A $0 sale

[Marb]

So why have Alamy informed me of a sale of $0 . Are they now giving our photos away free ? utter joke. 

[meanderingemu]

44 minutes ago, Marb said:

And folk here think microstock is bad.  This is the lowest of the low.

Considering these prices are due to market forces lead by the microstock and free stock agencies, yes they are bad for asset producers.

[Phil Crean]

49 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

 

 

 

Alamy have made it clear that they need to compete in this sector of the market whether we like it or not.

And this is where they have taken a wrong turning... They don't have to compete in a race to the bottom.

By doing this they are pushing down the value of the collection when they should be looking to market the unique sides of Alamy and demand proper fees for our work.

Phil

[Hanna_Fate]

That number is "rounded".

 

If you go into your account details, you'll find it's a .05 sale, of which you get to keep .01

[Marb]

41 minutes ago, Hanna_Fate said:

That number is "rounded".

 

If you go into your account details, you'll find it's a .05 sale, of which you get to keep .01

And folk here think microstock is bad.  This is the lowest of the low.

[meanderingemu]

1 hour ago, Hanna_Fate said:

That number is "rounded".

 

If you go into your account details, you'll find it's a .05 sale, of which you get to keep .01

 

And 2 whole cents if you are a Gold contributor!  🤣

[Marb]

1 hour ago, meanderingemu said:

Considering these prices are due to market forces lead by the microstock and free stock agencies, yes they are bad for asset producers.

No microstock site sells as low as $0.

[Cryptoprocta]

On 23/07/2022 at 18:08, Marb said:

No microstock site sells as low as $0.

As said above it was 1c.

And actually my 'other place' has its pay per view plan (Connect) which net a fraction of a price for each view. These can net prices into the dollars if an asset is viewed often enough, but can also net zero if it's hardly viewed, as it has to aggregate a cent net in a calendar month for you to get anything.

Not saying it's a good thing (clearly it isn't, for us), just a point of information.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Cryptoprocta

[phomme]

I wonder how much income tax you pay on a 1 cent sale?

 

[Taina]

11 hours ago, phomme said:

I wonder how much income tax you pay on a 1 cent sale?

 

And will the Tax Office believe a 1 cent sale is correct? They'll probably think a 1 cent sale is either a typo or you are deliberately annoying them, thus, they may increase your taxes 😄

[relaxanot]

I've never signed up to a micro stock agency as I believe my images are worth far more than a few cents each. It seems that Alamy has evolved into a micro stock agency (which is good for buyers but certainly not for photographers) by selling micro stock images at less than micro prices.

Two of my images have just been sold for the pathetic amount of 33 cents each. Money from my images pays the bills and puts food on the table and I am not prepared to give them away.

If I continue to receive such abysmal prices for my work I will no longer contribute to Alamy and encourage other photographers to do the same. What have we got to lose when all we get is peanuts for our work?

 

 

[geogphotos]

1 hour ago, relaxanot said:

I've never signed up to a micro stock agency as I believe my images are worth far more than a few cents each. It seems that Alamy has evolved into a micro stock agency (which is good for buyers but certainly not for photographers) by selling micro stock images at less than micro prices.

Two of my images have just been sold for the pathetic amount of 33 cents each. Money from my images pays the bills and puts food on the table and I am not prepared to give them away.

If I continue to receive such abysmal prices for my work I will no longer contribute to Alamy and encourage other photographers to do the same. What have we got to lose when all we get is peanuts for our work?

 

 

 

Unfortunately, there are no signs that anything is going to change.

 

Alamy have made it clear that they need to compete in this sector of the market whether we like it or not. 

 

I am like you in never having signed up to microstock. What always puzzles me ( and sorry to be repetitive) is that the loudest complaints about low Alamy prices often come from those contributors who ARE contributing to microstock!  They help create the problem and then moan when it comes back and bites them.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 27, 2022 by geogphotos

[BobD]

I pulled out of SS when they introduced the new pricing system.

I still have 50 images or so on the software provider.

I have earnt more from those 50 images this month than here on Alamy with nearly 3000 albeit a bad month here.

The fact is no microstock agency sells images for 5 cents for normal use, so why does Alamy have to sell so low?

[geogphotos]

1 hour ago, BobD said:

I pulled out of SS when they introduced the new pricing system.

I still have 50 images or so on the software provider.

I have earnt more from those 50 images this month than here on Alamy with nearly 3000 albeit a bad month here.

The fact is no microstock agency sells images for 5 cents for normal use, so why does Alamy have to sell so low?

 

 

Their major supposedly non-microstock competitor ( the one with by far the larger market share and starts with G ) offers these sort of deals explaining why former bulk Alamy customers have gone elsewhere.  This is a competition for market share.

 

One example is UK's public service broadcaster which no longer buys much from Alamy. I assume that Alamy would like to entice them, and the others, back into the fold. 

 

The other one that comes to mind is a UK national publisher which has literally dozens of local newspaper websites, plus magazines. 

 

Most of these are small, low value illustrations for news articles - here today, gone tomorrow. 

 

I don't like it any more than anybody else but that is the world we live in. 

Edited July 27, 2022 by geogphotos

[BobD]

5 hours ago, geogphotos said:

 

 

Their major supposedly non-microstock competitor ( the one with by far the larger market share and starts with G ) offers these sort of deals explaining why former bulk Alamy customers have gone elsewhere.  This is a competition for market share.

 

One example is UK's public service broadcaster which no longer buys much from Alamy. I assume that Alamy would like to entice them, and the others, back into the fold. 

 

The other one that comes to mind is a UK national publisher which has literally dozens of local newspaper websites, plus magazines. 

 

Most of these are small, low value illustrations for news articles - here today, gone tomorrow. 

 

I don't like it any more than anybody else but that is the world we live in. 

 

One of the first rules of business.

Turnover for vanity, profit for sanity.

[geogphotos]

1 hour ago, BobD said:

 

One of the first rules of business.

Turnover for vanity, profit for sanity.

 

I have no doubt that Alamy makes a profit from bulk low fee sales, just as G does.

 

It's about volume and trying to grab market share from competitors.  To my mind Alamy is not yet able to get the volume it really needs compared with others but I see volume growing year on year.

 

Let's not overlook the fact that Alamy does gain fees at much higher levels in addition to all these tiddlers. 

 

Having said all that I can understand why others may decide that they do not want to contribute to Alamy if they feel strongly about micro level fees. 

Edited July 27, 2022 by geogphotos

[gon2foto]

My last 3 sales sold for a total of $3.50. One of the images sold for $3. I'll let you do the math to figure out what the other two sold for. No more submissions from me

[Rebecca Ore]

On 23/07/2022 at 09:27, meanderingemu said:

Considering these prices are due to market forces lead by the microstock and free stock agencies, yes they are bad for asset producers.

 

Flickr is a source for free photos if people were willing to let them go for free.  Wikipedia and Wikimedia are other free sources.   And many enter photo contests where giving up rights is part of the package.

 

Disney brought up a number of film companies and has been claiming that it no longer owes royalties on tie-in books and has signed contracts with character creators who find that they're getting several hundred dollars rather that the several thousand they thought they signed contracts for (weasel wording in the contracts).  The prevailing belief in a lot of fields is that creators work for the passion, not the money.  This is also true in software and gaming development even thought the money is still better than in stock photography.   The end result is burnout and cynicism, and fifty year old new truck drivers.

 

One writer who's on Twitter gets harassed because he doesn't sit in front of a machine entering text more than four hours a day.  He pointed out that he had a life beyond the next book, as much as he enjoyed writing (makes a good living at it).   I think that having a life makes the work better, whatever the work.  Passions can be burnt out if one's enthusiasm is killed by realizing, as a poster said elsewhere about programmers, that the only thing some employers care for is money, and if they could make more renting their workers to a brothel, they would.  

 

 

 

 

[Southmind]

Just one sale for the all the year. In the past, I was pleased with Alamy sales but now... nothing since one year. In the same time, my sales on microstocks didn't change, so it seems the problems come from Alamy, or from my portfolio, or the 2... Disappointed...

.

[geogphotos]

27 minutes ago, Southmind said:

Just one sale for the all the year. In the past, I was pleased with Alamy sales but now... nothing since one year. In the same time, my sales on microstocks didn't change, so it seems the problems come from Alamy, or from my portfolio, or the 2... Disappointed...

.

 

Do you have the same images on Alamy as on microstock?

[Southmind]

13 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

 

Do you have the same images on Alamy as on microstock?

 

Except few ones , all my images are specific to Alamy. Something I decided 2 years ago... But there is no impact on my (no) sales. Now I think it was not a good decision.

[meanderingemu]

4 hours ago, Southmind said:

Just one sale for the all the year. In the past, I was pleased with Alamy sales but now... nothing since one year. In the same time, my sales on microstocks didn't change, so it seems the problems come from Alamy, or from my portfolio, or the 2... Disappointed...

.

 

If your sales on MS have no changed, i would focus on that as you are clearly producing something special for their needs, as most reports have shown drops across the board on these platforms. 

[Southmind]

8 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

 

If your sales on MS have no changed, i would focus on that as you are clearly producing something special for their needs, as most reports have shown drops across the board on these platforms. 

 

For some on these platforms, you are clearly right. I only focus on 2  now and the results are ok (for me). The sales on the other dropped but I stopped to upload. Except for SS where the sales continue to go, but their  prices are now ridiculous. On Alamy I have a small portfolio and I am not waiting for fabulous result but just wonder why my sales dropped to 0 for months. 

[Panthera tigris]

What happened in the past happened, it achieves nothing blaming today on those who chose to take part in the MS model (FYI I never did take part).

 

The only thing that matters is that TODAY is the baseline we are all working from, what will tomorrow bring is the real issue. I don't think anyone is expecting it will get better for producers.

[meanderingemu]

7 hours ago, Southmind said:

. Except for SS where the sales continue to go, but their  prices are now ridiculous. On Alamy I have a small portfolio and I am not waiting for fabulous result but just wonder why my sales dropped to 0 for months. 

 

 

so this does also sound like a major change....  If priced drop by 40%, my experience before i gave up,  you now need 67% more licences and i haven't read of many people who have managed that, so i am impressed that you found a way to compensate  

[Southmind]

6 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

so this does also sound like a major change....  If priced drop by 40%, my experience before i gave up,  you now need 67% more licences and i haven't read of many people who have managed that, so i am impressed that you found a way to compensate  

 My Bad. I want to say I totally stopped to upload on SS since 2 years  but sales continue almost at the same frequency on my old files. But as the price is now 10 cts , certainly the money return  is different... Other MS like DT or GI (uploads stopped too) no longer work : one license from time to time. I just use AS and DP. On AS sales improve continually with correct prices and frequency (for a MS) . My other choice was Alamy, for different photos and spirit. I never say I want to compensate with Alamy, just try to understand why my sales drop to 0 for a so long time .  I would like to know if it is worth continuing to upload photos here with no ROI.