September

[Wahavi]

3 sales for $43. Slowly but steadily upwards. This is my second year here.

[shearwater]

2 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Shall we hold hands and jump off the cliff together? 

Actually, when I have a good month I’m very pleased, but I don’t let the bad ones bring me down. I just found it odd to have nothing for September. I’m an optimist at heart, never let much get me down.

My philosophy is this. If you can change something for the better, do it. If you can’t, let it go. Stewing about it when you can’t change it isn’t healthy for mind or body.

Thanks for the offer, Betty, but let’s not jump yet…i’m sure we can wait one more month!  
Thank you for your kind words. I think and feel exactly like you. I’m not worried about the sales. They will eventually come, sooner or later. Thankfully I do not have to live with my photo earnings. I would starve! And I have many more really worrying things to care about. Sure we will have a better October in every sense. Thank you for your caring. Best regards!

[losdemas]

18 hours ago, geogphotos said:

Just to say that I really like this image:

 

RDT3YW

 

+1

Great portrait.

[Brasilnut]

On 03/10/2020 at 16:55, geogphotos said:

 

 

The fact is Alex that you cheated yourself by uploading the same images to micro-stock and then refused to accept any possibility that this would affect your Alamy sales. 

 

With due respect, my friend, I could say the same about you for not licensing at micros. Not that it would affect sales but by ignoring microstock you're hurting your bottom line and hence cheating yourself out of extra income. 

 

In Setemper, you licensed via Alamy 39 images for $1,070 gross on 70,000 images. which equates to 15cents an image/download gross or $1.80/year gross. This is about similar to mine and Alamy only makes up something like 20% of my overall earnings. I do have about 900 Alamy exclusive images as RM and they perform quite badly even after many years. 

 

Don't know how many of those are exclusive but assuming most are, those returns above, for the size of your port, are comparable with some of the lower-end microstock agencies (combined): Dreamstime, 123RF, Depositphotos. 

 

Now, you have a great port and deserve more. Many of us do but we the reality is that the market is getting more difficult, blame oversaturation, well before Covid even became an issue.

 

I'm gonna get lots of down arrows and don't care. Alamy has midstock aspirations but the returns are, well all is said and done, at a high-end microstock levels. There are some occasional big sales but those are few and far between - just too much inconsistency.

 

Hope the new partnership will stir things up with management to ensure the volumes return and license prices don't head the wrong way. Alamy is my favourite agency and I hope they turn things around in these tough economic times. 

 

[Betty LaRue]

On 03/10/2020 at 16:31, shearwater said:

Thanks for the offer, Betty, but let’s not jump yet…i’m sure we can wait one more month!  
Thank you for your kind words. I think and feel exactly like you. I’m not worried about the sales. They will eventually come, sooner or later. Thankfully I do not have to live with my photo earnings. I would starve! And I have many more really worrying things to care about. Sure we will have a better October in every sense. Thank you for your caring. Best regards!

Yeah, we’re going to kill October! (there goes the optimism again).

[geogphotos]

On 04/10/2020 at 19:09, Brasilnut said:

 

With due respect, my friend, I could say the same about you for not licensing at micros. Not that it would affect sales but by ignoring microstock you're hurting your bottom line and hence cheating yourself out of extra income. 

 

 

 

 

 

Last month I also had 175 non-Alamy sales with my non-exclusive images. So you need to add that to my 39 Alamy sales to take the monthly total well over 225 sales.

 

And because these are all RM I can boost my DACS claim each year for all UK book and magazine uses. 

 

I really don't mind what you do but perhaps you ought to stop using this forum to promote microstock to Alamy contributors? 

 

By the way RPI is more than anything a measure of how tightly a person edits - I edit loosely and provide choice. It makes much more sense to compare the balance sheet of actual expenses incurred versus income received. The amount per image is irrelevant.

 

What matters is being able to find a way to survive in this very difficult marketplace. A marketplace that has been made enormously more difficult by exploitative business models and those who support them. 

 

You stay with microstock and I'll stay with RM. 

Edited October 5, 2020 by geogphotos

[John Mitchell]

Here's how I see it. If you have the same images on both Alamy and microstock agencies, it will not negatively affect your sales on the latter, in fact it might even improve them as many Alamy customers will see you images here and then go looking for them at the micros. However, the opposite scenario holds true for your sales on Alamy. It seems inevitable that some of them will be lost after photo-buyers find your work on the micros. This appears obvious to me.

Edited October 5, 2020 by John Mitchell

[Brasilnut]

18 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

Here's how I see it. If you have the same images on both Alamy and microstock agencies, it will not negatively affect your sales on the latter, in fact it might even improve them as many Alamy customers will see you images here and then go looking for them at the micros. However, the opposite scenario holds true for your sales on Alamy. It seems inevitable that some of them will be lost after photo-buyers find your work on the micros. This appears obvious to me.

 

A. Fair enough, some Alamy buyers will go to micros and micro buyers won't go to Alamy. That's indisputable, although difficult to know for certain what is the prevalence.

 

B. However, would you say that it's equally logical that some micro buyers have never heard of Alamy / don't have an account at Alamy and would license strictly from micros?

 

Therefore, if what is lost potential income from A is less than what is gained from B than it would make sense from a business point of view to duplicate everywhere and RF. Would make for an interesting case-study but need to have buyers on board to be honest about their purchasing habits.  

[Allan Bell]

18 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

Here's how I see it. If you have the same images on both Alamy and microstock agencies, it will not negatively affect your sales on the latter, in fact it might even improve them as many Alamy customers will see you images here and then go looking for them at the micros. However, the opposite scenario holds true for your sales on Alamy. It seems inevitable that some of them will be lost after photo-buyers find your work on the micros. This appears obvious to me.

 

Here's how I look at it   🤪

 

Allan

 

[John Mitchell]

3 hours ago, Brasilnut said:

 

A. Fair enough, some Alamy buyers will go to micros and micro buyers won't go to Alamy. That's indisputable, although difficult to know for certain what is the prevalence.

 

B. However, would you say that it's equally logical that some micro buyers have never heard of Alamy / don't have an account at Alamy and would license strictly from micros?

 

Therefore, if what is lost potential income from A is less than what is gained from B than it would make sense from a business point of view to duplicate everywhere and RF. Would make for an interesting case-study but need to have buyers on board to be honest about their purchasing habits.  

 

Sure, what you say is possible. Some microstock customers may never have heard of Alamy. For me, though, microstock is too exploitative to make long--term business sense. I guess it comes down to what you're willing to put up with.