katemugs Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Hi I'm new to Alamy and the world of photography agencies. I just wondered how long it took people to get their first sale? I'm feeling slightly despondent but think i may just need to be patient! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Walker Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Welcome Katemugs There's no set time for the first sale. I believe I had my first after a few months by which time I'd amassed a portfolio with Alamy of a few hundreds images of mixed topics. Most contributors who have regular sales have many thousands of images with Alamy. It's a numbers game. Keep uploading images and building your portfolio and the sales should follow. Don't upload more than 3 'similars' - just find your 3 best ones. Looking at your portfolio, I would suggest you are on the right lines - just get more images on there. Good luck John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Minimum is usually a quarter, with 26 images (on Alamy) you will, on average, be waiting quite some time. 1 sale per 100-200 secondary editorial images is a good average per annum here. It also comes down to content, if you have work that is in top selling genres, you won't be waiting so long although the billing cycle on RM can be many quarters. I think my first was in my second quarter here but that was a long time ago.......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Ventura Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Hi Katemugs, Welcome to Alamy and its forum. Your first sale could be quite while yet. Your images are nice and a good variety but way too few for this stock "game". You need patience, yes, but also about 1000 more salable images before you start seeing a sale on a regular basis. Keep shooting quality and uploading and you will see some sales eventually! Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Richmond Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I got my first sale after 5 months (June 2014) on Alamy with a portfolio of about 580 images. It had been zoomed a couple of months previously. After 8 months (September 2014) I started selling regularly and have had only 1 month without a sale since then. Because Alamy mostly works with business customers there is frequently a lag between customer interest, usage and reporting to Alamy so you probably won't know about a sale until a couple or more months after it's actually been used. You can't expect instant results but once the pipeline starts flowing it should continue providing you keep uploading work that customers want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Morrison Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I'm feeling slightly despondent but think i may just need to be patient! Despondent? With 26 pix online?? You need to be patient... and busy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I'm feeling slightly despondent but think i may just need to be patient! Despondent? With 26 pix online?? You need to be patient... and busy. +1 Good luck Katemugs; Kumar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I think I had around 800 images before I made my first sale. I didn't understand the stock game very well when I began, so the number of appropriate images was much smaller. And who's to say I understand stock today? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I had just over 600 images I think when I had my first sale. Patience is truly a virtue in the stock game. Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stipe Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I got my first sale when I reached approx. 800 images and after about 5 months I started to upload my first photos on Alamy. Keep uploading new (and different) images without being obsessed by realizing a sale. Sooner or later, you will get your first sale. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armstrong Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I waited 18 months for my first sale. I can't remember how many images I had online though. Probably a couple of hundred. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hdh Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I had my first sale, when I had about 700 images uploaded after 3 month. Bare me that is now more than 2 month ago without any further sale. My plan is to stock up to 2,000 images by the end of this year. Also I do not play any stock images game - I want to keep my freedom to what I take photos of. (Although I peek into customer searches and see what revealed the lowest number of images but only of topics that interest me) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Limb Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 First sale in just six weeks and with about 50 images on here! So it could be tomorrow for you or ......... next year! If Stock Photography was a sport it would be an ultra marathon, never a sprint! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I had around 60 I think when the first sale appeared, but that was many moons ago, and things have got a lot tougher. But, as as has been said, it just needs one buyer to select one of your shots and you are away. It took me several years and a few thousand images before I started to see regular sales, and a few more years and a few thousand more images before I started to see regular monthly payments. I don't think that the majority of stock shooters make enough from it to support the family, it's maybe an adjunct to an existing photography business, or a hobby that pays for itself and provides a bit of extra cash. If I were to consider the hours put in and the returns involved I would be lucky to make the minimum hourly wage. There are a variety of philosophies on selling, ranging from a small, very tightly edited, collection (say 1000) that you hone to perfection, by taking better shots and deleting the others, to, at the other extreme, the pile em high and never mind the quality approach. A bit of market research never comes amiss. Take a look at through All Of Alamy to see what is selling, what the buyers are searching for, and what the competition is offering. If you can find a niche you can easily make repeat sales from a single image. I spend quite a bit of time looking through the papers to see what has been used, and after a while you develop a feel for what will sell - although it never fails to amaze me what sometimes does! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlessandraRC Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I don't know the answer to this question, but make sure you can find your own images from time to time. For instance when I first started out, I uploaded a few images of an event we have here in Old Sacramento called Gold Rush Days. I assumed that, since we type in the locality where the photo was taken, in the form, I did not need to include the keywords Old Sacramento. Well, when I tried to find my own images, I could not, using "Sacramento" or "old sacramento". Since then I go around trying to find my images and adding keywords that I think might be missing. But I haven't had any sales yet, but at least I try to make my images searchable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TokyoM1ke Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I joined in August 2014 and had my first sale in October 2014... you can see that I am not exactly a major contributor (not many images and all monochrome) but sales tick in occasionally. I was actually pleasantly surprised to sell anything! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 In my case it was three months. I joined in March, made first sale in June but then it was 2002 and all this online stuff was very new! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christian58 Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Yes, its like asking, how long is a piece of string? we are all ancient, pre stoneage here and we have waited a looooooooooooooooooooooooong time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 4 months with about 700 images up. But this was when there were a quarter as many images. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marianne Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 About 9 months with a couple hundred images. That was in 2009 though so there's really no way to tell - but you've only got a handful of images and have been here such a short time that it's way too early to feel discouraged. Your work looks to be of high quality so keep it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 An image from my first submission to Alamy sold almost immediately back in late 2007. However, it's a much different ballgame now. The Alamy collection is over ten times bigger than it it was then. That said, if you upload something that fills a gap in Alamy's coverage -- which is getting increasingly more difficult to do -- then a first sale could come along quickly. Otherwise, it's all very unpredictable. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry4442 Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I've just had my first one.... Yes, I know I should add more, but I'm happy with my first sale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christian58 Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Yes, its like asking, how long is a piece of string? we are all ancient, pre stoneage here and we have waited a looooooooooooooooooooooooong time No we don't. I got my first sales after a few days. But then again I started with S T O C K right away. I started by sending a harddrive with 15000 images. Got sales almost immediately, maintained and improved my ranking and now get sales on a daily basis. The biggest problem for most is that they want to enter the stock business way too soon. If you want to sell stock, make sure you have ......... S T O C K in the first place Cheers, Philippe I know! was just kidding. Thats what I did 8 years back with, so and so, some 8000 images and sales followed immediately. Very firsdt month was, 22 sales and half of them RM sales! youre right though, people want to get in with their little dslr's, 50 shots and they expect sales immediately. No free rides anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colblimp Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I've been uploading pics since January of this year, have made no sales yet, but I know I will if I keep uploading, which is my aim. It's Patrick's Day tomorrow, and as I'm in Ireland I'll (hopefully) have a ton to upload over the next few days. Keep the faith, keep uploading and you'll certainly make sales in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MariaJ Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 I believe it was about 8 or 9 months before I had my first sale, and I had about 350 images up. However as others have said, the frequency of sales depends on many things. The quantity of images in your port will have some impact, but it also depends on the quality of your images, and especially whether you're providing what customers are looking for. Although there are millions of images on alamy, if you have quality photos of a subject that hasn't been shot much, and a customer happens to be looking for that very subject, then your odds are good! And of course, good keywording is a must. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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