Slow month?

[Marb]

So 9 sales this year at Alamy has bagged me $144. I have earned $200 on a good month at microstock. 

[spacecadet]

7 minutes ago, Marb said:

So 9 sales this year at Alamy has bagged me $144. I have earned $200 on a good month at microstock. 

Gross or net?

Even if I were prepared to sell RF for such low prices most of my material is unreleasable and to unsuitable for MS.

I've asked three times now what your MS average is and told you mine. I can only assume that you don't want to tell us.

 

[Cryptoprocta]

10 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

The inclusion of "Scotland" widens the search base. It doesn't reduce it.

Absolutely.

FWIW, I'd put Scotland and UK into the keywords, even though title and caption are searchable, in case there's some search iteration in the future which highly favours keywords. Also British, Europe and European.

 

Also I'd put 'road safety' as a keyword phrase. ATM you're covered by having 'road side cameras' and 'Scottish Safety Camera Programme' which Alamy's system currently would split and re-merge. They say that something locked into a key phrase will rank higher in search, also I think from another thread if they search "road safety" your file shouldn't show up. What about 'roadside camera' and 'road side camera' as there's no stemming, maybe also roadside cameras. I don't think I've ever tested whether roadside and road side are interchangeable in search, but I wouldn't expect it.

What about 'traffic calming' and 'traffic calming measures'?

Actually, this is the sort of image I find it most difficult to keyword. I bet there are some people who would try to get 45 keywords just to get 'better discoverability' 

[Cryptoprocta]

15 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Even if I were prepared to sell RF for such low prices most of my material is unreleasable and to unsuitable for MS.

Purely as a point of information, some MS sites sell unreleased images, as editorial-only.

[KODAKovic]

19 hours ago, Marb said:

I go by combined sales on microstock per month which averages between $100-200. Again, a single sale today bagged me £22.51. My only 2 sales here in 3 months made $ 11.78 and $12.85. Today I made $32.05 at a microstock site (not including other sites)

 

How much more convincing do you need ?

 

Marb, some months ago i was in your exact position trying to understand why "wait" so much on Alamy for bigger sales.

I then came to a conclusion: you have to ask yourself how many "Editorial"-style pics you've on your port, then decide WHICH images sell here (RM?) and which ones on micro.

I took a look at the first 3 pages of your port and you barely have more than 60% of typical micro images e.g. background, could-have-been-taken-everywhere, concept images.

So , on Alamy your port could be seen not with 1400 images but with 500 or less.

Of these 500 pics, how many are images that could sell? Did you make any market research as someone here pointed out?

That explains low selling here.

As for me, it's a slow month for me but i had a 500% increment on zooms, so i'm working fine finally

[Southmind]

11 minutes ago, KODAKovic said:

 

 

... That explains low selling here.

As for me, it's a slow month for me but i had a 500% increment on zooms, so i'm working fine finally

 

I am convinced that the images I would sell here (may be)  will be different from the ones I have on ms, but could I ask a european fellow if photos that are not taken in UK or USA have a little chance to be sold on Alamy ?  ( that's my main doubt )

 

PS :  it's a very slow month for me too  AND  i had a  500% Decrement on zooms ... 

[KODAKovic]

Just now, Southmind said:

 

I am convinced that the images I would sell here (may be)  will be different from the ones I have on ms, but could I ask a european fellow if photos that are not taken in UK or USA have a little chance to be sold on Alamy ?  ( that's my main doubt )

 

PS :  it's a very slow month for me too  AND  i had a  500% Decrement on zooms ... 

 

80% of my sales here ever have been taken outside UK/USA

[Southmind]

4 minutes ago, KODAKovic said:

 

80% of my sales here ever have been taken outside UK/USA

 

ok, thanks !

[Marb]

5 hours ago, KODAKovic said:

 

Marb, some months ago i was in your exact position trying to understand why "wait" so much on Alamy for bigger sales.

I then came to a conclusion: you have to ask yourself how many "Editorial"-style pics you've on your port, then decide WHICH images sell here (RM?) and which ones on micro.

I took a look at the first 3 pages of your port and you barely have more than 60% of typical micro images e.g. background, could-have-been-taken-everywhere, concept images.

So , on Alamy your port could be seen not with 1400 images but with 500 or less.

Of these 500 pics, how many are images that could sell? Did you make any market research as someone here pointed out?

That explains low selling here.

As for me, it's a slow month for me but i had a 500% increment on zooms, so i'm working fine finally

To be fair, a lot of the numbers on huge ports here are based on many variations, borderline duplicates of the same subject. I see no point in this. I try and submit all my shots as one off, individual images. And again, I sell many per week on micro with a moderately small portfolio compared to some.

[spacecadet]

Just now, Marb said:

To be fair, a lot of the numbers on huge ports here are based on many variations, borderline duplicates of the same subject. I see no point in this. I try and submit all my shots as one off, individual images. And again, I sell many per week on micro with a moderately small portfolio compared to some.

Not going to tell us your average sale, then?

[Marb]

9 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Not going to tell us your average sale, then?

Look, why do you keep banging on for this when I have told you my average sales compared to Alamy ? 

[Colblimp]

5 hours ago, Southmind said:

 

could I ask a european fellow if photos that are not taken in UK or USA have a little chance to be sold on Alamy ? 

 

I'm in Southern Ireland and all of my sales have been of photographs over here.  Not one of my UK pics has sold - yet!

[Southmind]

29 minutes ago, Colblimp said:

 

I'm in Southern Ireland and all of my sales have been of photographs over here.  Not one of my UK pics has sold - yet!

 There is some hope then  . Thanks

 

[John Mitchell]

6 minutes ago, Southmind said:

 There is some hope then  . Thanks

 

 

Almost all of my sales are of images taken in Canada and Latin America.

 

No doubt I'd make more sales of US images if I had more extensive coverage. Right now it's quite limited.

 

 

[Bryan]

6 hours ago, Southmind said:

 

I am convinced that the images I would sell here (may be)  will be different from the ones I have on ms, but could I ask a european fellow if photos that are not taken in UK or USA have a little chance to be sold on Alamy ?  ( that's my main doubt )

 

 

For what it's worth I'll relate my experience, but that's a drop in the Alamy ocean.

 

My best ratio of number of pics to sales (and generally higher prices) are from those taken in North America, followed by the UK. I have quite a few taken in France, they do sell occasionally, but proportionally less so.

 

Strangely enough my two best one off $ sales were both shots taken in Scotland - and I don't make many sales from north of the border.

 

To the best of my knowledge, Alamy has sales offices in the UK, New York, and Germany. The German office appears to translate keywords (into German and maybe automatically?).  

 

I believe that there is an agent in France, but I have not seen any translations from that source, so it is probably a good idea to provide your own for those.

[RedSnapper]

Making images in a place, not of a place, will give you plenty of scope, wherever you happen to live

 

km

[Southmind]

1 hour ago, Bryan said:

 

....

To the best of my knowledge, Alamy has sales offices in the UK, New York, and Germany. The German office appears to translate keywords (into German and maybe automatically?).  

 

I believe that there is an agent in France, but I have not seen any translations from that source, so it is probably a good idea to provide your own for those.

 

 

It seems to me that Alamy advises against translating keywords (I received a questionnaire asking me for the solutions I used for translation, so they must work on something). But in fact, even when I started in 2006 on a French microstock, except at the very beginning when I was exclusive, I was doing my keywording in English. On microstocks my images sell pretty much all over the world but the conceptual side is probably more important in ms than the editoriaI images generally related to a country. I only use french for place names.

In my "misfortune", I am lucky to live in a very touristy place with events of international scope.

 

Thanks for informations Brian

[Southmind]

30 minutes ago, RedSnapper said:

Making images in a place, not of a place, will give you plenty of scope, wherever you happen to live

 

km

 

So true. I was not too familiar with editorial, except for sports events or festivals. I have to work on it.

[spacecadet]

15 hours ago, Marb said:

Look, why do you keep banging on for this when I have told you my average sales compared to Alamy ? 

Sorry but you haven't. You've told us your total for a month.

Divide last month's gross total by the number of sales. That's the average.

Mine was $68 last month. Brasilnut has told us his was 89 cents net. Knowing one or two MS averages- not totals- would be instructive. It might help some of us decide whether MS was worth the effort.

[spacecadet]

Thanks for your candour.

My best image here has grossed over $1200 so I probably won't be putting up any images for sale for 50c.

 

[Southmind]

2 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Thanks for your candour.

My best image here has grossed over $1200 so I probably won't be putting up any images for sale for 50c.

 

 

I certainly agree with you,  but to be honest, one of my bestseller (since 2011) exceeded 1400 sales 2 months ago, and the licenses are not always at 50c (by the way it is rather 35c ... lol ) but for example, I got 2 licenses of this image at $13.50 and $20.62 on Sunday. Alas, this is not always the case and other times it is 35c or 1$. I would have liked to sell it on Alamy and that's why, like Kay, I upload now almost exclusively images here . It's been just 3 months that I upload for Alamy, but for now, unfortunately, the score is not in my favor... I will do my best during one year and see what happens.

[Brasilnut]

Quote

Isn't it also pleasing at Alamy when somebody does pay decent money for an image - a validation if you like that this is the picture they want and will pay handsomely for, the same one that you/me produced, and they are not buying it because it is cheap or just about good enough. They want it, will pay properly for it, and you created it! 

 

Playing on that sort of playing field in competition with all the other contributors, some of whom are top pros and even famous, and getting  properly priced sale means something to me. I couldn't stand messing about with hundreds of sales at a few cents a time. What satisfaction is there in that?

 

Yes, I agree that it's nice to be rewarded fairly for a good image.

 

Dunno about you guys but for me, let's suppose that on a day "i'm in the zone", I shortlist 100 shots. Commercially / artistically-speaking, perhaps 1 will be fantastic, 10 decent, 10 mediocre and the rest have little to no value.

 

Do I reasonably expect to be "paid handsomely" for mediocre and poor images...probably not? But they'll still get a few $ on micros. 

 

So for me it's like my best stuff will go on here and Robert Harding and the rest duplicated which perhaps are OK but not great will go on micros. The trash will go in the trash.

 

Sure, it gives me pleasure to be paid handsomely for a handsome image but I don't mind getting paid poorly for a poor picture. 

[andremichel]

1 hour ago, Brasilnut said:

 

So for me it's like my best stuff will go on here and Robert Harding and the rest duplicated which perhaps are OK but not great will go on micros. The trash will go in the trash.

 

 

Is RH bringing in the big bucks?

[Brasilnut]

Quote

Is RH bringing in the big bucks?

 

They're a friendly agency with a strong distribution channel, including Alamy.

 

Cannot speak about how much they bring in on here (confidential and I may get in trouble)  

 

I've only been with them for a almost a year so early days. 

 

Quote

A 'good image' in stock is one that a buyer wants, and will pay for, not one that photographers like.

 

I could have expressed myself more clearly. I meant to say is that since some images are more popular / in-demand than others, they will have a higher chance to be downloaded and on occasions for a higher amount. The British say "one man's trash is another man's treasure" so our perceptions can be flawed - I would love to hire an objective 3rd party to make these sorts of decisions for me on their commercial value one day.

 

I agree that it's best to let the buyer decide but there are some images that are clearly so generic that they lend themselves for MS for multiple (RF) downloads, such as the following digital composite: 

 

 

[Sultanpepa]

On 12/1/2017 at 00:55, Brasilnut said:

 

I don't have all the answers, I'm just going by with my strategy which may or may not work for everyone!

 

What I consider to be "premium" images don't go on micros since they would be devalued. As you've stated, it's best to have them as RM for better returns and ideally multiple license renewals. 

 

More generic images lend themselves for multiple downloads for low prices on MS. One example from your port would be HWK1XG, imo. 

 

I agree that Alamy will be fine as they possess a loyal client-base (I believe), but I wonder if decision-makers are contemplating grabbing some of MS's lucrative clients by offering subs. Lots of money to be made with such clients. That way they can grab some market-share from MS.

 

Interesting times ahead.

 

If that comes to pass I would have a choice to make. I may not fully understand how anyone bar maybe the agent and the client make money from this but I do understand that I wouldn't be happy at receiving buttons per image. On the whole I don't think my images would be suitable for MS and I wouldn't do well.