My images have been stagnant for months but sitting $1 under a payout-Why?

[krutopimages]

My images have been stagnant for months but sitting $1 under a payout?....am I being paranoid? I have had whole batches of images knocked back because one image had a reason not to pass QC. The waiting time to resubmit other images or others from the initial batch is frustrating. My main line of work has been corporate industrial, quite often areas of construction offshore etc. that only I have been able to access. I am considering dropping submissions to Alamy because Adobe stock has marketed hundreds of my images....Alamy seems to stagnate instead of accepting all suitable images the whole bath or 2or3 batches all get knocked back!

My wife is a children's book illustrator has submitted over 700 images since February and not one has failed QC...had a sale in the first week of March. ....but nothin has been paid to her account as paid. Is Alamy having problems? I mean is Alamy accepting images taking sales but not passing on financial reward to contributors? Although I started with Alamy over 10 years ago....I have had nothing to do with them for many years, this QC system is why.

Edited April 11, 2023 by krutopimages

[IanDavidson]

With respect, with 186 images you are not going to get sales.  There is nothing wrong with Alamy.  It is now owned by The Press Association.  In terms of QC, those are the rules.  If you don’t like them there are many other stock agencies.  Many thousands of Alamy contributors operate under these QC rules that have been around for a long time….

Edited April 11, 2023 by IanDavidson

[NYCat]

14 hours ago, krutopimages said:

My images have been stagnant for months but sitting $1 under a payout?....am I being paranoid? I have had whole batches of images knocked back because one image had a reason not to pass QC. The waiting time to resubmit other images or others from the initial batch is frustrating. My main line of work has been corporate industrial, quite often areas of construction offshore etc. that only I have been able to access. I am considering dropping submissions to Alamy because Adobe stock has marketed hundreds of my images....Alamy seems to stagnate instead of accepting all suitable images the whole bath or 2or3 batches all get knocked back!

My wife is a children's book illustrator has submitted over 700 images since February and not one has failed QC...had a sale in the first week of March. ....but nothin has been paid to her account as paid. Is Alamy having problems? I mean is Alamy accepting images taking sales but not passing on financial reward to contributors? Although I started with Alamy over 10 years ago....I have had nothing to do with them for many years, this QC system is why.

 It is my understanding that other agencies don't report a sale until after it has cleared. Alamy reports them right away and there is a lag before they get paid and pass on our share. They suggest that if a sale hasn't cleared in 3 months we should contact them. I usually wait 4 months. The distributor sales take longer to clear.

 

Paulette

[wiskerke]

Could it be keywords? Or just the subjects? Study the searches in which your images come up and assess the competition.

Also check if there is any interest at all in your subjects. Even with some great images, if there are no takers, you're screwed.

You do know how to use AoA or All of Alamy in full? (Many instructions on this forum.)

No searches for Loi Yang mine for a whole year. Only a handful for open pit. Yours are not included in the 1,225 results btw. Why s that? Missing keywords? Blocking sales in Europe?

The caption of 2GY4421 says: A huge dredger extracts coal from the open cut mine at Yallourn power station in the Latrobe Valley Victoria, Australia. There's no dredger in the image.

So have a good look at your captions and keywords and be aware of the differences between UK and US (or global) English. And check out on AoA what clients are looking for when they are searching your locations or your subjects. And which keywords they are using.

And then who knows, if you are selling your images at Adobe, you've found your market is there and not here.

 

wim

[Mr Standfast]

Good Advice here

 

 

[John Morrison]

On 11/04/2023 at 01:55, krutopimages said:

My images have been stagnant for months but sitting $1 under a payout?....am I being paranoid? I have had whole batches of images knocked back because one image had a reason not to pass QC. The waiting time to resubmit other images or others from the initial batch is frustrating. My main line of work has been corporate industrial, quite often areas of construction offshore etc. that only I have been able to access. I am considering dropping submissions to Alamy because Adobe stock has marketed hundreds of my images....Alamy seems to stagnate instead of accepting all suitable images the whole bath or 2or3 batches all get knocked back!

My wife is a children's book illustrator has submitted over 700 images since February and not one has failed QC...had a sale in the first week of March. ....but nothin has been paid to her account as paid. Is Alamy having problems? I mean is Alamy accepting images taking sales but not passing on financial reward to contributors? Although I started with Alamy over 10 years ago....I have had nothing to do with them for many years, this QC system is why.

 

A few misconceptions here... You suggest that Alamy are deliberately withholding payments to contributors. Really?

 

The QC system – one fail, all fail, in any upload – is Alamy's choice. What reasons are given for the failures?

 

200 images online in ten years? That's a very small drop in a very big bucket...

[Alex Ramsay]

You have some strong and unusual images, and I'm very envious of your degree of access. However I agree with others that a couple of hundred pictures will get you nowhere in what is something of a numbers game. Also some slightly erratic keywording doesn't help - no visible 'cooling towers' in 2JAKACG, for example.

 

Alex

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

your full-time work gives you access to

exclusive subjects that IMO are salable;

don't quit, mate, keep adding new images...

get your count of 233 up to 2330 asap...

don''t overprocess, don't oversharpen...

after all the work you've done

ALL THE WORK

 😯__ 😯__ 😯

Edited November 4, 2023 by Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg

[Chuck Nacke]

From just looking at a couple of your images, I would say the main reason you are not seeing more licenses is because, I believe that you need to have more information.

Your images look good on my monitor and you have access to a subject that there should be a demand for images of, but again the people who would be looking for those

images would also want very specific information.  The images that I saw of yours show equipment that is technical and location is important to the image. 

That is just my opinion.

 

I will add that too often people write that "it is a numbers game, add more images."  I disagree strongly with that.  Way back when I started with Alamy, I have worked with

agencies all over the world for decades, I had less than 300 images online and was seeing licenses, for very good fees.  Actually back in 2005 my take on each license on Alamy was

over $200 per image and at the end of the year I made more money than I did last year with about 1,800 images online with Alamy in 2012.  Yes I know that license fees have gone

down dramatically.  I will repeat, it is about the image, the exclusivity or the image and the information (IPTC), Captions, Keywording and Location.  I spend a lot of time preparing images for upload to Alamy and I also spend a lot more time researching information to include with the image.

 

Chuck

[zxzoomy]

Quality has to win out and maybe the initial 850 images I uploaded to Alamy were not much good but it was only after 850 or here that I had sales, thanks to Daily Express and the Times. We all have access to whatever is local to our area. I have found the very local (eg out of my windows, in my living room etc) get more attention than I ever would have thought ten years ago.  

[Mr Standfast]

To me it doesn't matter if your plan looks like Chucks, Jeoffrey's, Ian's, Gen, NYcat, Steve or Edo's, * you have to put the work in. 

 

232 in 10 years ain't it. There's nothing we can do to help this OP, so let's go do some keywords or tidy the garden, maybe take a picture? Have a good one!

 

* To many to mention or type on a kindle,  forum regulars who have made it work!!!!!😊

 

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by Mr Standfast

[Alexander Hogg]

2 hours ago, Mr Standfast said:

you have to put the work in. 

 

Totally agree with you in all you mentioned That's one thing I didn't realise at the time of starting this on how much work it was going to be If I knew then what I know now probably would never have started 

[John Morrison]

43 minutes ago, Alexander Hogg said:

Totally agree with you in all you mentioned That's one thing I didn't realise at the time of starting this on how much work it was going to be If I knew then what I know now probably would never have started 

 

Just had a look at my first ten Alamy licenses, dating from 2008, which were $124, $114, $105, $124, $555, $241, $114, $140, $87 & $67 (and, if my memory serves me well, the split was 60/40… to the photographer). With the prices we get now, plus the reversal of the split, I would not start with stock photography in 2023…

[Mr Standfast]

I sometimes wish Alamy had found a commercially sensitive way of setting people's expectations. Seems unfair to let people make mistakes.

[DJ Myford]

I wish I'd signed up a few years later, and missed the attempt to impose storage fees. I'd probably have continued submitting material rather than asking Alamy to delete all my images and largely walking away. I still have a stack of unused CD-Rs in the cupboard that I thought I would burn through in less than a year. Yes, it was my decision to limit my submissions, but the decision was informed by Alamy's actions. At the time it was generally accepted that stock was a long-term investment, and storage fees could wipe out the return from a license if it was issued many years after submitting the image (as some who opted for the Green and Red plans found out). More images could mean more sales, but would definitely mean more fees. At the time I thought I was cutting my losses, but it turned out I was cutting my gains.

[Martin L]

18 hours ago, Chuck Nacke said:

 

I will add that too often people write that "it is a numbers game, add more images."  I disagree strongly with that. 

 

Chuck

I've not found that, the more images I have added the more licenses I get. That just makes sense to me.

In the first year I had about 400 images and averaged 1 license per month.

Currently I have 1600 images and average about 4 licenses a month

I bet next year if I get to double what I have now then licenses will also increase (obviously as long as I try and maintain the same sort of submissions I have uploaded already).

 

[Chuck Nacke]

10 minutes ago, Martin L said:

I've not found that, the more images I have added the more licenses I get. That just makes sense to me.

In the first year I had about 400 images and averaged 1 license per month.

Currently I have 1600 images and average about 4 licenses a month

I bet next year if I get to double what I have now then licenses will also increase (obviously as long as I try and maintain the same sort of submissions I have uploaded already).

 

Martin, 

 

To each their own.  I have my way of doing things and you are welcome to have yours.  I do have a concern with people just adding photos to any library without having a spent the time and research to make the images attractive to a picture editor (buyer).  There is a library (agency) that I've had a relationship with for decades, they are now owned by one of the largest groups in the business, and I could take a picture of my feet, add a few keywords and they would license it for pennies.  I do try to only spend my time on images that I believe in and that I feel there is a good reason that a publication would license.  

 

Chuck

[Martin L]

47 minutes ago, Chuck Nacke said:

Martin, 

 

To each their own.  I have my way of doing things and you are welcome to have yours.  I do have a concern with people just adding photos to any library without having a spent the time and research to make the images attractive to a picture editor (buyer).  There is a library (agency) that I've had a relationship with for decades, they are now owned by one of the largest groups in the business, and I could take a picture of my feet, add a few keywords and they would license it for pennies.  I do try to only spend my time on images that I believe in and that I feel there is a good reason that a publication would license.  

 

Chuck

👍