Alamy front end

[Guest Mark Pedley]

Since you asked for ideas....

 

Ever since Digital Railroad crashed, I've been looking for a front-end-no-fancy-no-hype solution for online licensing.

 

I've looked, experienced, and paid for them all (the usual suspects), but I have found none of them to be very suitable, not coming close to the simplicity and down-to earth offering of DRR. 

 

I have touched on this before in the alamy forum (even before DRR crashed). A contributor front end (a simple, fixed design would be fine), perhaps similar to the alamy site, except with option for own logo/name linked back into the alamy database. All I need to do is upload to alamy in the usual way. In my site, I can be selective which images show up (eg "display only pseudo X" etc). Licensing directly from the personal site gives me a certain % of the fee (higher than the current contributor commission . Alamy gets the rest. All the back-end licensing activities goes through the alamy site (and is clearly stated in the T&C on my site....). This is a kind of simplified mini-distributor setup. Perhaps even a channel to bypass QC for images I want on my own site only would be an option (since it costs you nothing to store images these days), increasing the possiblity to earn fees (both alamy and me) for images not even on the alamy site.

 

I would jump at this kind of solution, and would also pay for the option (the fee being the price I pay to offload the back end part). It would simplify my workflow considerably, and add a synergy not available at the usual suspects (who do nothing to support sales of the images they have on file....unlike alamy).

 

just dreaming again........time to wake up (?)

[Guest Mark Pedley]

ps I can see 3405 images at the link below my photo! These are not my images: edit: fixed now!

[Alan Gallery]

Intresting idea Mark +1 from me

[Bizair]

+1 from me. A useful additional tool and one that benefits both Alamy and the contributor, as far as I can see.

 

Ken

[wiskerke]

+1

 

wim

[Guest geogphotos]

agefotostock do this sort of thing with their various distributors - except that it is for the entire age collection rather than for each photographer.

 

The appearance is a little different but all driven by the same database system.

 

The big snags with this idea remain though - how do you attract customers and why would they buy direct from you at calculator price rather than from Alamy?

 

I do like the idea a lot though even for no other reason than attracting more potential buyers to Alamy. 

 

I remember that years back ( 2003 or so) Alamy offered some sort of incentive or encouragement for photographers linking their website to Alamy, and then they offered that search box thing, but then the idea seems to have stalled.  I think it is a good suggestion from Mark that thought be given to how this could be developed in some way.

[Guest Mark Pedley]

Hi Ian,

 

you are right. My thought was triggered by two points:

 

1. I don't have my full archive on alamy since I do not have the time to prepare everything for QC, but I do have direct sales going on (not fly-by clients). The billing tasks etc are laborious for me.

2. I prepare the images AFTER they are requested (shoot DNG + JPEG...JPEG gets displayed...DNG gets prepared if selected). I cannot prepare everything for upload to alamy, but I CAN dispaly my small JPEGs and "prepare on demand", hence my suggestion for upload of images not displayed on the main alamy site.

3. I am being being chased down by publishers directly since some of my pics are no longer on alamy. I squeeze x 3 the alamy license fee out of them (I have the incentive to do that, probably alamy less so). Even if alamy took 40% of that (in this mini-distributor concept), both alamy and I would be better off. 

 

I agree, the marketing bit is the big question. It would be no good as a fly trap ("smells enough" to catch the clients flying by), but for established connections, it would work well. Of course, they can go to alamy too. Fine. But sometimes there are reasons not to (this is the bit that goes beyond price wars).

 

Would have to work out details etc, but my key point is that the way the industry is moving, relying simply on the agencies holding up prices will not fly. I am looking for new synergies which I do not see anywhere today.

 

To add to your comment about Age, Ian, I could even imagine a scenario where I have someone directly "on the hook", and even license another photographer's image to round off my offering (I get a commission on that, and that photographer and alamy get a sale alamy would never have made).