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So Who's Joining Me in the Silver Club Next Month


Jill Morgan

Question

I haven't had a sale since March, where I had 3 sales.  the grand total for those 3 sales was $8.15.  The ones before weren't much better.

 

I am preparing to move to the basement and get my paltry 20% of .15 cents for any rare sale that comes up in the future.  Have lost total interest in uploading anything, never mind putting in the effort to do any image editing.  Sales just aren't worth the work involved.  Maybe I'll just run around and shoot everything I see, upload them all unedited and slap in some keywords.  Couldn't do any worse than I am now.  A couple of hundred images of empty farm fields. Think that will get me some sales?

 

I'll put the coffee on for the rest of the silver shooters out there.  Do you think we will make enough to pay for the coffee?

 

Jill

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I am certainly headed that way.

 

Might complete and upload what is left on the computer to get the 40% before it runs out then leave it at that.

 

Will concentrate on wall art sites after that and produce images appropriate to them.

 

Allan

 

Edited by Allan Bell
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12 hours ago, Jill Morgan said:

I am preparing to move to the basement and get my paltry 20% of .15 cents for any rare sale that comes up in the future.  Have lost total interest in uploading anything, never mind putting in the effort to do any image editing.  Sales just aren't worth the work involved. 

 

I'll put the coffee on for the rest of the silver shooters out there.  Do you think we will make enough to pay for the coffee?

 

A couple of hundred images of empty farm fields. Think that will get me some sales?

Where and what is the 'basement'? And, what's a silver shooter (I have a grey beard, does that qualify me?) I tried to have a look at your images, but the link doesn't work (see another post by me).

No, I don't think empty farm fields will sell, I'm literally surrounded by them and I wouldn't waste a file on them. I would suggest, rather than getting despondent and angry, you do what we did 100 years ago, before Alamy when trying to make sale to a newspaper or magazine. Know your market. Think about where you want to be be published, look at the sort of images they use and take them.

Carefully considered, market-targeted images, with very carefully written keywords should sell better than your proposed scatter-gun method. Although, 200 shots of empty fields is hardly 'scatter-gun'. It's more like hitting the copy button on a Xerox.

 

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1 hour ago, Steve Valentia said:

Where and what is the 'basement'? And, what's a silver shooter (I have a grey beard, does that qualify me?)

I think you may have misunderstood t he OP.  'Silver Shooter' refers to commission rate  rather than the age of the photographer.

 

 

13 hours ago, Jill Morgan said:

 A couple of hundred images of empty farm fields. Think that will get me some sales?

Jill

 

I think you will probably need at least 1500 pictures of an empty farm field – try this search term in full to see my point !

The art of beautifying suburban home grounds of small extent. Landscape gardening; Trees. Alloy

 

I love the results from that search - it's kid of relaxing to see so many identical copies of the same thing !

 

GD

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11 minutes ago, Gorilla Dave said:

I think you may have misunderstood t he OP.  'Silver Shooter' refers to commission rate  rather than the age of the photographer.

 

 

 

I think you will probably need at least 1500 pictures of an empty farm field – try this search term in full to see my point !

 

The art of beautifying suburban home grounds of small extent. Landscape gardening; Trees. Alloy

 

I love the results from that search - it's kid of relaxing to see so many identical copies of the same thing !

 

GD

 

 

That is definitely ULTIMATE

 

Alloy!

Edited by geogphotos
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1 hour ago, Steve Valentia said:

Where and what is the 'basement'? And, what's a silver shooter (I have a grey beard, does that qualify me?) I tried to have a look at your images, but the link doesn't work (see another post by me).

No, I don't think empty farm fields will sell, I'm literally surrounded by them and I wouldn't waste a file on them. I would suggest, rather than getting despondent and angry, you do what we did 100 years ago, before Alamy when trying to make sale to a newspaper or magazine. Know your market. Think about where you want to be be published, look at the sort of images they use and take them.

Carefully considered, market-targeted images, with very carefully written keywords should sell better than your proposed scatter-gun method. Although, 200 shots of empty fields is hardly 'scatter-gun'. It's more like hitting the copy button on a Xerox.

 

 

Turn on your humor (humor) detector. You have misunderstood Jill in a number of ways. If you could see her images you would not be so confused but Alamy has pretty much messed up our communication here. She deserves more respect.

 

Paulette

Edited by NYCat
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49 minutes ago, NYCat said:

 

Turn on your humor (humor) detector. You have misunderstood Jill in a number of ways. If you could see her images you would not be so confused but Alamy has pretty much messed up our communication here. She deserves more respect.

 

Paulette

 

Thanks Paulette.  Yes I was being a little tongue in cheek.  With the prices received for images, getting to the $250 threshold to stay at the gold level is exceptionally challenging.  Not sure why the sales came to such an abrupt stop, but probably wouldn't have mattered if I had a few more paltry sales unless a couple were what Alamy says is their average, which is $30 per license. 

 

It doesn't matter to me financially, except I am stuck at $43 cleared and would like that extra $7 to get what I am owed.  I will have to crawl my way up to that $50 over the next few years at the rate it is going. 😁

 

Jill

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Just now, Jose Decio Molaro said:

On the forum... when you click on images, it's giving an error!

 

Firstly, you're posting this query in the wrong place. This thread is about something completely different.

Secondly, try reading the link I posted above!!

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On the forum... when you click on images, it's giving an error!Yes, I read it, but the problem is happening here, that's why I posted it here.. ok, thanks
Location: Hampshire (UK) & Lower Austria
Images: 4048
Joined Alamy: 27 Jan 2014
When I click on images the error:
500 Internal Server Error.
I don't know if you understand?

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3 minutes ago, Jose Decio Molaro said:

On the forum... when you click on images, it's giving an error!Yes, I read it, but the problem is happening here, that's why I posted it here.. ok, thanks
Location: Hampshire (UK) & Lower Austria
Images: 4048
Joined Alamy: 27 Jan 2014
When I click on images the error:
500 Internal Server Error.
I don't know if you understand?

 

Jose, if you've read the entire thread:

 

https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/15673-500-internal-server-error/ 

 

what's your question? It's not working. We know it's not working. It's been commented on a lot.

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4 minutes ago, Jose Decio Molaro said:

Sorry Steve, my intention was to let you know...thanks

 

No worries. There's just been a lot of people querying this without checking if it was already being discussed on the Forum.

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18 minutes ago, Steve F said:

 

Jose, if you've read the entire thread:

 

https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/15673-500-internal-server-error/ 

 

what's your question? It's not working. We know it's not working. It's been commented on a lot.

 

And people wonder why the forum is said to be 'in decline'. Does this really warrant having a go at someone (?). Will go back to lurking I think .... 

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I'm afraid I'll be there too.  Waiting with fingers crossed and bated breath to land another reasonable sale to get me over the top... time is running out.. haven't had a sale since April... thinking about that now, I re-entered distribution in April and no sales since... hmmmm!

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I had to search a while to find my current commission model. It is at the dashboard at the account settings tab. This year could be my first one with sales below $250 because I had heavily restricted my images last year when the commission was lowered to 40%. 40% commission are completely unacceptable. When the commission goes even further down, I will hide my photos even more until the commission change is reversed.

The new model is a mean psycho trick: People who still achive the gold level will see that as a success, even though the commissions are lower than a year ago.

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5 hours ago, Gorilla Dave said:

I think you may have misunderstood t he OP.  'Silver Shooter' refers to commission rate  rather than the age of the photographer.

 

No, just trying to lighten the mood. I had also forgotten that there are tiers of commissions. I assume 60% is gold?

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10 minutes ago, Steve Valentia said:

 

No, just trying to lighten the mood. I had also forgotten that there are tiers of commissions. I assume 60% is gold?

 

40% is gold.  To get 50% you have to have $25,000 in sales.  I think that is Platinum.  But I haven't looked at the contract since last July. Might have forgotten the other tier names.

 

Jill

Edited by Jill Morgan
Changes 60 to 50
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9 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

I am certainly headed that way.

 

Might complete and upload what is left on the computer to get the 40% before it runs out then leave it at that.

 

Will concentrate on wall art sites after that and produce images appropriate to them.

 

Allan

 

 

That sounds like a good plan, Allan. At least on "wall art" sites, you can get still a decent return for your efforts. Also, people who buy prints genuinely like your work -- i.e. it isn't just a commodity. I'm putting more images on POD sites as well.

 

 

Edited by John Mitchell
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29 minutes ago, Jill Morgan said:

 

40% is gold.  To get 50% you have to have $25,000 in sales.  I think that is Platinum.  But I haven't looked at the contract since last July. Might have forgotten the other tier names.

 

Jill

I missed the contract changes. My income from Alamy is so low, I obviously didn't need to know. Just read it now, but I'm very confused by the 'exclusive' rate. From what I can gather, there's no point in being exclusive (I am) unless you make $25000 a year (I don't). 

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9 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

At least on "wall art" sites, you can get still a decent return for your efforts. Also, people who buy prints genuinely like your work -- i.e. it isn't just a commodity. I'm putting more images on POD sites as well.

 

 

Strange how different results can be. 

 

I was on a POD platform with several hundred images for a few years.  Had only a couple sales during my tenure there.  Maybe my photo "art" was crappy  😂

 

Here on "A" my small portfolio exceeded the Gold threshold within first 2 months along with a few and steady additional sales afterward.  

 

I ditched the POD as not worth my effort and other issues related to the POD's operation.

 

Edited by Phil
typo
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1 hour ago, Phil said:

Strange how different results can be. 

 

I was on a POD platform with several hundred images for a few years.  Had only a couple sales during my tenure there.  Maybe my photo "art" was crappy  😂

 

Here on "A" my small portfolio exceeded the Silver threshold within first 2 months along with a few and steady additional sales afterward.  

 

I ditched the POD as not worth my effort and other issues related to the POD's operation.

 

 

You're right, POD sites are now saturated with images as well. My print sales aren't what they used to be, but they are still enough to justify contributing. Personally, I don't like the current trend towards "arty" hyper-saturated colours and heavy HDR that you now see on these sites. However, apparently a lot of people do. Most of my sales are of fairly regular images, some of the same ones that have licensed here. A few of my black and white images have done OK as well.

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