Raz_Mc Posted July 4, 2023 Share Posted July 4, 2023 Hi all I'm based in Manchester, UK. I've been selling stock on Alamy for around 3yrs but only on a casual basis. Only sold $400 so far. I've no idea how to go any further with stock sales. I'd love you to share your expertise if you know how to make this a profitable passtime. Thanks Raz 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 You have very few photos now. They are very good but not enough different ones. You are overdoing the tagging. Check out Alamy's blogs and threads in the forum. You should not try for green discoverability. I don't know why there are so many countries in your tags for the dove. You'll need a much larger portfolio, I'm afraid. Paulette 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raz_Mc Posted July 5, 2023 Author Share Posted July 5, 2023 Paulette Thanks so much for the feedback. LOL less tags and avoid green discoverability, I had no idea. That sounds counterintuitive. I had previously contacted Alamy about tagging but the response was pretty vague. Like when you search 'avocado' would that still come up if you had tagged 'avocados'? For the dove, its a bird that is found in various parts of the world. I thought the additional tags increased discoverability depending where the searcher thought the bird came from. TBH I uploaded around 100 images a long time ago and had no idea how to sell stock photos. By chance I logged in last year and realised 2 photos had sold. so I put a bit more time in last year to uploading some more. Seem to have had more luck with the things that were popular at the time, so Manchester Utd, Police, and Prime drink. I've sold others but no idea why. If you were in my shoes, what would you do to move things on? more photos, more diversity, change the tagging? Thanks again. Means so much to me that you reached out. Raz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 Hi Raz, Congrats on your sales to date. Main way to progress as Paulette says, is you need a much bigger portfolio. If you search the Forum, you will see that there are lots of posts on Discoverability. We have collectively decided that trying to get images to green 'good' discoverability with 40 or more keywords is not worth it unless they are all relevant. Keyword spamming will hurt your CTR. Your pictures will appear at a certain level (e.g. first page, 10th page... etc.) in searches by clients, depending on various factors. CTR and Sales are the only factors we know about for sure in the secret formula Alamy uses to set our search ranking. Your CTR rank (on your Dashboard) is a function of the number of times a client zooms (clicks on) one of your images versus the number of times your images appear in a client search, but are not zoomed. CTR=Zooms/Views * 100 This is basically a long way of me saying, don't spam keywords. E.g. don't put sky, blue, clouds for every single outdoors picture you shoot. There is a tendency to try to put lots of keywords for your images to try to get them seen by clients. So they may well appear in searches, but if they're not zoomed by a client, your CTR rank will drop. Which means your images won't show as high up in client searches. You don't want your images to get buried in the 350 million images on Alamy. By all means, put a lot of keywords in for certain pictures if they're relevant. Captions and keywords are almost more important than the image itself because you can have the most amazing images ever, but if they're keyworded wrong, no one will ever see them. This Alamy blog covers your question about plurals: https://www.alamy.com/blog/captions-and-tags Be aware that captions are also searchable by clients, so make use of the full 150 characters that are available to you. Some captioning tips: https://www.alamy.com/blog/tips-for-your-captions-from-the-sales-team Finally, there's a lot of feedback on Contributor's portfolios here that you may find useful: https://discussion.alamy.com/forum/18-portfolio-critique/ It's a good idea to get everything 'right' now rather than when you've uploaded 5,000 images and you have to go back and make keywording amendments.... 🙈 Good luck, Steve 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 21 minutes ago, Raz_Mc said: If you were in my shoes, what would you do to move things on? more photos, more diversity, change the tagging? I try to take as wide a range of images as possible, you never know what will sell. After you start getting repeat sales, you'll have a good idea of what sells and what doesn't. Looking for trends and coming up with photos that demonstrate the concept is generally a good idea too. Keep a look out for published stock photos on websites, magazines, travel books, newspapers - these are the 'successful' ones. How do your images compare? Use them for inspiration. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raz_Mc Posted July 5, 2023 Author Share Posted July 5, 2023 Steve Thank you so much. I wish I had known this sooner! I will certainly read all of the above material you have linked to. Can I possibly ask some additional questions? Really sorry if this is covered in the forums. I only registered for the forum this week so haven't trawled it yet. 1. Is it best to stay rights managed or royalty free? I used royalty free on all images but after I sold one for $20 to conde nast I thought I had made a mistake, so changed it to rights managed as the RF sale effectively let them use it on 3 occasions (and technically as many more as they like). 2. Does shooting 10 different angles of the same things hold any merit? for example, a flag but 10 different versions being blown in the wind? I suspect not, but wonder if it helps your rating or discoverability for that search 3. I'm only on Alamy, and have around 70 photos on shutterstock. Are other sites worth getting into? Thanks again. Raz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 Hi Raz, No worries. There is a lot of useful information on the Forum, it's well worth trawling through. 1. I personally go rights managed. Although to be honest, a lot of licenses through Alamy are hybrids. See this on license types: https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/13135-editorial-box-should-it-be-checked/ https://www.alamy.com/contributor/how-to-sell-images/understanding-stock-image-licensing/ 2. 10 seems excessive. You can certainly do different angles and zooms and lighting. And you could approach the same subject at different times, uploading more than 10 images overall. Just not 10 in one go generally, unless they are quite different images of the same subject (monochrome and portrait/landscape are other options). Excessive similars is a failure reason for Alamy QC: https://www.alamy.com/contributors/alamy-how-to-pass-qc.pdf 3. Huh, well.... Alamy doesn't like us talking about competitors much. But. Alamy does tend to receive higher sums for images than competitors. However, when you sell the same image with multiple agencies, you are increasing your chances of your images being seen, but you're also in competition with yourself. Many buyers likely shop around (it's easy, it's the internet); they will go for whichever site has your image for the cheapest price. I think you would probably earn more by spreading yourself around so to speak. I personally don't because: a. I have limited time and I'm pushing my results with Alamy so I don't need to cater for different agency requirements. b. I don't like competing with myself on price. Steve 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raz_Mc Posted July 5, 2023 Author Share Posted July 5, 2023 Thank you. I will read a lot tonight! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nacke Posted July 6, 2023 Share Posted July 6, 2023 On 04/07/2023 at 06:46, Raz_Mc said: Hi all I'm based in Manchester, UK. I've been selling stock on Alamy for around 3yrs but only on a casual basis. Only sold $400 so far. I've no idea how to go any further with stock sales. I'd love you to share your expertise if you know how to make this a profitable passtime. Thanks Raz Raz, I often disagree with those on the forum that talk about putting up more and more images. In my opinion, it is about the image, the caption info, RELEVANT keywords and current events around the world. Keep in mind that I am not a "stock photographer" I am just a semi-retired magazine photographer with a college degree in journalism, photography has never been a "passtime (sp)" for me. I was seeing regular licenses of images when I had less than 300 images on Alamy. Your images appear to me to be well composed and processed correctly, just based on looking at the first page of your images. I will also add that I often see Alamy license an image of mine for a really good fee and the image has been sitting online for a long time with no zooms or notice. On a sad note, one of my lifelong friends was a very successful "stock photographer" for decades, has several thousand images on Alamy as well as thousands of images on a number of stock libraries and he told me recently that he does not pay any attention to stock photography anymore. Wish I could give you more positive encouragement, but...... Chuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raz_Mc Posted July 6, 2023 Author Share Posted July 6, 2023 Hi Chuck Thanks for the reply, very useful. I got into photography a bit too late in life. I'm currently working on my abilities and style outside of stock photography. I just carry a camera everywhere now, and upload occasional photos I've taken. Its an enjoyable process. And a thrill to see a photo appear online in a magazine. I think I need to be a bit more thought out to improve my portfolio, but I am up for the challenge. Thanks again. Raz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 (edited) you reported 388 images / $400 ?gross? / 3 years to me that implies if you added more images same quality but different subjects of similar salability... reported $133.33 gross / yr if 388 images possibly $1333.30 gross / yr if 3880 images in your collection possibly $13333 gross / yr if 38800 images in your collection this is optimistic & has wide standard deviation... it may require not only shooting your favorite subjects but also subjects that sell well… Edited July 7, 2023 by Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 2 hours ago, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said: it may require not only shooting your favorite subjects but also subjects that sell well… I absolutely don't sell my favourite subjects. My best sellers aren't 'sexy' at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zxzoomy Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 I'm also based in Manchester, UK. I find that simple messages on protest placards sell, especially on topical subjects, like climate change or train strikes. Signs of major businesses sell, though can be a bit dull to do. As there are people here a lot better than me, I avoid competing for the 'beautiful tourist Manchester' type of image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raz_Mc Posted July 10, 2023 Author Share Posted July 10, 2023 On 07/07/2023 at 19:33, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said: you reported 388 images / $400 ?gross? / 3 years to me that implies if you added more images same quality but different subjects of similar salability... reported $133.33 gross / yr if 388 images possibly $1333.30 gross / yr if 3880 images in your collection possibly $13333 gross / yr if 38800 images in your collection this is optimistic & has wide standard deviation... it may require not only shooting your favorite subjects but also subjects that sell well… Thanks Jeffrey. I've not quite figured out a way to find the best subjects that sell. I basically searched the trends to find some subjects I could photograph. I'll try to increase my portfolio. Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatsyCollins Posted July 15, 2023 Share Posted July 15, 2023 Hi. You have some great images. To answer your avocado question - no. If you want your photo to come up for avocados as well as avocado then you'd need to add both tags. But you shouldn't put avocados if there's just one in the image, because those who enter avocados will be looking for a photo of more than one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raz_Mc Posted July 17, 2023 Author Share Posted July 17, 2023 Thank you Patsy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg Posted July 18, 2023 Share Posted July 18, 2023 On 15/07/2023 at 16:35, PatsyCollins said: ...those who enter avocados will be looking for a photo of more than one. that's Alamy's advice; I disagree, here's proof:https://www.alamy.com/Customersearch/Customersearchhistory.aspx now seach %farms% since Jun 1 2022 almost all were searching for one farm per photo but searched "farms" because in their mind they wanted to see many "farm" photos... this kind of plural searching happens over & over & over; IMO, Alamy lost lots and lots of sales since ending stemming regardless of what a buyers' survey told them years ago... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted July 18, 2023 Share Posted July 18, 2023 6 hours ago, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said: that's Alamy's advice; I disagree, here's proof:https://www.alamy.com/Customersearch/Customersearchhistory.aspx now seach %farms% since Jun 1 2022 almost all were searching for one farm per photo but searched "farms" because in their mind they wanted to see many "farm" photos... this kind of plural searching happens over & over & over; IMO, Alamy lost lots and lots of sales since ending stemming regardless of what a buyers' survey told them years ago... I put singular and plurals regardless too. Buyers search for both even if it's a single item. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatsyCollins Posted July 18, 2023 Share Posted July 18, 2023 Yeah, I see what you mean. They want to see several examples of whatever it is, even if they only want one in the image they buy, so in their mind it's a plural. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike leech Posted October 24, 2023 Share Posted October 24, 2023 On 05/07/2023 at 10:18, NYCat said: You have very few photos now. They are very good but not enough different ones. You are overdoing the tagging. Check out Alamy's blogs and threads in the forum. You should not try for green discoverability. I don't know why there are so many countries in your tags for the dove. You'll need a much larger portfolio, I'm afraid. Paulette How do you see the tags he is using, @NYCat ? as a newbie, i'd be interested to know. Equally, if there's some resource where i could find that answer, I'd be just as happy to know that as well thanks Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted October 24, 2023 Share Posted October 24, 2023 2 hours ago, Mike leech said: How do you see the tags he is using, @NYCat ? as a newbie, i'd be interested to know. Equally, if there's some resource where i could find that answer, I'd be just as happy to know that as well thanks Mike Hi Mike, Click on the number under the contributor's image on the left hand side of a Forum post. Their portfolio will open. Then click on an image of your choice and you can see the keywords that contributor has used. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike leech Posted October 25, 2023 Share Posted October 25, 2023 Thanks Steve, but I dont see a number - (i'm running windows 11 and have tried chrome and edge) I've tried uploading an image of what I'm seeing to confirm I'm looking in the right place, but when I paste the URL into the 'insert URL' the box just turns red and nothing else happens Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted October 25, 2023 Share Posted October 25, 2023 (edited) Hi Mike. Using a PC. On this page. On the left hand side. 'Images: 5015' for me. 3 for you. Click on the number. Edited October 25, 2023 by Steve F 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike leech Posted October 25, 2023 Share Posted October 25, 2023 Got it, @Steve F, click on the image, click on 'Search stock photos by tags' and then 'show all' - wouldn't have got there without youre help 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted October 25, 2023 Share Posted October 25, 2023 9 minutes ago, Mike leech said: Got it, @Steve F, click on the image, click on 'Search stock photos by tags' and then 'show all' - wouldn't have got there without youre help Great! Btw, you're keyword spamming, it will hurt your CTR. See point 3 https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/16969-ill-jump-in-no-matter-what-it-does-to-my-confidence/?do=findComment&comment=344671 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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