Opt Out is Open. Time to dump the unwanted Distributors.

[Ed Rooney]

23 hours ago, Martyn said:

Having had a distributor sale to Japan last year for $2665, I will stay in but remove certain countries ... the commission taken from that sale hurt but not as much as if the sale hadn't happened because I was opted out of distribution ...

 

I'm opted out of Novel Use but in for everything else. 

 

Is the KGB patrolling the loos now, Bob?

[spacecadet]

On 02/04/2022 at 19:10, John Mitchell said:

 

No doubt, and hopefully the market is expanding.

Nah, it's all going down the pan

[Normspics]

I have gone back to distribution and edited the countries, similar to @sb photos with regard to human rights and those with loose copyright laws or culture. Still mulling over novel use, any comments on novel use would be helpful.

[Steve F]

10 minutes ago, Normspics said:

I have gone back to distribution and edited the countries, similar to @sb photos with regard to human rights and those with loose copyright laws or culture. Still mulling over novel use, any comments on novel use would be helpful.

 

Ditto. Also mulling over novel use. It makes a small percentage of my sales. It's always for peanuts. But does it also help my sales rank?

[Normspics]

34 minutes ago, Steve F said:

 

Ditto. Also mulling over novel use. It makes a small percentage of my sales. It's always for peanuts. But does it also help my sales rank?

I’m thinking of keeping it because like you there is a thought it might help with sales rank and search placement, but don’t know for sure.

[NYCat]

I opted out of Novel Use when they were letting Culture Trip buy under that scheme. They only pay a tiny bit more now but I thought it was really dishonest to show their travel site as a novel use. I see no reason to opt back in since I am saying good-bye to Estonia even though they seem to like my images and buy every three or four months but their two dollar payments are reduced to only about fifty cents for me after the commissions. At this point I don't have to worry about meeting the $250 level. My lowest sales are the editorial websites.

 

Paulette

[Dylan B Garcia Art Photography]

On 02/04/2022 at 16:59, Allan Bell said:

I left "Novel use"  early doors.  Followed by "Image options"  a bit later.  Followed by "Distribution" last year.

 

 

Additional revenue options

Option	Status	Action
Distribution	in                            out	You opted out on 17 May 2021
Novel use	in                           out	You opted out on 04 Apr 2013
Image options	in                           out	You opted out on 26 Oct 2017
Reportage/archival or Live News image upload service		Apply

 

Could be one good reason why my sales are lower than some others, but I have not had the problems some have had either.

 

Allan

 

Thanks just followed your example incase it helps :)

[Arch White]

My reason for posting here is to comment that I do not think that staying in any of the schemes that Alamy have

will help your ranking to any degree.

I am in the fortunate situation over the last few years of having hundreds of image sales noted in my account each year.

I see no improvement in my CTR to when I was making a regular Four sales per month noted in my account.

 

I am opted out of everything that Alamy allows me to opt out of, been out of Distribution since 2015.

 

Not meant as a boast, I reply only because in my experience a few sales from these schemes will not assist your ranking.

 

Unless Alamy is willing to correct me of course? Transparency and all that!

 

[meanderingemu]

Curious, people who are removing China, are you also removing Hong Kong which is a separate entry still on the list? 

[CAROL SAUNDERS]

9 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

Curious, people who are removing China, are you also removing Hong Kong which is a separate entry still on the list? 

I'm in Hong Kong at present, I'm in 24 of the 48 territories in Asia.

 

Opted out of Novel use quite a while ago, but in for Image Options.

 

Carol

[meanderingemu]

2 minutes ago, CAROL SAUNDERS said:

I'm in Hong Kong at present, I'm in 24 of the 48 territories in Asia.

 

Opted out of Novel use quite a while ago, but in for Image Options.

 

Carol

 

 

I am still confused of the existence of the 2, and if Alamy would allow a Chinese distributor to claim HK to get images of people opted put out of China.  Same as still having Yugoslavia, but separate boxes for 5 of the split out countries, but no Serbia nor Montenegro. 

 

 

Obviously Alamy created the splits 20 off years ago and never reflected changes since. 

[Steve Tucker]

Remind me where i can change these settings please, I always struggle to find them as it is so rare I need to change them.

[CAROL SAUNDERS]

4 minutes ago, Steve Tucker said:

Remind me where i can change these settings please, I always struggle to find them as it is so rare I need to change them.

Alamy Image Manager and click on Additional Revenue Options 

 

Carol

[Steve Tucker]

7 minutes ago, CAROL SAUNDERS said:

Alamy Image Manager and click on Additional Revenue Options 

 

Carol

Many thanks

[Celluloid Hero]

For Asia I've only kept Cyprus, Israel, Japan, Jordan and Nepal! - Japan has been good to me in the past with substantial sales.

[meanderingemu]

1 hour ago, Celluloid Hero said:

For Asia I've only kept Cyprus, Israel, Japan, Jordan and Nepal! - Japan has been good to me in the past with substantial sales.

 

i had a couple low $$ licence from Turkey which Alamy lists as Asia.

[John Mitchell]

2 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

Curious, people who are removing China, are you also removing Hong Kong which is a separate entry still on the list? 

 

I unchecked China but kept Hong Kong. Guess I still don't think of it as China (in spirit anyway). A lot of picture books used to be published in HK. Don't know if that is still the case.

 

The majority of countries on the list of distributors seem moot to me -- i.e. the chances of having distributor sales there are slim -- so I just leave them checked (you never know). There seems to be only a handful of real players. That said, I had a couple of nice sales to Kazakhstan last year, which was a surprise.

 

I exited NU in 2012, I believe, and have never looked back. 🙃

[Sally]

Opted out of all for a while. In my experience, if a distributor wants an image, Alamy will contact you and ask for permission to lift it for a a particular instance and you can decide whether to do so or not. The tricky bit is keeping track of when you've said yes. I’ve now created a Lightbox of those images I’ve said Yes to so I can keep track.

[Taina]

Opted out NU early on, this year opted out all distribution and Image Options. It will be easy to opt back in select territories or countries if needed, but you'll only get out distribution in April! 

If somebody has had substantial sales through a particular distributor in recent past, then it makes sense to stay in... however the distributor+Alamy cut is sizable, which is something to consider as well.

[MarkK]

I have been opted out of all distributors and novel uses and most photos are RM.  Over the past five weeks I have had three sales totaling under four dollars.  I wrote Alamy thinking there is some confusion about distribution and novel opt outs and I was informed that yes indeed I have been opted out but that these prices are the market.  Yes they were editorial which is most of my portfolio.  So don’t expect by opting out that things are going to change as the response to why I am getting sales under a dollar is that the Alamy team is really negotiating hard for these.

[sb photos]

15 minutes ago, MarkK said:

I have been opted out of all distributors and novel uses and most photos are RM.  Over the past five weeks I have had three sales totaling under four dollars.  I wrote Alamy thinking there is some confusion about distribution and novel opt outs and I was informed that yes indeed I have been opted out but that these prices are the market.  Yes they were editorial which is most of my portfolio.  So don’t expect by opting out that things are going to change as the response to why I am getting sales under a dollar is that the Alamy team is really negotiating hard for these.

Thankfully there are still higher license sales, although the low ones can be demoralising. 

[meanderingemu]

Reminder last few days to opt out of the optional schemes.  

[Marianne]

I opted out of certain countries - e.g. Russian Federation, Belarus & China - and may opt out of a several more that are the worst human rights violators. 

 

I've had a decent number of $$$ ($250-450) distributor sales over the years and while the bigger cut hurts, it's still $$-$$$ in my pocket, so I think it'd be foolish on my part to  go for a blanket opt out. I've had a few $4 licenses to Sweden, even some years ago, annoying but still not a reason to opt out. My chosen opt outs are more on principal than on price since price has always varied widely, and I'm happy to have distribution options for my work.

 

I also once had a $50 Novel Use sale, so I'm kinda on the fence there. Since I started getting more micro-type licenses here, I began uploading more to a micro site that has done very decently for me, with payouts monthly, so the occasional novel use license for peanuts here, while still annoying since I instinctively still expect more from Alamy, isn't the end of the world. I'm uploading more as RF even if it doesn't go elsewhere so that I have the option of submitting to other agencies in the future, and there's more overlap in my uploads than in the past. 

 

I haven't been uploading much stock as the returns no longer seem to justify the amount of work I put in, but I have a lot of images that will otherwise sit on my hard drive for no reason, so I started processing some older work again and just finished adding super tags to a dozen+  that I uploaded this morning & which quickly passed QC. The most recent batch was of veggies from my garden and I figure it's high time I got them online. If the image is something I can sell as fine art, I am disinclined to upload as stock, even if it will license as travel, unless I upload as RM and prohibit prints (which can be gotten around by presentation licensing...) ...

 

Thanks so much for the opt out reminder Jose @meanderingemu !

[meanderingemu]

3 minutes ago, Marianne said:

I opted out of certain countries - e.g. Russian Federation, Belarus & China - and may opt out of a several more that are the worst human rights violators. 

 

I've had a decent number of $$$ ($250-450) distributor sales over the years and while the bigger cut hurts, it's still $$-$$$ in my pocket, so I think it'd be foolish on my part to  go for a blanket opt out. I've had a few $4 licenses to Sweden, even some years ago, annoying but still not a reason to opt out. My chosen opt outs are more on principal than on price since price has always varied widely, and I'm happy to have distribution options for my work.

 

I also once had a $50 Novel Use sale, so I'm kinda on the fence there. Since I started getting more micro-type licenses here, I began uploading more to a micro site that has done very decently for me, with payouts monthly, so the occasional novel use license for peanuts here, while still annoying since I instinctively still expect more from Alamy, isn't the end of the world. I'm uploading more as RF even if it doesn't go elsewhere so that I have the option of submitting to other agencies in the future, and there's more overlap in my uploads than in the past. 

 

I haven't been uploading much stock as the returns no longer seem to justify the amount of work I put in, but I have a lot of images that will otherwise sit on my hard drive for no reason, so I started processing some older work again and just finished adding super tags to a dozen+  that I uploaded this morning & which quickly passed QC. The most recent batch was of veggies from my garden and I figure it's high time I got them online. If the image is something I can sell as fine art, I am disinclined to upload as stock, even if it will license as travel, unless I upload as RM and prohibit prints (which can be gotten around by presentation licensing...) ...

 

Thanks so much for the opt out reminder Jose @meanderingemu !

 

 

similar to you for distributor sales, though no $$$, some larger $$.  I also get regular $3 licence in former Yugoslavia, with the odd low $$ so keeping them especially since Alamy does have record of activity on them (was confirmed on a late reporting, so hoping this boost these images)

 

 

one thing to remember is even if you opt out, you can change your mind at any time and opt in.  it's only the opt out that's limited to April. 

[meanderingemu]

I have now also removed Yugoslavia because I don't think Alamy should use distributor in a country that hasn't existed in 20 years.