No Alamy Sales

[Radim]

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.

[MizBrown]

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. 

[Karlis Dzjamko]

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

[JGantar]

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 

[Colblimp]

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!

[Mr Standfast]

👍

[formerly snappyoncalifornia]

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

[meanderingemu]

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. 

[Robert M Estall]

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

[Southmind]

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....

[Matt Ashmore]

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

[Southmind]

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... 

[Radim]

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?

[dunstun365]

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, 2022 by dunstun365

[Phil]

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.

 

 

 

 

[geogphotos]

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, 2022 by geogphotos

[Phil]

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, 2022 by Phil

[Rebecca Ore]

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.

 

 

[John Mitchell]

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, 2022 by John Mitchell

[dunstun365]

But how does a buyer find that exact Alamy photo on other sites? In any case, they'd have to take out a subscription with microstock sites to get it that much cheaper and buyers have complained about joining those because it's hard to cancel so end up paying more than Alamy.

[Gervais Montacute]

On 08/06/2021 at 19:06, 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 would imagine 99% of the people that take photos on this forum are hobbyists. They must be based on the kind of income they generate. I don't often come onto this forum but occasionally I see something that is personally interesting and that is, any discussion that involves talking about commission. 

 

I haven't uploaded any images to Alamy or any other photo site for years and will not do so. I don't work or even do a hobby that involves 40% commission on 20 cent sales.

 

My main pastime when it comes to commission generated work (which I regard as a hobby btw) is writing music tracks for Tv and film. I can tell you that just one single track in a month (certainly in my case anyway and no big deal) will generate 2 to 3 times what someone here with 150,000 plus images gets from Alamy. And that's just on one track. I don't do 40% commission. It's actually illegal at say the PRS for any publisher to take more that 50% for example.

 

So anyone who thinks they do photography other than a hobby based on the numbers I see quoted here every month, is probably more to do with the social aspect for them on this forum. And there's nothing at all wrong with that. This business that you have to have thousands of photos before you get anything out of it is another anathema. I have just under 200 music tracks.

 

Selling photos for 2 cents is basically asset stripping. 

[Michael Ventura]

Count me as one of the 1%.  While I don't count on my stock photography income all that much anymore, 100% of my income comes from photography.  Stock income was once 50% of my total income....oh the good ole days.  Back when I sold a lot of stock uses from my film files.  Sales were usually $150, on up, per sale.

[Betty LaRue]

Addressing flower pictures. 99% of flower/plants I sell or have zoomed, the search term is the scientific name. To all who think it’s not necessary, that’s ok. Here’s the reason:

When searched by scientific name, that means mine have less competition in the field. Win-win for me. One particular blooming plant, I have closeups, single bloom, multiple bloom ( cluster) & the whole plant. The whole plant is the one sold most.

So if you want to shoot flowers, get the closeup AND the whole plant.

Signed, 

Hobbyist (but a serious one)

[IKuzmin]

11 hours ago, Gervais Montacute said:

I don't work or even do a hobby that involves 40% commission on 20 cent sales.

after looking at your port, I do not think that you should worry about that.

But you do not, I guess, as this is not your hobby.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts though.

Good luck with your music.

[newbie in nyc]

On 18/06/2023 at 06:50, Gervais Montacute said:

 

I would imagine 99% of the people that take photos on this forum are hobbyists. They must be based on the kind of income they generate.

 

Agree 100%. Imagine depending on Alamy for any significant income, after waiting 6 months for a $00.02 sale to clear.