No sale by last one year.

[sahilshamim]

I have an account in alamy with over 550 images. Luckily the last sale was on March 24, 2023 and the one before that on July 15, 2022.

So how would alamy surviving with so few downloads? Or your download plans are such that people do not download from you..!

Either you are not able to reach the customers or my images are not according to your marketing area.

So overall I want to know the reason of this poor sale?

Edited April 1, 2023 by sahilshamim
Spelling mistake

[DJ Myford]

You have a lot of similars - different views of a single subject - so your portfolio is effectively smaller, and your images will only be returned in a tiny number of customer searches. It would help if you add images of a wider variety of subjects. Also, if you are seriously looking for sales, you need to re-work some captions and keywords. If the image is of an animal, include the common and Latin name in the caption.

As a guide, I now average one licence per year with my current portfolio of less than 200 images. With the number of similars you have, you should expect about the same number of sales.

 

Alamy survives because it has millions of images for customers to search. Individual photographers only make regular sales if they have a wide variety of images that will appear in a lot of searches, or they specialise in a subject that is in constant demand. That requires thousands of images uploaded, not hundreds.

[Rebecca Ore]

My experience has been that most people don't start getting regular sales until they've got over 1,000 photos up.  Hard to obtain good action shots of large charismatic animals seem to do well.  Plants seem to do well enough.   Craft still lifes can do well.   Exteriors of common tourist attractions, like cathedrals or the Tower of London, need to be better than the thousands of others taken of those sites.

 

You've got some good photos of large Indian birds and mammals, but the captions don't identify them with scientific and common names, or describe what they're doing.  Two types of uses for these -- ID photos and action photos.   Action photos having all the field marks are even better.  

 

For every perspective distorted picture of architecture, probably would help to have one of the same building that uses a perspective correction program or a different lens.   Give photo  buyers meaningful choices, not minor variations of a subject.  

 

ID'ing plants -- if you can find out the variety as well as the common and scientific names and put those in captions and keywords, you are likely to get views at least.  Lots of plant searches are by scientific name. 

[Marianne]

You have some lovely images and with 550 photos, you'd anticipate maybe licensing one image every other month on average, but that's clearly not a hard and fast rule.

 

As mentioned above, part of the reason your portfolio is underperforming is that you have many similars. The first page I linked to in your portfolio was almost entirely photos of the Qutub Minar (Minaret). Moreover, your captions for these images all appear to be identical: "Qutub Minar (Minaret) a highest minaret in India standing 73 M tall tapering tower of five story made of red sandstone." I'd mix it up a bit and add some different facts about the minaret in different captions. Include info about the angle it's taken from, or mention what the people in a particular image are doing. You should also include where it is located in both the caption and in the keywords as this is essential when customers are searching.

 

As an aside, it would be more gramatical if it read, ""Qutub Minar (Minaret), the highest minaret in India, standing 73 meters tall. The five story tapering tower is made of red sandstone." (I'm a writer so I'm picky - your caption is okay the way it is - other than the fact that it's missing the minaret's location - so my rewording is merely a suggestion).

 

Captions and keywords are essential. But so is having variety in you portfolio. I'd try not to include more than 3-5 similar images - instead add to the story an editor can tell  by including detail shots, both vertical and horizontal shots, and some with and without people, rather than just slightly different angles of the same building. When you discover that many are similar, you are better off just uploading the best one or two.

 

It also looks like all the keywords for this particular minaret are identical - and that means you have many images with the same typo - you misspelled history. It happens to all of us. Easy enough to correct.

 

You also need to consider how likely editors are going to be to need photos from the locales you've photographed. If it's a very popular place, then there may be more demand for those images, but there is also likely to be more competition from other photographers. If it is a less visited spot, then there will be fewer people searching for those images, but when they do, you're likely to have less competition. It's a balancing act and it's often hard to predict what will sell.

 

Most people here will tell you that they didn't start getting regular sales until they had around 800-1000 images in their portfolios. The rule of thumb is to expect about 1 sale per month for every 1,000 images you have online here. If you've got a huge groups of similar images, then you are less likely to achieve this modest goal. Some people see many more sales per month than this average and some see fewer than expected. The best way to make more sales is to vary the images that you upload and to upload a lot more photos. My portfolio is still small (so I don't always practice what I preach) but I'm averaging more sales than the one per 1,000 - possibly due to the fact I've been here for more than a dozen years so my images have sold multiple times, moving me up in the ranking. It's harder when you're new. It took me several months to get my first sale back in 2008 when I started. There are people on this forum with 10,000, 20,000, or even 80,000 images who get dozens of sales each month. Numbers are important, but so is variety and zeroing in on what buyers need. 

 

Check out All of Alamy (search for "All of Alamy" or for "AoA" in the forum for instructions on how to do this) and then see how many customers are searching for the kinds of images you are taking. Perhaps you'll discover that one of your favorite places is more popular than another and this will help you figure out where you should be going and what is most likely to sell for you. You can also think of concepts and other practical things to photograph that buyers need. 

 

I don't know if you've been with microstock before this, where multiple daily sales are common, but Alamy, which began as a traditional stock agency, is not one for mass sales, however, at least in many cases, sale prices per image are generally  higher. 

 

This forum is for other contributors (though sometimes someone from Alamy pops in) so we're the ones responding to you. Please don't take it as a criticism, we are trying to help. All of us were new once upon a time. Good luck!

[Phil]

On 05/04/2023 at 07:07, Marianne said:

The rule of thumb is to expect about 1 sale per month for every 1,000 images you have online here.

 

That has been pretty accurate for my small portfolio.  At least it was up until late Nov 2022.    For all of 2021 and first 11 months of 2022 I had regular license sales almost each month.

 

But it all came to a screeching halt in late Nov 2022.  Almost 5 months now - nothing zero zip nada.   Wonder what broke?  Maybe economies heading into recession?

Edited April 8, 2023 by Phil

[wilkopix]

10 hours ago, Phil said:

But it all came to a screeching halt in late Nov 2022.  Almost 5 months now - nothing zero zip nada.   Wonder what broke?  Maybe economies heading into recession?

Personally sales (and revenue) do appear to be down this year so far. Could well be recession but it could also be stiff competition from other agencies.

Sales elsewhere seem to be up (not microstock). I'm hoping Alamy start selling again too>