriculture, farmland, farming, countryside, spring, blue sky, day, daytime, nobody, horizontal, outdoors, southern Oklahoma, Oklahoma, US, USA, U.S.,U.S.A., United States, North America If an actual crop is involved, it would be: crop, wheat crop, farming, farmland, wheat field, wheatfield, ripening wheat, farm field, agricultural, agriculture, growing, wheat, grain, food, etc. Captions are very important. Who, what, where. Sometimes Why. “Caucasian male farmer on a John Deere combine, harvesting wheat on a field west of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. Repeat all of those caption words in the body of your tags. You’re missing out on possible sales involving location. Betty 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacquelin Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 Hi Betty, Thanks much for the information. I must admit even though a few of my keywording include the country, Jamaica, I have been forgetting to add it to others where it is relevant. Thanks again for that very important reminder. It is much appreciated. Regards Jacquelin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Morrison Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 (edited) 13 minutes ago, Jacquelin said: Hi Betty, Thanks much for the information. I must admit even though a few of my keywording include the country, Jamaica, I have been forgetting to add it to others where it is relevant. Thanks again for that very important reminder. It is much appreciated. I keep some keywords on a 'sticky', ready to copy and paste... such as... england, english, great, britain, british, gb, united kingdom, uk... Edited January 2, 2020 by John Morrison 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacquelin Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 6 hours ago, MDM said: I don't see why a lot of your pictures could not be editorial. You might increase your chances of sales by using more accurate captions and keywording. Your Landscape of Lilies caption for example (2A7XN49) might be better described as a lily farm or lily crop in Jamaica. Note also there is not a flower in sight which would be expected for a caption such as Landscape of Lilies. Also include the specific localities in your captions and keywords where relevant. In many cases, you only say Jamaica in the location field which is not searchable. Also include Jamaican, Caribbean etc. Removing a lot of the generic keywords may also help. Thank you MDM for that information. I never thought of adding keywords or caption "lily crop" or "lily farm" to that image since they are all wild lilies. They are found mainly in the southern coast line of the island where natural ponds are formed. Thanks again. Regards Jacquelin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacquelin Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 2 minutes ago, John Morrison said: I keep some keywords on a 'sticky', ready to copy and paste... such as... england, english, great, britain, british, gb, united kingdom, uk... Thank your for that tip John Regards Jacquelin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 4 hours ago, Jacquelin said: Thank you MDM for that information. I never thought of adding keywords or caption "lily crop" or "lily farm" to that image since they are all wild lilies. They are found mainly in the southern coast line of the island where natural ponds are formed. Thanks again. Regards Jacquelin I think that illustrates what is missing in the caption. The scene looks like the plants are being cultivated. Describing the scene might help you to sell. The lilies are only in the foreground in any case so calling it a landscape of lilies is very inaccurate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacquelin Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 2 hours ago, MDM said: I think that illustrates what is missing in the caption. The scene looks like the plants are being cultivated. Describing the scene might help you to sell. The lilies are only in the foreground in any case so calling it a landscape of lilies is very inaccurate. Hi MDM, Thank you again. I made some adjustments. Not quite finished as yet, but I'm looking forward to sales soon. Regards Jacquelin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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