What Sells and Why?

[M.Chapman]

4 hours ago, gvallee said:

 

It sure is a very useful tool but wouldn't it include refunds and/or resales? 

The pivot table sales revenue per image is correct i.e. it includes $sales - $refunds + $resales for each image.

But you're right the number of "sales" is messed up by refunds. But that can be fixed by adding a new column (before making the pivot) called "No of sales" and filling the column using an IF statement that tests if the sales revenue was + or - and fills in the No of Sales column accordingly (+1 = a sale or resale, -1 = a refund).

e.g. No of Sales = IF(Revenue>0,1,-1) 

Include the new column in the range of the pivot table and include total "No of Sales" in the summary pivot.

 

Mark

Edited March 29, 2023 by M.Chapman

[IanDavidson]

Ed, 

you may want to look at the blogs and work of Keith Morris who was one of Alamy’s highest earners.  Putting to one side the issues around his death, he had the photograph market sowed up.  I am going to express my perception of his approach.  Others may differ.  
 

The short answer is to produce what the customer wants to buy.  How do we know this?  Keith Morris was strong on research.  He recommend going through newspapers and magazines and looking at the photographs used.  Ask why was that photograph was used? What was special or different about it.  How was it shot, what was it being used to illustrate?  I believe on his courses he got participants to cut out pictures so they could be studied.  Some of this will depend on the area of photography you practice.  I am a news shooter so I look closely at news photographs.  Why was a particular shot used?  What is the “house style” of a particular publication.  One may also want to learn the skills of a photo desk editor.  I understand The Guardian receive over 10,000 photos per day.  Ask yourself why would they use yours? Why do they want a picture to follow the text looking, up, down, left, right.  The usages of portrait and landscape styles.  There is an excellent, although old book called “Pictures on a page”. That is written by one of the best editors.  Julie Edwards pointed me in the direction of this book and I return to it time and time again.  It has been said before, before pressing the shutter ask what is the purpose of the photo, who would buy it?  I scan the postings on “photographs found” to see what publications are buying.  I contribute to this thread which means I look closely at what pictures are being used and I always ask the question why?  The images sold is less useful, although has some value, as contributors will not put there most popular sellers on there.  

 

Linked to this is researching trends.  Current and future.  Alamy produces good trends blogs as do other agencies.  Alamy has a good knowledge of its customer base and what it’s future needs may be.  It is not difficult to work out.  Clearly anything to do with AI will sell.  The current issues around the U.K. economy and early retirement gives a lot of options for stock photography.  Issues in the NHS give news opportunities etc.  Every year I spend a couple of days thinking about the trends for the year and I make a mind map that I expand during the year.  Keith Morris made the point of the importance of treating stock photography as a proper job and putting as much time and resources  into preparation as in shooting.  
 

Keith Morris had strong views about cost minimisation.  The majority of his work was shot within walking distance of his home in Wales.  I have noticed I make vastly more money, per photograph, of local shots than I make in Downing Street.  However, I am fortunate that I live near London and my daily travel costs are around £25.  
 

on a personal level the majority of my sales are not interesting (and some would say not technically good) photographs.  They are head and shoulder or three quarter length photos of politicians.  But they are published on a daily basis.  One should not take photographs that you like, take photographs that someone wants to buy.

 

I expect some will disagree with me, but stock photography is a business and to be successful. I think, one must act accordingly.  

[Steve F]

16 minutes ago, IanDavidson said:

One should not take photographs that you like, take photographs that someone wants to buy.

 

+1

[Michael Ventura]

I think Ian's post is spot on.  One thing that has greatly helped me with stock sales is the fact that throughout my whole career, I have worked closely with picture editors and art directors who always guide me as to what they want to illustrate the written words.  So I tend to think like I have an editor in my ear guiding me to get content that will be useful for stories being told.  Pretty pictures are fun to look at but there usually needs to be real content in the photo to get bought for stock purposes.

[DJ Myford]

I had some early success with horticultural images, but the majority of my sales have been transport related (though I did focus on that for a while, so perhaps not surprising).

[Betty LaRue]

As of today, I have 8 zooms of trees or a flowering vine for the past 7 days. And mostly, I know what they are when I shoot them,  but sometimes I do have to research. That’s where leaves & bark are helpful. You are lucky in the fact that living in the U.K., most of the forum can help you. Brits aren’t that helpful with identifying US plants, not that they wouldn’t if they could.

My best sellers recently…16 storefronts, 9 horticultural. Minor, birds, isolated objects, animals, travel, food, butterflies.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Betty LaRue

[Betty LaRue]

15 hours ago, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said:

Mister Ed, may I boldly respond just to the above statement??

To increase your licensing activity,

you are asking the wrong question, IMO.

You ARE selling ergo you ARE taking salable photos;

the correct question, meistro, is:
DEAR GOD, WHERE'S THE BOTTLENECK IN MY WORKFLOW??
 😲   😲   😲    😲   😲   😲    😲

I'm guessing with authority it is time you devote to

keywording and or time devoted to processing...
(unless you have a cluster of kids doing your keywording

& processing busywork to earn their allowance !!)

How can you shorten the time devoted to keywording

and or processing so you NATURALLY submit MORE

images to INCREASE net $$ or at least slow

the fade -- that, commandante suprema, is your task. 
Betty protect me !!

 

What you do obviously works for you, Jeff. Makes me tired just thinking of your industriousness. I want to know how many cups of espresso you drink every morning.  ❓

[Mr Standfast]

3 hours ago, IanDavidson said:

 stock photography is a business and to be successful. I think, one must act accordingly.  

 +1

[gvallee]

5 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

The pivot table sales revenue per image is correct i.e. it includes $sales - $refunds + $resales for each image.

But you're right the number of "sales" is messed up by refunds. But that can be fixed by adding a new column (before making the pivot) called "No of sales" and filling the column using an IF statement that tests if the sales revenue was + or - and fills in the No of Sales column accordingly (+1 = a sale or resale, -1 = a refund).

e.g. No of Sales = IF(Revenue>0,1,-1) 

Include the new column in the range of the pivot table and include total "No of Sales" in the summary pivot.

 

Mark

 

Yes revenue is correct but regarding the number of sales, '1' would still double-count the sale and resale (having both a positive revenue number) in case of a refund. 

 

I am not nitpicking, just channelling my old testing job. I've always liked Excel, it was my main testing tool.

 

[M.Chapman]

28 minutes ago, gvallee said:

 

Yes revenue is correct but regarding the number of sales, '1' would still double-count the sale and resale (having both a positive revenue number) in case of a refund. 

 

I am not nitpicking, just channelling my old testing job. I've always liked Excel, it was my main testing tool.

 

I don't think so.  If you add the extra column as I said, then total by number sold will add 1 for the first sale, and subtract 1 for the refund , then add one for the resale.

 

Mark

[gvallee]

6 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

I don't think so.  If you add the extra column as I said, then total by number sold will add 1 for the first sale, and subtract 1 for the refund , then add one for the resale.

 

Mark

 

Ah yes you're right. Trying to think at 3am here, as the insomniac that I am. I almost miss my testing days... I did enjoy testing actually, just not the banking world. 

[M.Chapman]

2 hours ago, gvallee said:

 

Ah yes you're right. Trying to think at 3am here, as the insomniac that I am. I almost miss my testing days... I did enjoy testing actually, just not the banking world. 

Indeed, and here's a simple example of it working.

 

 

Image ABC sold, then was refunded, then sold again. 

Image DEF sold twice

 

Mark

Edited March 29, 2023 by M.Chapman

[Ed Rooney]

 

Thanks for your thoughts on Keith, Ian. A tragedy. And right after Alamy sales had paid for his home in Wales. 

 

As I said in my original post, I'm not building a career. In Alamy, there are three separate ways to submit images: stock, live news, and stockimo. Keith did live news. I don't. The option to submit live news was taken from me just before Covid hit. I could have reinstated it but I decided not to. 

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Ed Rooney

[AM Chang]

I think it is important to choose one or a few market niches. From there, see the possibilities of each photographer.

The relationship between location and the topics with those niches, are variables that come into

play; just as an example, something more localized or more globalized. No secrets, research, research and research.

 

IMHO

 

cheers,

andre

[Steve Hyde]

5 hours ago, IanDavidson said:

Ed, 

you may want to look at the blogs and work of Keith Morris who was one of Alamy’s highest earners.  Putting to one side the issues around his death, he had the photograph market sowed up.  I am going to express my perception of his approach.  Others may differ.  
 

The short answer is to produce what the customer wants to buy.  How do we know this?  Keith Morris was strong on research.  He recommend going through newspapers and magazines and looking at the photographs used.  Ask why was that photograph was used? What was special or different about it.  How was it shot, what was it being used to illustrate?  I believe on his courses he got participants to cut out pictures so they could be studied.  Some of this will depend on the area of photography you practice.  I am a news shooter so I look closely at news photographs.  Why was a particular shot used?  What is the “house style” of a particular publication.  One may also want to learn the skills of a photo desk editor.  I understand The Guardian receive over 10,000 photos per day.  Ask yourself why would they use yours? Why do they want a picture to follow the text looking, up, down, left, right.  The usages of portrait and landscape styles.  There is an excellent, although old book called “Pictures on a page”. That is written by one of the best editors.  Julie Edwards pointed me in the direction of this book and I return to it time and time again.  It has been said before, before pressing the shutter ask what is the purpose of the photo, who would buy it?  I scan the postings on “photographs found” to see what publications are buying.  I contribute to this thread which means I look closely at what pictures are being used and I always ask the question why?  The images sold is less useful, although has some value, as contributors will not put there most popular sellers on there.  

 

Linked to this is researching trends.  Current and future.  Alamy produces good trends blogs as do other agencies.  Alamy has a good knowledge of its customer base and what it’s future needs may be.  It is not difficult to work out.  Clearly anything to do with AI will sell.  The current issues around the U.K. economy and early retirement gives a lot of options for stock photography.  Issues in the NHS give news opportunities etc.  Every year I spend a couple of days thinking about the trends for the year and I make a mind map that I expand during the year.  Keith Morris made the point of the importance of treating stock photography as a proper job and putting as much time and resources  into preparation as in shooting.  
 

Keith Morris had strong views about cost minimisation.  The majority of his work was shot within walking distance of his home in Wales.  I have noticed I make vastly more money, per photograph, of local shots than I make in Downing Street.  However, I am fortunate that I live near London and my daily travel costs are around £25.  
 

on a personal level the majority of my sales are not interesting (and some would say not technically good) photographs.  They are head and shoulder or three quarter length photos of politicians.  But they are published on a daily basis.  One should not take photographs that you like, take photographs that someone wants to buy.

 

I expect some will disagree with me, but stock photography is a business and to be successful. I think, one must act accordingly.  

 

I attended one of Keith's workshops in Cirencester and Ian, you're right, he did have us cutting out images and saying why we thought they had sold. Since starting out Keith had kept his own scrapbooks of stock images, and had brought them along for us to look through. He rarely left his home town of Aberystwyth and the majority of his stock images were taken around the town there. He wasn't overly concerned about his post processing. However, he would spend his time adding detailed captions and carefully keywording his uploads. He told me he carried on captioning and keywording until 10pm most nights, after spending the day out shooting. He also put his time in before going out with his camera. One example is him telling us he would scan the Sunday papers to see which companies were issuing financial reports etc in the coming week. He would then try to grab a local image, relevant to that company, and upload it with a caption reflecting the report that was being issued.

 

The course was a one day event and I learnt a lot. I was new to stock photography at the time but I do remember driving home feeling quite deflated. Reflecting on how hard Keith worked at his Stock Photography . He absolutely did treat it as a business. I knew there was no way I could commit the same time and effort to it that he did and thinking I'm never going to sell anything! Even now, having retired from full time employment, there's still to many other things I want to fit into a day. As it happens I've done ok with a small portfolio and I make enough every year to pay for the odd lens (or over the past year, repairs to my cameras) but I'm never going to worry the taxman with my earnings from a hobby. 

 

From my experience I think pretty much anything can sell. Quite often for reasons you didn't foresee when you uploaded or took the pic. I've had a few instances of that this year, One being a news story, last month, about a lady who visited every National Trust Cafe in the UK to try their scones. I'd uploaded some images of National Trust scones, we'd made last year, from a National Trust recipe book. I sold a few of those images as a result of the news story.

[John Mitchell]

4 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

What you do obviously works for you, Jeff. Makes me tired just thinking of your industriousness. I want to know how many cups of espresso you drink every morning.  ❓

 

You can be very funny, Betty. 😆

☕☕☕☕☕☕

[Betty LaRue]

2 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

You can be very funny, Betty. 😆

☕☕☕☕☕☕

😆 Thanks, John. I can’t take credit for being smart…weird things just pop up in my brain.

[IKuzmin]

On 28/03/2023 at 14:59, John Richmond said:

accurately captioned and labelled

John, I wonder how you follow changes in scientific names that occur increasingly often (am not sure about plants but that's the case for animals which I photograph and micro-bugs which I work with)? Perhaps Alamy offers one of the most convenient interfaces for curating portfolio but still I always feel bad when all of a sudden discover that some species or even genus name has changed, and I have to dig my port to enter relevant changes in captions and keywords. Much worse in other agencies that do not offer such option after submission.

[IKuzmin]

8 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

What you do obviously works for you, Jeff. Makes me tired just thinking of your industriousness

+1

[IKuzmin]

Edo, as you said it’s not a business for you and I do not understand how the modern stock photography can be a business for anyone. Having said this, I think that roaming around and photographing “what sells”, chase a “target market” for peanuts is somewhat boring and even a waste of this short lifetime.

As many others, I photograph what I like, and it’s wildlife (I prefer “non-bird” critters but there is so much more available birds around… and my travels became increasingly limited) and submit them for publication trying to refund, at least partially, the associated expenses. To keep a peace of mind I blocked most of the “cheap” options on the country list, as well as NU, and during the recent years still had 6-8 sales/month for average gross between $40-50.

Let’s see what I had recently (more or less, no pivot table, no proportions reflecting representation of every group in my portfolio):

Bats: 14

Other mammals: 19

Birds: 21 (although most of my images are birds)

Reptiles/amphibians: 16

Bugs: 13

A few landscapes, people, plants, etc, but I have very few of these subjects.

Am not sure it is any helpful for those who do not photograph wildlife, and even more for Liverpool…

Cheers.

Ivan

[IKuzmin]

10 hours ago, IanDavidson said:

I expect some will disagree with me, but stock photography is a business and to be successful. I think, one must act accordingly.

I one of those considering the modern photo stock market. It is a business for agencies but for individual contributors?..

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

16 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

even if I fail to see how they have much to do with me

ah Mister Ed my bad

but your thread starts "What Sells..."  😨  😨  😨 

hey, anyone wanting to sell

wants to sell more, don't they?  yes they do...

the advice may be hard to hear, but...

then there are other ways besides solving workflow bottlenecks:

a. leap in percentage of salable images without increasing volume = not likely by now

b. leap in ranking skills, cracking ranking algorithm = not likely by now

c. leap in # high net $$ sales aka unicorns = wishful crap shoot

 

Betty!  Help!  They're comin' for me after this one !!

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

13 hours ago, IanDavidson said:

...Keith Morris who was one of Alamy’s highest earners.

No. KeithM may have netted much better than average
but was NOT one of the top sellers (nor am I)
There are at least 2 standout individuals, & for same reason!
One of them IMO now nets over $70K-$80K / year.
The other IMO now nets $130K--$150K / year.

They both offer LoC (free) images, the latter over 1M, IIRC.
Clearly they've figured out how to retrieve large volumes

over the LoC normal limit per day -- but to be clear I've

not pursued LoC images & don't know such schemes...

 🦄   🦄   🦄   🦄   🦄 
(PAlamy could rip me a new one on these guesses, but...) 

Edited March 30, 2023 by Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

11 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

how many cups of espresso you drink every morning.  ❓

oh Betty!!  It might be a mutant problem-solving-productivity gene.  Have mercy...  🤪      🤪      🤪     

[sooth]

.

Edited October 19, 2023 by sooth