Lack of USA sales for UK contributor

[geogphotos]

Just under 400 sales listed for 2020 and only two give USA as the country of sale. 

 

I haven't yet checked the download data files.

 

Given that Alamy gets more than 50% of its revenue from USA I am not doing very well. 

 

My non-ex images with XXX Images sell in USA, Alamy has a sales office in New York so what is going on?

 

Any thoughts, experiences or possible explanations?

Edited November 17, 2020 by geogphotos

[Avpics]

I had a $$$ magazine sale to the US reported yesterday, the twenty-fifth to that zone out of nearly three hundred for 2020. That includes around ten PUs - at the full price that most US sales thankfully return.

[John Richmond]

10 US sales - all garden plants - for an average of $70 gross out of 318 sales so far this year.  They're not common - but they pay well.

[Mr Standfast]

Sold one to the  USA.  A row of shops in the backstreets of Swindon. I'm not going back.

 

 

[wiskerke]

1 hour ago, geogphotos said:

Just under 400 sales listed for 2020 and only two give USA as the country of sale. 

 

I haven't yet checked the download data files.

 

Given that Alamy gets more than 50% of its revenue from USA I am not doing very well. 

 

My non-ex images with XXX Images sell in USA, Alamy has a sales office in New York so what is going on?

 

Any thoughts, experiences or possible explanations?

 

Do you keyword using US English? It's quite different from the Queen's.

And what about the subjects? Are they comparable?

 

wim

[Betty LaRue]

Yes, American spelling and titles (nouns) needs to be included. Color, colorful, where you might use particular words to describe where you get meds, here we say pharmacy and drug store. We say emergency room for the place you go after an accident, heart attack, etc.

We say shopping cart, you say trolley. I try to include both. We say while, not whilst. Bathroom, restroom or toilet for loo.

Stroller, baby carriage instead of pram. Diapers, not nappies. Sweater instead of jumper. And so on.

[Robert M Estall]

America is American-centric. They buy images of America or as America sees the world. That is an exaggerated simplification, but if you are hoping to sell images to USA, you won't go far wrong with that as a selling strategy. Keep note of the locations Americans pick for film locations in the UK. You could count them with two hands, no need to roll up your socks and start counting your toes. Sorry if I offend, but it's almost true. Out here in East Anglia they remember US bomber bases from WWII and that's about it. Oh, and Cambridge. Here in Sudbury, we have four silk mills, who would want to know that? Perhaps the Obamas knew, they bought some silk from Vanners who seem to be going broke. Pity about that, but the other three seem OK

Edited November 17, 2020 by Robert M Estall

[Betty LaRue]

Just looked at my sales for the last 12 months, pitiful as they are.  One sale to North America. None to US. 3 or 4 to UK. One to Australia, one to Germany, the rest are world wide, which are the bulk of them.

[Shergar]

21 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

Yes, American spelling and titles (nouns) needs to be included. Color, colorful, where you might use particular words to describe where you get meds, here we say pharmacy and drug store. We say emergency room for the place you go after an accident, heart attack, etc.

We say shopping cart, you say trolley. I try to include both. We say while, not whilst. Bathroom, restroom or toilet for loo.

Stroller, baby carriage instead of pram. Diapers, not nappies. Sweater instead of jumper. And so on.

And there you have it. 2 nations separated by a common language !!!!

 

Cheers and gone.

 

Shergar

[losdemas]

Just looked at my sales, too. Sales volume pitifully low this year (and let's not get into prices!), but half a dozen sales to the US - two of the same generic image of a vending machine, one of UK currency, others UK-based. All editorial stuff. Pertinent point is that the two highest value sales for the year (both $$$ for text books) were both for the US. Always try to use US spellings in tags, at least.

[John Mitchell]

I don't see a lot of UK sales if that's any consolation. The US and the EU predominate. I'd say it's all about content. For instance, my Latin America and Canada-related images do well in the USA.  I actually don't have a lot of US content in my collection.

 

I had a decent book sale of a Vancouver image (a totem pole) to Taiwan show up yesterday, which was encouraging to see.

[wiskerke]

Definitely weirder than I thought:

 

Australia, New Zealand and Oceania 2
Brazil 2
China 1
France 4
German speaking countries 1
Germany    21
Illinois 1
Italy 2
Japan 8
Latvia 1
Netherlands 2
New Jersey 1
New York 1
North America 3
Pakistan 1
Pennsylvania 1
Poland 1
Russian Federation 3
Singapore 1
Slovenia 2
South Korea 2
Spain 1
Sweden 3
Taiwan 1
Turkey 4
United Kingdom 8
United States 1
World English Language 5
Worldwide 138   

 

Yes it's not a whole lot and for a lot less money than the last 7 years. I blame Boris.

 

wim

[Brian Yarvin]

Even stranger for me because I live in the USA and have some iconic American images in my Alamy collection. Out of my past 100 sales, one was American - a photo of a farmer's market in Ohio - and two were in the UK. The country that showed the most interest in my work was Turkey with the Russian Federation coming in second. In both of these cases, the images licenced were cooking images that could have been shot anywhere in Europe or North America. 

 

Wim, don't you love it that Pennsylvania and New Jersey are listed as nations?

[losdemas]

4 minutes ago, Brian Yarvin said:

don't you love it that Pennsylvania and New Jersey are listed as nations?

 

Don't forget Illinois!

[Brian Yarvin]

1 minute ago, losdemas said:

 

Don't forget Illinois!

 

Indeed, Illinois is very easy to forget. 

[John Mitchell]

50 minutes ago, Brian Yarvin said:

 

Wim, don't you love it that Pennsylvania and New Jersey are listed as nations?

 

I'd say that the USA is now 51 different nations. But don't worry, I won't go there. 🤐 😎

[gvallee]

Interesting. I don't have such a variety of countries this year as my distributors' sales have almost dried up, presumably because I disabled PU. No regrets there.

Main subject to US is wildlife, followed by beaches, landscapes, international news.

Just got one today actually.

 

UK	64
ROW (usually Oz)	61
US	13
Europe	11
Australia	10
Australia, NZ, Oceania	8
Australia, NZ	1
Brazil	1
Czech	1
Serbia	1

Edited November 18, 2020 by gvallee

[John Mitchell]

I spoke too soon. Looking at my 142 sales so far this year, I have a higher proportion of UK sales than usual. The USA is still "No. 1" (of course 😄).

 

USA -- 40%

UK -- 27%

EU -- 23%

ROW -- 10%

 

Again, I think it's all about content. If I lived in Suffolk rather than in North America, I'd probably have far fewer US sales.

 

Only four "Canada" sales in the bunch, which is disappointing. I wish that Alamy could make more inroads here. How about opening a Vancouver office?

 

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by John Mitchell

[geogphotos]

1 hour ago, John Mitchell said:

I spoke too soon. Looking at my 142 sales so far this year, I have a higher proportion of UK sales than usual. The USA is still "No. 1" (of course 😄).

 

USA -- 40%

UK -- 27%

EU -- 23%

ROW -- 10%

 

Again, I think it's all about content. If I lived in Suffolk rather than in North America, I'd probably have far fewer US sales.Ye

Only four "Canada" sales in the bunch, which is disappointing. I wish that Alamy could make more inroads here. How about opening a Vancouver office?

 

 

 Yes, I do not expect more US than UK sales.

 

But as I said in my OP I do get a large number of sales every single month to the various USA 'countries' from GI from the same images. Just hardly anything through Alamy. 

 

Perhaps its in part pricing related between the two agencies for the same images for non-exclusive images. I'm assuming that those reporting much better US sales are Alamy exclusive.

[gvallee]

1 minute ago, geogphotos said:

I'm assuming that those reporting much better US sales are Alamy exclusive.

 

Yes, I am Alamy exclusive.

[geogphotos]

3 hours ago, gvallee said:

 

Yes, I am Alamy exclusive.

 

 

I expect that is what the difference is. Looks like Ian undercutting myself! 

 

I think that it also shows how good my editor was that there are seldom gaps that need filling from Alamy

[VbFolly]

I have had 10 US sales this year out of 124 total sales, and the prices are definitely better. The average gross price of those is $73.5, which is about 2.5X higher than my overall average. They are a variety of subjects, including wildlife, plants, signs and objects, but no travel images - I don't have any images taken in the US. I do try to include American spellings and words in my tags.

[geogphotos]

23 minutes ago, VbFolly said:

I have had 10 US sales this year out of 124 total sales, and the prices are definitely better. The average gross price of those is $73.5, which is about 2.5X higher than my overall average. They are a variety of subjects, including wildlife, plants, signs and objects, but no travel images - I don't have any images taken in the US. I do try to include American spellings and words in my tags.

 

A person who seems to have experience as a buyer suggested on the forum that there is a hierarchy of searches:

 

1) Look for anything free

 

2) Try the micros and Getty ( basically the same thing for most sales these days, except Getty is often cheaper)

 

3) Have a look at Alamy

 

4) Try small specialist agencies and individual photographers

 

5) Commission a photographer

 

Given the huge supply of images it becomes less and less often that the buyer has to work through the list to the end

Edited November 18, 2020 by geogphotos

[Steve F]

American sales always seem to be for more $, but are very rare for me... Not that many to the UK either! Sales so far this year:

 

Worldwide 29

Croatia 6

Czech Republic 1

Germany 3

German speaking countries 1

Finland 4

Italy 1 

Ireland 1

Serbia 2

Turkey 6

United Arab Emirates 3

United Kingdom 3

United States 1

 

I wonder where the French source their images?? Don't think I've ever sold anything to France. Maybe they always purchase 'worldwide' because of all the DOM-TOMs.

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by Steve F

[Steve F]

12 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

 

A person who seems to have experience as buyer suggested on the forum that there is a hierarchy of searches:

 

1) Look for anything free

That's going to be a killer. At least it might put the microstocks out of business 😆 I still can't understand photographers giving their work away for free, hoping to be 'found'.