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"They do all the work..."


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This from Alamy's new Contribs help guidelines,

 

"Sell images though our global distribution network

We have a large network of specialist stock photo agencies who distribute your images in countries and regions that we don’t work with directly or where there’s a language barrier.

Opt in and you’ll get 30% of the sale (we receive 30% and our distributors get 40%). The commission split is different because there’s a third party involved and they do all the work."

So it seems we are lucky to get a measly 30% for doing .... well nothing apparently. Maybe the distributor scheme is a good deal after all?

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The photographer has done these things in order to bring an image to the marketplace:

 

1. Purchase photographic equipment of a high enough quality to satisfy distributors.

2. Purchase computer equipment and software to ensure quality.

3. Spend time to photograph the image - possibly funding such as well.

4. Spend time editing and key wording image.

5. Bear cost of updating equipment/software.

 

The costs per photographer to bring images to marketplaces, such as Alamy, far out way the costs of distribution. Nonetheless this is the environment in which some of us chose to work - or place some of our work. But it is rather insulting for Alamy to declare "they do all the work".

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The fact is that most of us are NOT happy with the split 30% for us - authors, so many of us think it's not fair to get the smallest cut, but all we can do is opt out... All Alamy can do is to change the share. We can't do it. They can, can they? 

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What Alamy means by "they do the work" is that they translate your keywords into the local language, upload your images to their servers and offer up their customer base.

 

If you wanted to sell on all the distributor agencies so you get a more direct cut, you would have to upload the same images that are already on Alamy to the distributor agency's servers. Then you would have to re-keyword every image in the language of the agency.  And for every foreign agency you would have to do this if their language is something other than English. Would you bother? All that time is worth money, so giving up 20% for someone else to that seems reasonable to me.

 

Pierre for example runs his agency. His clients pay him a cut to do all the nasty keywording and uploading for them so they can spend time taking images.  Sometimes its smart cause time is money.

 

I have pointed out before that I sell on 3 levels with my horse and dog products. I sell directly at shows and locally.  I have some stores that sell my products and of course I don't make as much but I have access to their customer base that I wouldn't have otherwise.  Then I sell on a distributor level to larger wholesalers who in torn sell to stores across Canada and the US.  I have an even smaller cut, but a customer base I could never access.

 

If given the chance, would you bother to upload your images to these distributors directly, or would you say, not worth the time? By selling for slightly less to them through Alamy, you are accessing a customer base you would not otherwise have access to, and the distributor does the keywording and uploading.

 

Jill

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The fact is that most of us are NOT happy with the split 30% for us - authors, so many of us think it's not fair to get the smallest cut, but all we can do is opt out... All Alamy can do is to change the share. We can't do it. They can, can they? 

Yes they can. We took the nonsense several years ago when Alamy took 17% from the photographer to supposedly finance an office in USA. Great new sales were promised from "opening up this market" . Hmmm. Not sure about anyone else but I've not seen a return on that enterprise. 

 

Opting out of distributor scheme is obviously a good idea - if everyone did it. I can understand the argument that "it's cutting off nose to spite face" but unfortunately many contributors to Alamy are happy enough with peanuts 'cause they have "day jobs" and are not working professional photographers.

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What Alamy means by "they do the work" is that they translate your keywords into the local language, upload your images to their servers and offer up their customer base.

 

If you wanted to sell on all the distributor agencies so you get a more direct cut, you would have to upload the same images that are already on Alamy to the distributor agency's servers. Then you would have to re-keyword every image in the language of the agency.  And for every foreign agency you would have to do this if their language is something other than English. Would you bother? All that time is worth money, so giving up 20% for someone else to that seems reasonable to me.

 

Pierre for example runs his agency. His clients pay him a cut to do all the nasty keywording and uploading for them so they can spend time taking images.  Sometimes its smart cause time is money.

 

I have pointed out before that I sell on 3 levels with my horse and dog products. I sell directly at shows and locally.  I have some stores that sell my products and of course I don't make as much but I have access to their customer base that I wouldn't have otherwise.  Then I sell on a distributor level to larger wholesalers who in torn sell to stores across Canada and the US.  I have an even smaller cut, but a customer base I could never access.

 

If given the chance, would you bother to upload your images to these distributors directly, or would you say, not worth the time? By selling for slightly less to them through Alamy, you are accessing a customer base you would not otherwise have access to, and the distributor does the keywording and uploading.

 

Jill

It's my experience that the majority of "picture buyers" around the world have good English speaking skills - they need to as essentially the biggest "picture suppliers" come from English speaking countries. As far as I can see from Alamy's distributors they don't "translate your keywords" either - the caption and keywords remain in English.

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What Alamy means by "they do the work" is that they translate your keywords into the local language, upload your images to their servers and offer up their customer base.

 

If you wanted to sell on all the distributor agencies so you get a more direct cut, you would have to upload the same images that are already on Alamy to the distributor agency's servers. Then you would have to re-keyword every image in the language of the agency.  And for every foreign agency you would have to do this if their language is something other than English. Would you bother? All that time is worth money, so giving up 20% for someone else to that seems reasonable to me.

 

Pierre for example runs his agency. His clients pay him a cut to do all the nasty keywording and uploading for them so they can spend time taking images.  Sometimes its smart cause time is money.

 

I have pointed out before that I sell on 3 levels with my horse and dog products. I sell directly at shows and locally.  I have some stores that sell my products and of course I don't make as much but I have access to their customer base that I wouldn't have otherwise.  Then I sell on a distributor level to larger wholesalers who in torn sell to stores across Canada and the US.  I have an even smaller cut, but a customer base I could never access.

 

If given the chance, would you bother to upload your images to these distributors directly, or would you say, not worth the time? By selling for slightly less to them through Alamy, you are accessing a customer base you would not otherwise have access to, and the distributor does the keywording and uploading.

 

Jill

It's my experience that the majority of "picture buyers" around the world have good English speaking skills - they need to as essentially the biggest "picture suppliers" come from English speaking countries. As far as I can see from Alamy's distributors they don't "translate your keywords" either - the caption and keywords remain in English.

 

 

Then why aren't you uploading to these agencies directly, and then opting out of the distributor scheme? That would solve the problem if you want access to those customers, but don't want to pay a 3rd party for it.

 

Jill

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As an addendum to this topic I would also note that Alamy include all Stockimo images automatically in distributor sales - there is no opt-out as far as I can see on Stockimo App. 

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What Alamy means by "they do the work" is that they translate your keywords into the local language, upload your images to their servers and offer up their customer base.

 

If you wanted to sell on all the distributor agencies so you get a more direct cut, you would have to upload the same images that are already on Alamy to the distributor agency's servers. Then you would have to re-keyword every image in the language of the agency.  And for every foreign agency you would have to do this if their language is something other than English. Would you bother? All that time is worth money, so giving up 20% for someone else to that seems reasonable to me.

 

Pierre for example runs his agency. His clients pay him a cut to do all the nasty keywording and uploading for them so they can spend time taking images.  Sometimes its smart cause time is money.

 

I have pointed out before that I sell on 3 levels with my horse and dog products. I sell directly at shows and locally.  I have some stores that sell my products and of course I don't make as much but I have access to their customer base that I wouldn't have otherwise.  Then I sell on a distributor level to larger wholesalers who in torn sell to stores across Canada and the US.  I have an even smaller cut, but a customer base I could never access.

 

If given the chance, would you bother to upload your images to these distributors directly, or would you say, not worth the time? By selling for slightly less to them through Alamy, you are accessing a customer base you would not otherwise have access to, and the distributor does the keywording and uploading.

 

Jill

It's my experience that the majority of "picture buyers" around the world have good English speaking skills - they need to as essentially the biggest "picture suppliers" come from English speaking countries. As far as I can see from Alamy's distributors they don't "translate your keywords" either - the caption and keywords remain in English.

 

 

Then why aren't you uploading to these agencies directly, and then opting out of the distributor scheme? That would solve the problem if you want access to those customers, but don't want to pay a 3rd party for it.

 

Jill

 

Not worth it Jill. Point is it is worth it to Alamy as they don't mind if an image sells for $1.20 . But it doesn't really help individual photographers. 

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The third party does all the work? Incomprehensible. This must be a misprint.

 
What about Alamy’s work in creating the library? What about the photographer’s work in creating the image? Both Alamy and the photographer have worked very hard to create something of value.
 
+1 and +1 ManWay for pointing out this misprint.
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Can I have another order of cheese to go with the fine whine please?

 

Op-out if you don't want to be "ripped off", stay in if you don't mind. Is this something you just find out today? Those not so fine prints have been there for looong time.

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What Alamy means by "they do the work" is that they translate your keywords into the local language, upload your images to their servers and offer up their customer base.

 

If you wanted to sell on all the distributor agencies so you get a more direct cut, you would have to upload the same images that are already on Alamy to the distributor agency's servers. Then you would have to re-keyword every image in the language of the agency.  And for every foreign agency you would have to do this if their language is something other than English. Would you bother? All that time is worth money, so giving up 20% for someone else to that seems reasonable to me.

 

 

None of my images I've found on distributor sites have been translated. They appear just as they do when I upload them to Alamy.

If you have an example showing images with translated captions and keywords please post.

 

 

 

fD

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What Alamy means by "they do the work" is that they translate your keywords into the local language, upload your images to their servers and offer up their customer base.

 

If you wanted to sell on all the distributor agencies so you get a more direct cut, you would have to upload the same images that are already on Alamy to the distributor agency's servers. Then you would have to re-keyword every image in the language of the agency.  And for every foreign agency you would have to do this if their language is something other than English. Would you bother? All that time is worth money, so giving up 20% for someone else to that seems reasonable to me.

 

 

None of my images I've found on distributor sites have been translated. They appear just as they do when I upload them to Alamy.

If you have an example showing images with translated captions and keywords please post.

 

 

 

fD

 

 

 

Not directly translated, but they use translation software. On this site here: http://www.latinstockecuador.com/Site/homenet/Default.aspx?m=pu.jpg

 

I type in the spanish for horse which is 'caballo" - Images from Alamy with the word horse appear in the searches.

 

I think most people's complaints about distribution isn't so much a smaller cut, its just that a lot of the fees charged by the distributors is so low that by the time they get their 30%, its pretty abysmal. For that you have to either decide to opt in or out, and hope some of the sales are from the better paying distributors.  I just got a cleared payment for a distributor sale. Total sale was $92, I got $28. I've had less from Alamy direct sales. It's taking the good with the bad.

 

Jill

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Not directly translated, but they use translation software. On this site here: http://www.latinstockecuador.com/Site/homenet/Default.aspx?m=pu.jpg

 

 

I type in the spanish for horse which is 'caballo" - Images from Alamy with the word horse appear in the searches.

 

I think most people's complaints about distribution isn't so much a smaller cut, its just that a lot of the fees charged by the distributors is so low that by the time they get their 30%, its pretty abysmal. For that you have to either decide to opt in or out, and hope some of the sales are from the better paying distributors.  I just got a cleared payment for a distributor sale. Total sale was $92, I got $28. I've had less from Alamy direct sales. It's taking the good with the bad.

 

Jill

 

 

 

I did a search for "Os Gemeos" which I'd expect to be pretty much the same in English, Spanish and Portuguse, but I'm still seeing the caption and description in English. International characters that appear on Alamy don't seem to be supported on LatinStock

http://www.latinstockecuador.com/Site/dotnet/brImagemAmpliada.aspx?id={AD830F2F-13B7-47DB-B04B-4C76408EC709}&ehPrimeira=false&ehUltima=false&MenuId=126&pkt=

 

I managed to find one of my images by searching "Perro"  but the photo doesn't show any caption or description. Spanish keywords must be hidden.

http://www.latinstockecuador.com/Site/dotnet/brImagemAmpliada.aspx?id={4519F26B-354F-45BC-B8C6-2DA274214634}&ehPrimeira=true&ehUltima=false&idioma=2&MenuId=117

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I think most people's complaints about distribution isn't so much a smaller cut, its just that a lot of the fees charged by the distributors is so low that by the time they get their 30%, its pretty abysmal. For that you have to either decide to opt in or out, and hope some of the sales are from the better paying distributors. 

Jill

 

 
I have no complaints about distribution. The split is industry standard, and anyone can opt out if they want to.
 

 

My concern is the thinking behind the statement that the distributor does “all the work”.
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I think most people's complaints about distribution isn't so much a smaller cut, its just that a lot of the fees charged by the distributors is so low that by the time they get their 30%, its pretty abysmal. For that you have to either decide to opt in or out, and hope some of the sales are from the better paying distributors. 

Jill

 

 
I have no complaints about distribution. The split is industry standard, and anyone can opt out if they want to.
 

 

My concern is the thinking behind the statement that the distributor does “all the work”.

 

 

I think what Alamy is referring to is putting the images on their site, dealing with the customers, billing, collecting, etc. A poor choice of words. Should be "you don't have to do any extra work". I too think their choice of phrase is a bit extreme.

 

Jill

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I withdrew from distribution quite some time ago now, I didn't think that 70% of my efforts being spirited away was a good deal. Even back then I felt that two agents were sharing the load of one and were due no more than a combined 50%. I withdrew from this when I had a full time job so I feel Manway was wrong here. But sure, Alamy's choice of phrase could have been better, without photographers, agents and distributors are nothing.

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I love it when distributors do do the work.  Over the past few weeks one NYC distributor agency made a couple of editorial sales totalling $1120.  I only get 25% (not 30%), but that's fine, because they made sales and sold for prices that I couldn't, and I don't belong to that agency.  I just got £52 from an agency in Korea - the price they got will be at least 4 times that amount.  Great.  What are the chances of my selling anything to Korea? 

 

If I were getting sales like these from Alamy distributors I'd be happy with 20%. 

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The third party does all the work? Incomprehensible. This must be a misprint.

 
What about Alamy’s work in creating the library? What about the photographer’s work in creating the image? Both Alamy and the photographer have worked very hard to create something of value.
 
+1 and +1 ManWay for pointing out this misprint.

 

 

Yup, it was an unfortunate choice of words.

 

Something like "They do any additional work needed to license your work to their clients." might have worked better. 

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I do not like the way this was written and as of tonight, after seeing two distributor licenses

I am not happy with the fees, even if I received 100% of them and I happen to know who the

images were licensed to.  In the world that I came from, the world that made it possible for

me, did I say ME, to create most of the images that I have available on Alamy,  in that world

the hosting Agency got 33.3%, the distributor got 33.3% and the contributing photographer

(the one that really did the work that matters) got 33.3%. That is the right way or the fair way to do it.

 

BTW: in the 1970's,80's,90's and 00's real agencies paid half of the expenses that it cost the photographer

to create images.  I do not know how it works now, I got out of the agency business.

 

Most that have read my posts during the last decade know that I never write negatively about

Alamy, but the two items mentioned in the first paragraph above really disturbes me.

 

Chuck (the original one)

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There must be some work in extracting the fee from the distributor which I assume Alamy undertake. I have been waiting months for a fee to appear in my account. Each month Alamy say email us if it hasn't appeared and each month they email back saying they are "still working on it". What work is this I wonder? Sending out a bill and waiting?

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