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First Six Months of 2013


First Six Months of 2013  

72 members have voted

  1. 1. How does your number of sales during the first six months of 2013 compare with the same time period in 2012?

    • better
      37
    • worse
      23
    • about the same
      12


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Hmmm...I'm not sure a straight-out comparison of total number of sales is the best way to look at this. Most of us have had more images on sale in 2013 than we had in 2012. I clicked "better," and that's true for me even on a per-image basis, but I think a more meaningful comparison would be sales-per-[total # of images on sale], rather than just total sales.

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Hmmm...I'm not sure a straight-out comparison of total number of sales is the best way to look at this. Most of us have had more images on sale in 2013 than we had in 2012. I clicked "better," and that's true for me even on a per-image basis, but I think a more meaningful comparison would be sales-per-[total # of images on sale], rather than just total sales.

 

True enough. But this might give a rough idea. Also, respondents can take into account the number of images they have added during the past year and answer accordingly.

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Here are some statistis that mean absolutely nothing.

 

End of June 2012 - I had 1675 images available for licensing

End of June 2013 - I have 3134 images available for licensing

 

First 6 months of 2012, I had licensed 2 images for an average of $76.09 gross

First 6 months of 2013, I have licensed 4 images for an average of $73.25 gross (one of those licenses is a novel use which will bring the average down)

 

First 6 months of 2012, if I take total images available for licensing and divide it by gross sales, I get to .0908 per image

First 6 months of 2013, if I take total images available for licensing and divide it by gross sales, I get to .0934 per image

 

My conclusion - I am worse off in that the time and energy spent in nearly doubling my portfolio hasn't changed anything from a numbers perspective year over year.  It also brings up the point that if I wanted to live from stock and gross $30,000 a year at Alamy, I would need to have 160,560 images in my portfolio at my rate of return.  After Alamy's take, that would give me $15,000/year.

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The first 6 months of 2013 earned me only 45% of what I've earned in the first 6 months of 2012.

 

The number of sales of 2013 is only 42% of what I had in 2012, meaning that there was a slight increase in the average sale price. At least, a small good news.

 

Yet, the number of zooms only had a drop of 10% comparing the same periods of time. As I've mentioned in another thread this is the bit confusing me. Almost the same zooms but a huge drop in sales.

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@Ed Endicott: You may find those statistics to be meaningless, but they actually show the importance of being precise about the poll:

 

By total number of sales, you should click "better" for the poll.

 

By number of sales per number of images on sale, you should click "about the same" (twice as many sales on roughly twice as many images).

 

By income (not covered in this poll, but I think that's a poll Reimar and others would like to see), you should click "about the same."

 

By income per number of images on sale, you should click "worse."

 

Most of us are probably familiar with the saying, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." Handled properly, though, statistics can help to reveal some kernel of truth. I'm actually curious about what this poll might show, but I think it's important for people to be precise in their answers for us to get much meaning from it. I hope people will take the number of images they've had on sale into consideration when they answer (as I believe is the original spirit of the poll; J.M., correct me if I'm wrong). I hope that anyone interested in the related (but different) question of income will start a different poll. I personally am interested in sales as separate from the income issue because a recent thread in this forum suggested that some people have seen a serious drop in sales (among them Jose Elias), while others have had average or better months lately, and I haven't seen a really convincing explanation for that. I don't expect this poll to provide an explanation, but it might give us a sense of how many people have seen sudden drops in sales. For myself, although my sales are up (significantly) in 2013, my net income is down, and the explanation is clear: falling license fees and the switch to a 50/50 split. That's no mystery to me, so I am less interested in a poll on income right now (though I wouldn't mind seeing it addressed separately).

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The problem with statistics is they are subject to interpretation.  Take a look at the number of images licensed compared to the prior year.  It doubled...along with the number of images online.  One of those licenses was novel use (for $1).  That is actually worse in that even though I doubled my collection, my sales only increased by 1.5 times.  The positive is that if I exclude the novel use sale the average revenue per image downloaded has increased (from a gross sale perspective).

 

My response on the poll was "about the same"...but I am leaning more towards worse because of all the factors, the only change is an increase in license fees....but Alamy cut commission so my net is worse.

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Poll is a good conversation starter & I voted, but Number of Sales seems rather out of context - Net Amount Earned? # of files?

 

 

I imagine that just about everyone's net income is down after the drop in commissions earlier this year. Mine certainly is.

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I didn't vote as I've only really started working on my portfolio since January. Two sales this week have cheered me up a bit and given me the boost I needed to keep going.

 

Stats are interesting but comparisons are hard due to the major changes to the site that have happened since last year.

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The value of my sales are significantly down, the volume is slightly down added to the change in commission its stating to just not be worth it. I am now seriously thinking of  giving up Alamy altogether. My last sale which I had to inform Alamy about (i.e. not reported from last may) was a grand total of $9, what is the point ?

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# regular sales 1.8 x higher

# novel use sales 3.6 higher (some NU sales are higher than reg sales)

 

$$ 

1.5 x higher gross.

1.2 x higher net.

(because of distributor sales not 1.25)

 

wim

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Sales in number of sales Jan-Jun 2012 exactly equals 2013; however number of images increased...Don't know by how many as I can't find a way to see how many I had up a year ago????

Nett fees - 35%. So allowing for loss due to commission cuts actually down about 18%.

 

So overall worse off.  :(

 

However, things are better at other places, and on commissioned work, so overall business is heading in the right direction for me.  :D

 

Phil

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<> number of images increased...Don't know by how many as I can't find a way to see how many I had up a year ago????

 

If you don't mind some counting, you could use Track submissions (http://www.alamy.com/royalty-free-images-my-submissions.asp).

( -royalty-free-images ? - must be a very old part of the system )

 

wim

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<> number of images increased...Don't know by how many as I can't find a way to see how many I had up a year ago????

 

If you don't mind some counting, you could use Track submissions (http://www.alamy.com/royalty-free-images-my-submissions.asp).

( -royalty-free-images ? - must be a very old part of the system )

 

wim

Didn't think of that...

 

So a quick calculation shows a 12% increase in images from Jun to Jun.

 

So am I right in saying that I should expect a 12% increase in sales by number of images? Or is there a different calculation I should use?, maybe somehow factoring in the fact that the images were added gradually? 

Any statistics experts care to comment?

 

Phil

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Have to say that I'm somewhat surprised by the poll results so far. Based on my own experience so far this year, I would have thought that there would be more "worse" votes than there are. I guess it goes to show what a diverse and unpredictable place Alamy has become. Then again, the forum represents only a small subset of the Alamy Nation.

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Have to say that I'm somewhat surprised by the poll results so far. Based on my own experience so far this year, I would have thought that there would be more "worse" votes than there are. I guess it goes to show what a diverse and unpredictable place Alamy has become. Then again, the forum represents only a small subset of the Alamy Nation.

It really depends on how you calculate it. While some of us have reported an increase in sales as well as net income, many of us also have more images online than we did a year ago. The number of images I have online increased by approximately 1.59 during 2013 but my net incoming during the first six months of the this year only increased by 1.145 over last year.

 

If we were to base this survey on $ per image I'm sure the figures would be quite different.

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Hmmm...I'm not sure a straight-out comparison of total number of sales is the best way to look at this. Most of us have had more images on sale in 2013 than we had in 2012. I clicked "better," and that's true for me even on a per-image basis, but I think a more meaningful comparison would be sales-per-[total # of images on sale], rather than just total sales.

yes correct, I clicked more sales but I have about double the images, so in real terms I'd say about the same or slightly less

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