Radim Posted June 12, 2021 Share Posted June 12, 2021 I must say that plants are sold and many times they are not just peanuts. I recently had a sale for $ 500. It is not easy to say why something is sold and something is not. There are many reasons. The prerequisite for the sale is to be on the first page at the top. After a brief review of the keywords 'daylily + closeup' I found that no one had looked for them in the last year. I don't want to take away your hope, but with 123 images, the probability of a sale is almost zero. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MizBrown Posted June 12, 2021 Share Posted June 12, 2021 My impression is that the places looking for botanical shots want the full plant or the full flower. People looking for the close up of the reproductive apparatus of flower probably exist, but those will be rarer sales. Most textbooks are more likely to use a drawing for those details. Adobe refuses most flower shots, I've read somewhere, unless they're remarkable. I've licensed one of double African violets because most people with double African violets didn't put that in as a tag. About three or four people did. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karlis Dzjamko Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 Your photos ar great, but you need to put more work into your work, there is a lot of photos of flowers. But not enough photos that actually sells Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGantar Posted June 15, 2021 Author Share Posted June 15, 2021 Got my very first sale today (a colorful summer sunset at Rock Harbor on Cape Cod). Thank you Alamy. This initial sale gives me the motivation to work much harder and upload a lot more of my better landscape and nature photographs. Jerry 1 1 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colblimp Posted June 15, 2021 Share Posted June 15, 2021 5 hours ago, JGantar said: Got my very first sale today (a colorful summer sunset at Rock Harbor on Cape Cod). Thank you Alamy. This initial sale gives me the motivation to work much harder and upload a lot more of my better landscape and nature photographs. Jerry Well done Jerry, the first sale is great, isn't it? Now, forget that one and focus on getting your second! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Standfast Posted June 15, 2021 Share Posted June 15, 2021 👍 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formerly snappyoncalifornia Posted June 15, 2021 Share Posted June 15, 2021 (edited) Back in the day when stock photography was a viable profession the rule of thumb was your well curated (no similars) and properly key-worded portfolio on Alamy earned $1.00 per image per year gross. So you could expect your 1,000 images to earn $1,000.00. Since then reductions in the commission, the rise of microstock and economic upheaval has reduced that percentage to roughly .40 cents per image, $400.00 gross. Now, with a further reduction of 20% you can expect $320.00 or .32 each. So to earn the $250.00 gross sales minimum you need at least 780 images in your portfolio, netting $100. Edited June 15, 2021 by formerly snappyoncalifornia 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meanderingemu Posted June 15, 2021 Share Posted June 15, 2021 12 minutes ago, formerly snappyoncalifornia said: So to earn the $250.00 gross sales minimum you need at least 780 images in your portfolio, netting $100. and that's if ALL your sales are affiliate free, Distributor free, Alamy made sure they were billed for, Client actually paid and you are lucky enough to not have Alamy download any undue liability on you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert M Estall Posted June 15, 2021 Share Posted June 15, 2021 so 780 images calculation doesn't sound at all safe. I don't really rate the only numbers concept, but nobody is really in the game until they have crossed the 1000 mark. We do have some serious players who have less than 2,000 images uploaded but they are the exceptions. There are outliers, several years ago, I cleared the $25,000 goal in just one sale, but I fear we may all wait a long time to see that again 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southmind Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 On 08/06/2021 at 20:06, JGantar said: I’ve been uploading my better photographs to major stock agencies for a little over a year. I’ve had good success with Shutterstock, iStock, and Adobe Stock (more than 260 sales of so far). However, I’ve had ZERO sales from Alamy. What’s up? I not expecting to generate a huge number of sales from Alamy, but nothing at all! Have other contributors experienced similar results? Jerry I was very pleased with Alamy last year (considering my small portfolio) with regular sales but since the 1 st January not even one sale...😪 I uploaded mostly exclusive images here but no result. I can understand my portfolio is small but when I compare with adobestock (2 to 3 sales a week without uploading since 3 years) I am disappointed . May be a brexit effect.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Ashmore Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 (edited) On 12/06/2021 at 21:52, Radim said: I must say that plants are sold and many times they are not just peanuts. I recently had a sale for $ 500. It is not easy to say why something is sold and something is not. There are many reasons. The prerequisite for the sale is to be on the first page at the top. After a brief review of the keywords 'daylily + closeup' I found that no one had looked for them in the last year. I don't want to take away your hope, but with 123 images, the probability of a sale is almost zero. Flowers can sell (I have sold them).. but I really think that you need to know the name/species of the flower. You need to know it's latin name and 'common' name(s). Generic 'pretty pink flower' probably isn't going to hack it in terms of selling the image! Edited June 16, 2021 by Matt Ashmore Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southmind Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 1 hour ago, David Pimborough said: I've not seen a "brexit" effect as sales haven't really declined its more likely to be a COVID effect as no one is travelling anywhere Thks David. But my sales have not really declined on other stock sites during the lockdown, either... Only on Alamy. And I see you live in UK, may be the behaviour of customers is different. Wait and see... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radim Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 1 hour ago, Matt Ashmore said: Flowers can sell (I have sold them).. but I really think that you need to know the name/species of the flower. You need to know it's latin name and 'common' name(s). Generic 'pretty pink flower' probably isn't going to hack it in terms of selling the image! I fully agree with your opinion, I'm just embarrassed why it's under my post when we're not obviously at odds or I'm missing something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dunstun365 Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 (edited) I had 3 sales when I had less that 500 photos all licensed in 2021. I have about 800 in my port now but no new sales. I have licensed a flower close up picture here with no latin name but have since gone though my port and added the latin flower names as much as I can by googling the common names. Edited January 6 by dunstun365 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 I find it somewhat amusing that some place a portion of blame for the current state of the stock photo industry on the presence of "hobbyist photographers" invading and ruining the stock image licensing industry. IMO - hobbyist photographers should not be a target for stock industry angst. Hobbyist photogs wanting to sell image licenses are just one side effect of the more fundamental reasons for the current state of stock photo affairs. Those reasons being multiple tsunami-sized technological tidal waves that have swept over the whole of the photographic/imaging industry and fundamentally changed it forever. Digital technology and cameras, big changes in photographer demographics, smartphones & cameras, the rise of the internet, digital communications, eCommerce, to name a few, and the list goes on and on. It's well understood by now that for most stock image licensing as a viable single-source income stream as it used to be is gone. Diversify. Adapt and Overcome. 1 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geogphotos Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 (edited) 37 minutes ago, Phil said: I find it somewhat amusing that some place a portion of blame for the current state of the stock photo industry on the presence of "hobbyist photographers" invading and ruining the stock image licensing industry. IMO - hobbyist photographers should not be a target for stock industry angst. Hobbyist photogs wanting to sell image licenses are just one side effect of the more fundamental reasons for the current state of stock photo affairs. Those reasons being multiple tsunami-sized technological tidal waves that have swept over the whole of the photographic/imaging industry and fundamentally changed it forever. Digital technology and cameras, big changes in photographer demographics, smartphones & cameras, the rise of the internet, digital communications, eCommerce, to name a few, and the list goes on and on. It's well understood by now that for most stock image licensing as a viable single-source income stream as it used to be is gone. Diversify. Adapt and Overcome. Having seen your post I read through the thread. I can't see anybody blaming hobbyists for anything at all. Not sure what you mean by 'single-source income stream' but if you mean living purely from stock photography I don't think the number of people doing that has ever been high.. I do agree that blaming others is pointless. Edited January 8 by geogphotos 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 (edited) 3 hours ago, geogphotos said: Having seen your post I read through the thread. I can't see anybody blaming hobbyists for anything at all. See posts around June 9 2021. I was detained from seeing the original thread. 😆 Edited January 9 by Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebecca Ore Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 All hobby photographers, writers, etc., aren't all the same thing. One of the problems is that the production industries tends to overvalue administrators and undervalue the talent, who is supposedly motivated by vanity and non-commercial emotional pay-offs. One man found when he took over a publishing house in the 1950s or early 1960s that many of the writers hadn't been paid. Disney has bought the Lucas properties and decided to stop paying royalties to people who'd done Star Wars novels. I've had people try to get me to sell movie rights without an agent being involved, even telling me that this isn't the stage for an agent. Nothing new here. Some hobbyists do work for bragging rights; others work assuming that exposure will be useful (and sometimes, perhaps it is), and others want to supplement other incomes. If the photography is broken down into graphic design components, then the photography is just raw material and the graphic designer is another person who wants to be paid. In any generation, only a few people will do really well in any art, and they'll probably have staff. Some of my thinking about re-opening my account is that not having the photos out for licensing means I've already photographed them, but unless I do something, I don't get anything for them. And Alamy strike me as pretty much equivalent to every other stock agency these days. Lots of hustles. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 (edited) 20 hours ago, Phil said: I find it somewhat amusing that some place a portion of blame for the current state of the stock photo industry on the presence of "hobbyist photographers" invading and ruining the stock image licensing industry. IMO - hobbyist photographers should not be a target for stock industry angst. Hobbyist photogs wanting to sell image licenses are just one side effect of the more fundamental reasons for the current state of stock photo affairs. Those reasons being multiple tsunami-sized technological tidal waves that have swept over the whole of the photographic/imaging industry and fundamentally changed it forever. Digital technology and cameras, big changes in photographer demographics, smartphones & cameras, the rise of the internet, digital communications, eCommerce, to name a few, and the list goes on and on. It's well understood by now that for most stock image licensing as a viable single-source income stream as it used to be is gone. Diversify. Adapt and Overcome. If I were going to blame someone for ruining the industry, it would be the big stock agencies (micro and traditional) who have seized the opportunity to exploit their vulnerable contributors, whoever they might be. Alamy, to its credit, has been something of a holdout, but sadly they have joined the club now. As mentioned, the loss of the fair 50/50 split, which has always been something of an industry standard, signaled the beginning of the end IMO. Edited January 9 by John Mitchell 1 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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