Success on Alamy

[Mirco Vacca]

A little tip?

• Buy a few tourist guide books and coffee table books of your country.
• Look at the famous sights they cover to get some inspiration.
• Make a list of those sights per city.
• Visit Google maps and figure out how and when you have to shoot those locations in the best possible light.
• According to that information, plan your route (you possibly have to visit the same squares at several times of day to cover all the sides in good light)
• Pay attention to the weather forecast.
• ...... and off you go when the time is right
• Take your time and wait for (nice looking) people to walk into the frame, dressed in bright colours instead of wearing grey and black.

You'll end up with a lot better pictures if - back at home - you take the time to straighten the walls of your buildings (DH0R4X) and lighten up the shadows. You NEED to do some post-processing, whether you like it or not!

 

 "Pictures don't just happen, they are MADE!!!!"  

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

Thanks Philippe,

 

I feel guilty that you help so much. I will follow for sure many of you advices otherwise i will have to make 200.000 gray images to get 3 sales per month .

 

I think the best moment for colorful people is waiting till the gay parade ends in for example Amsterdam and stand guard in front of a building until some of them pass .

 

But jokes beside it makes of course much sensewhat you are writing. When i look back you where in many points right that i am to hasty....i will try to look at your adivces and take them in practice. Whatever it is here on Alamy or other agencies.

 

Mirco

[tarsierspectral]

Thanks you all again for honoust sensefull replies.

 

I am looking at my images and it is true they could need some improvements to say it softly.....this i can change.

 

But i still think that the main reason is that there is a lacks of need of Polish subjects comparing to UK or US. 2 reasons:

 

1. When i put on the search field : Polish food market or Polish people or Poznan old square for example my images appear on the first page. So potential clients could see them

2. When i check on alamy measures on All Alamy for Polish search terms then i dont see many results in one year.

 

I heard some people saying it and also i start to believe it could be true that the real sales comes in after having a large collection of UK/US images. Otherwise you need images from many countries in Europe where i dont have the time for since i have a full time job. So maybe in my case i should see Alamy as a occasional income source next to the (sorry ) microstock agencies where i have a regular significant income from. I sell there for example also editorial Polish images and they are regulary downloaded even that i have there much less images then on Alamy. It split them for testing wich platform works better.

 

This is my speculation.... i could be wrong but i doubt it.

I disagree on many points here.  I don't have any images from UK and I have very little of US and Europe.  I have 20 photos from Poland and I sold 1 of them.  I am making sales.  My images are from all over the place.  

I will repeat what everyone said already.  It's the quality of your images, your keywords and your content.  You have plenty of images that are non-Poland specific so I don't believe that has anything to do with the fact that people are not looking for pictures from Poland.

I agree with Philippe.  It feels like you go out, snap as many photos as possible, rush back home, do nothing to them, add a few irrelevant keywords, upload to Alamy and you are happy that you just added 100s of images in one evening.

Tell me why you have taken these photos and why do you think someone should buy them and what do they illustrate:

DH5756

DGXFWD

DGTHY9

DGTP8T - where is the leather jacket?

DGTPC0

DGEWC1 

[Phil Robinson]

I started submitting to another library (one I think you know, Mirco) in January this year. My first two sales came in August, both of images submitted in January, seven months earlier.

In September I had three sales - of submissions from January and February, seven months earlier.

More sales in October - images sent in Jan, Feb and March - seven months earlier.

There seems to be a pattern emerging. I have had sales on Alamy much quicker than that, - and of course here sales are reported as they happen, not when the money clears - but I think the above shows there is definitely a delay to expect before sales start.

November statement due any day - sales from April subs, I hope.

[spacecadet]

Time to first sale, 3 months. Second, 8 months, the same image, but sold twice on the same day. Quickest first sale, 6 weeks. Slowest so far, 45 months.

Average this year, about 27 months. Only 5% of this year's sales were taken this year.

Conclusion, keep submitting variety. If you go back to the same place, deepen the areas where you have sales, but don't compete with yourself expect for date taken where it's relevant to the shot.

[Lynn Palmer]

+1

 

 

I think they must have been wondering what on earth these pictures were ever taken for - this was not 'photography' by their definition.

 

I wasn't doing the pretty shots. As I was shooting some ill-considered trifle, another photographer approached and said "Well, looks like I missed something" with heavy sarcasm. I was able to tell him that if I ever licensed the pic, I'd earn enough money to buy half of bitter and some crisps. That told him...

 

Oh...

[Chuck Nacke]

To Mirco and all,

 

"Less is More" Is what I say and live by.

 

I've been with Alamy since 2005. Was invited to contribute earlier, but

When I was told to mail a CD with my images to London and wait to hear

from them I just laughed and forgot about Alamy, My mistake.

 

I still have less than 1,000 images live and the last eight scans from

35mm film (shot in 1992) will be live today or tomorrow. I spent about

a month of my available time working on those images. About half of the

time I spend before uploading is spent on researching the caption and

keyword information.

 

Cannot imagine uploading thousands of images in months. In my opinion,

the market for images is flooded with images that are created without

enough foresight and not captioned and keyworded professionally,

not accusing anyone in particular.

 

On all images that I consider uploading the first thing I look at is

how good or important is the image or series of images to the current

market? Then I look at how the image or series of images fit into

current news or topics being discussed in the media. Lastly I look

at other similar images available on Alamy and the other major outlets.

Only then do I start scanning or shooting a subject.

 

In my opinion Alamy has been a valuable library to contribute to and I’m

mostly happy with the returns that Alamy has produced. I do contribute

to other agencies, but most of the material that I have available on

Alamy is only available from Alamy.

[Peter Jordan]

Mirco,

 

As others have said, it can take a long time for sales to be reported.

 

Here are some statistics based on my (247) sales to date:

 

Fastest time from upload to sale 65 days

Slowest (so far) from upload to sale 2826 days

Average time from upload to sale 833 days

 

It takes time, but they do come.

 

Another thought, some 12% of my sales have been pictures of things found in my house and garden. (Admittedly I am oldish and hoard interesting junk which makes this kind of shot easy)

[ann]

Use your time & effort more wisely. Your editorial photos sell, though for peanuts, on a microstock site, and lesson it seems to teach you is that 10,000 images (of similar quality, content) would make significant revenue.

 

Typically, a contributor's TOP images - ones that get repeat sales - bring in most of overall earnings (especially on microstock), and you will not have much in the way of top, most-successful images if you continue to focus mainly on volume.

 

As I & others have said before:  10 images of very useful subjects that are visually interesting & strongly keyworded are far more valuable than a thousand random images of weak-to-average usefulness & quality.

 

all the best - Ann

[John Mitchell]

Interesting thread. It brings to mind a couple of questions. Since microstock agencies have pretty well captured the market for "casual" images, is it even worthwhile uploading these types of photos to Alamy? If we do, is it perhaps not better to mark them as RM rather than RF, as this might indicate to potential buyers that they won't be able to find them for less $ on microstock sites?

 

P.S. By "casual images," I mean pictures of road signs, pubs, cups of coffee, piles of turnips, autumn leaves, smiling people, and the like.

[losdemas]

Interesting thread. It brings to mind a couple of questions. Since microstock agencies have pretty well captured the market for "casual" images, is it even worthwhile uploading these types of photos to Alamy? If we do, is it perhaps not better to mark them as RM rather than RF, as this might indicate to potential buyers that they won't be able to find them for less $ on microstock sites?

 

P.S. By "casual images," I mean pictures of road signs, pubs, cups of coffee, piles of turnips, autumn leaves, smiling people, and the like.

 

There are multiple reasons why someone might want one of these images newly/recently taken - rules of the road change: new signs and road markings (specifically local to your area/country) - a new coffee shop chain opens to compete with the big boys (brand on the cup, perhaps); a new type of coffee (fair trade, different country, whatever) is shown; a (small. local) brewery goes out of business; there's a massive turnip crop failure in Vancouver and everyone has to do without turnip soup for the winter - urgent need for recent local pics of rotting turnips!

 

Alamy are always clamouring for current/seasonal weather pics (mostly UK, I grant you); and those smiling people didn't have those blindingly white teeth once upon a time (they still - mostly - don't in the UK)!  Clothes/fashions change, nationality requirements change: I'm sure that the market for images of BRIC and middle-eastern country smilers is far larger than ever it was and will boom in the coming years (although, I must confess to having my doubts about marketing images directly to the BRIC countries).  Also, the style of required image has, and will continue to change over the years.

 

And... images of certain items that are currently common in one country are not necessarily even available (or desired) in another country - that, too, changes.

 

Lots of other examples I can think of - mostly involving change (society, culture, acceptability, method, etc.) and news (what was common yesterday is different today), but that's it for now!

 

I have taken precious few of this type of image up till now, but I am not going to let the fact that there are 000's (add your own noughts) of similar images available put me off from finding my own original take on something where I might wind up with a unique image or niche that has yet to be filled - and find a buyer.  I have sold 5 images here to date and would put 2 or 3 into the category you mention!

[John Mitchell]

 

Interesting thread. It brings to mind a couple of questions. Since microstock agencies have pretty well captured the market for "casual" images, is it even worthwhile uploading these types of photos to Alamy? If we do, is it perhaps not better to mark them as RM rather than RF, as this might indicate to potential buyers that they won't be able to find them for less $ on microstock sites?

 

P.S. By "casual images," I mean pictures of road signs, pubs, cups of coffee, piles of turnips, autumn leaves, smiling people, and the like.

There are multiple reasons why someone might want one of these images newly/recently taken - rules of the road change: new signs and road markings (specifically local to your area/country) - a new coffee shop chain opens to compete with the big boys (brand on the cup, perhaps); a new type of coffee (fair trade, different country, whatever) is shown; a (small. local) brewery goes out of business; there's a massive turnip crop failure in Vancouver and everyone has to do without turnip soup for the winter - urgent need for recent local pics of rotting turnips!

 

Alamy are always clamouring for current/seasonal weather pics (mostly UK, I grant you); and those smiling people didn't have those blindingly white teeth once upon a time (they still - mostly - don't in the UK)!  Clothes/fashions change, nationality requirements change: I'm sure that the market for images of BRIC and middle-eastern country smilers is far larger than ever it was and will boom in the coming years (although, I must confess to having my doubts about marketing images directly to the BRIC countries).  Also, the style of required image has, and will continue to change over the years.

 

And... images of certain items that are currently common in one country are not necessarily even available (or desired) in another country - that, too, changes.

 

Lots of other examples I can think of - mostly involving change (society, culture, acceptability, method, etc.) and news (what was common yesterday is different today), but that's it for now!

 

I have taken precious few of this type of image up till now, but I am not going to let the fact that there are 000's (add your own noughts) of similar images available put me off from finding my own original take on something where I might wind up with a unique image or niche that has yet to be filled - and find a buyer.  I have sold 5 images here to date and would put 2 or 3 into the category you mention!

Most of my leases/sales come from my travel images (Honduras does OK). However, since I can't afford to do much travelling to exotic places these days, I've been experimenting with more generic local subjects. I recently created a pseudonym for my "casual" images. Have had a couple of zooms but no sales yet. In my weaker moments, I've thought of trying microstock, but then I return to my senses.

[Mirco Vacca]

I like this thread ....

 

The hard game for me is as following...

 

Speaking only about editorial. I have about 400 editorial images on microstock sites. Despite the small provision i have daily sales from them and give me +/- 100 dollars per month net. (for my kind of editorial images)

 

So my big struggle to continue putting my next editorial images to Microstock and wait what Alamy does or still feeding Alamy? Technically i should make with 2.000 editorial images on Microstock 500 dollars a month with the right images of course. I guess that my images are not good enough to pay 300 for and go much better for 3 dollar sales with the advantage of having many downloads that compensate difference of revenue per image.

[Perry]

This thread is great.

Thanks to Mirco (and pros over here) we got a small primer for the (Alamy) stock shooter.

 

And thanks to this thread I realised I had to stop uploading more images and spent a few months or more on keywording only. 

[Mirco Vacca]

Indeed,

 

This thread starts to become a detailed manual made by pros. You just have to come with the right problems and the experienced Alamy shooters come out from their nest .

[losdemas]

This thread is great.

Thanks to Mirco (and pros over here) we got a small primer for the (Alamy) stock shooter.

 

And thanks to this thread I realised I had to stop uploading more images and spent a few months or more on keywording only. 

 

Personally, I wouldn't stop uploading completely; just continue 'drip-feeding' the system with images while you work on the keywording.  That way, you are providing customers who use the 'new' button with images all the time.

[Craig Yates]

This thread is great.

Thanks to Mirco (and pros over here) we got a small primer for the (Alamy) stock shooter.

 

And thanks to this thread I realised I had to stop uploading more images and spent a few months or more on keywording only. 

 

+1

 

I joined in July 2010 and my image total is currently heading for 12k . After reading all the good advice above i have stopped and started

to reflect on the quality of both my images and key wording. Wish i had done this a tad earlier 12k is a lot to edit.

 

and thank you to Philippe who might come across as harsh but points in exactly the right direction.  and gives solid constructive advice.

 

 

Regards

"still no sales since 23rd September" but zooms on the up

 

Craig

[John Mitchell]

 

This thread is great.

Thanks to Mirco (and pros over here) we got a small primer for the (Alamy) stock shooter.

 

And thanks to this thread I realised I had to stop uploading more images and spent a few months or more on keywording only. 

Personally, I wouldn't stop uploading completely; just continue 'drip-feeding' the system with images while you work on the keywording.  That way, you are providing customers who use the 'new' button with images all the time.

Yes, drip-feeding is probably a good idea. That way you can take advantage of the "New" button. Personally, I don't think that making big submissions are a good idea now that the Alamy collection has become so huge. Better to break things down into small doses. But "different strokes for different folks," as the old song says.