John Mitchell Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Like a lot of other longtime contributors, I now have an increasing pile of dust-gatherers on Alamy -- i.e. images that never see the light of day, let alone sell. There seem to be a number of options when it comes to dealing with this annoying problem. Leave the dusty ones alone and hope for the best. Go cross-eyed reworking old keywords. Re-purpose them (i.e. try to dust them off). Send them to other agencies. Or just delete the whole bunch. The list goes on... What are you doing with your precious dust-gatherers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marianne Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 One of the first images I uploaded back in 2008 was just licensed for the first time in July 2017 - for $30 - had a bunch of others taken and uploaded before 2012 that were just licensed for the first time this year for anywhere from $15-75, and I got an email from Alamy about one from that same 2008 batch to see if it was available for an exclusive book cover for I think $950 some months back (not holding my breath, I know a lot of you got the same email). Point is, unless they are really bad photos you no longer want associated with your name, or are outdated news images and you have too many similars, I'd leave them. I deleted about 200 photos sometime in the past year or so that meet the later criteria - some rather recent ones of the US presidential campaign included. So, yes, some dust gatherers can go, but don't be too energetic. There might be some gold underneath that dust. I think I should be paying more attention to the dust gatherers on my hard drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vpics Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Push the dust gatherers in a new pseudonym. Sold these no-hopers this month: Stick with it. Total amount licensed: $200.00. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 10 minutes ago, vpics said: Push the dust gatherers in a new pseudonym. Sold these no-hopers this month: Stick with it. Total amount licensed: $200.00. Good for you. Have you been reworking old keywords/tags to please the new AIM? I do have a "faint hope" pseudo for a number of my images. Perhaps it's time to create a "no hope" one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 I’ve got about 100 up for deletion. Maybe more. But this is whittling similars, best ones left. Some stupid subjects from year 1 that are photographs not stock. Some that have just expired, due to changes such as business buildings of no historical value that have been razed or renamed. If I shoot a subject again that is better than the old, delete the old and go with the fresh date and better processing. I’ve figured out what still has a tiny chance, what hasn’t. Finally. I hope. Tossed them, along with the dust. 10-year fall cleaning. Betty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brasilnut Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 I'm gonna get red arrows for this (for which I don't care) but you should consider sticking your dust-gatherers in micros. Depending on a bunch of factors but you'll get at least a few $ a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 9 minutes ago, Brasilnut said: I'm gonna get red arrows for this (for which I don't care) but you should consider sticking your dust-gatherers in micros. Depending on a bunch of factors but you'll get at least a few $ a year. Is that what you're doing with your dust-gatherers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brasilnut Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Quote Is that what you're doing with your dust-gatherers? Not yet! If I don't see much movement in 3-4 years I'll certainly be flogging them for quarters at micros. Who knows, maybe one or another go viral. Interesting strategy about the new pseudos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbimages Posted October 27, 2017 Share Posted October 27, 2017 Just leave the old stuff. I just checked back the past year, and sold 9 pre 2006 images (old slide scans) during this time. I have done a bit of keyword "tweaking" in the new AIM though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MircoV Posted October 27, 2017 Share Posted October 27, 2017 I would keep all. No doubt. Customers are looking for photos of today but als photos from the 90s. Just new pseudo. You will not gain anything by deleting. Only loosing time. Mirco Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeRay Posted October 27, 2017 Share Posted October 27, 2017 I'm having a great month at present. Easily my best ever on Alamy and half the sales are "B" and "C" images that have never been sold before. They've not been updated in AIM or moved to another pseudonym. You just never know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted October 27, 2017 Author Share Posted October 27, 2017 8 hours ago, funkyworm said: Whats the price of doing nothing? Probably nothing. Whats the price of doing something? Possibly something. When we were in the time where Alamyrank ruled the roost it may have paid to be overly paranoid, now I am not so sure. Plus there is the element of different buyers with different wishes. I am noticing in certain subjects more specific searches recently. In the past when the searches were more general paranoia over rank meant uploading less and culling more. Now the game has changed. This has been my thinking as well, so I've basically been doing nothing other than tinkering with tags when the spirit moves me (or when I'm feeling especially masochistic). I might also get around to doing a bit of selective deleting (nothing serious) at some point. I was curious to hear if anyone has done anything more radical about their dust-gatherers and if it has made a noticeable difference. So far it doesn't sound like it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cryptoprocta Posted November 1, 2017 Share Posted November 1, 2017 Just as an aside, I'll point out that of my seven sales in October: 2 were Bs, 1 was a C and 3 were Es. We're now up to Js. I don't think any of them have sold before, certainly most haven't. Looking back over the year's sales, that's a general pattern for me. A few H's have sold, but some of these were PU pics of medicine boxes, which were refunded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted November 1, 2017 Share Posted November 1, 2017 Seven Cs, a D and an E out of 13 last month. I reckon the hay fever I've got today is from the dust swirling off them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted November 1, 2017 Author Share Posted November 1, 2017 2 hours ago, spacecadet said: Seven Cs, a D and an E out of 13 last month. I reckon the hay fever I've got today is from the dust swirling off them. Actually, most of my dust-gatherers are of fairly recent vintage. I'd be toast without my older images. October: three B's, three C's, three D's, one E, one F, and one J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Hatton Posted November 1, 2017 Share Posted November 1, 2017 All my recent sales have been what I would call 2nd rate shots! you just never know what somebody wants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted November 1, 2017 Share Posted November 1, 2017 October one A three Bs three Es two Fs three Gs one H one image sold twice for the month. Betty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted November 1, 2017 Share Posted November 1, 2017 A - 9 B - 4 D - 2 E - 11 F - 5 G - 2 1 - 4x 1 - 3x 3 - 2x wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted November 2, 2017 Share Posted November 2, 2017 7 hours ago, Nick Hatton said: All my recent sales have been what I would call 2nd rate shots! you just never know what somebody wants. I have sold a few of those...some 3rd rate. But all of mine this month are good well-taken images, even the oldies. Just not necessarily high-demand subjects, or subjects with a lot of competition. I’m preparing to do some new techniques, and am excited for when I figure out all of the possibilities. Betty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stokie Posted November 2, 2017 Share Posted November 2, 2017 October 2 Bs 2 Cs 1 D 5 Es 1 F 2 Hs John. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Morrison Posted November 2, 2017 Share Posted November 2, 2017 All pix are 'dust-gatherers' until they sell! And, since I never know which pix will sell next, I wouldn't know which ones to delete... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Douglas Posted November 2, 2017 Share Posted November 2, 2017 Looking just at the distribution of an individual contributors sales by letters can be misleading because of the increasing rate of additions to the Alamy library over recent years. In the days of C and D, Alamy got through each letter in about 12 to 15 months. G, H and J have had a life of only 5 to 6 months. If you are contributing at a steady rate then would expect to have far more C images than J images. Therefore, if Alamy sales were evenly distributed across all letters, an individual contributor would see more C sales than J sales. But it would be wrong to draw the conclusion that the older images are doing better. I plotted Update to Invoice time against Date of Invoice for all my sales. I couldn't see any obvious pattern that would suggest that older images were doing better than newer images, or vice versa. Conclusion: keep the dust gatherers as they are just as likely to sell as the shiny new images! But I'm gradually revisiting earlier images to update keywording, captioning and licencing types. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Shantz Posted November 2, 2017 Share Posted November 2, 2017 I just had an image that I uploaded in September 2006 sell for the first time for $105 gross. Somewhat unusual, as it was viewed, zoomed and purchased on the same day. It was a snake, and since Alamy has only 35 images for the search term used, I won't go into any more detail. My point is simply that images shouldn't be deleted just because they haven't sold in a long time. Some probably should be deleted if you have added others that you know are better, and you don't want to take a chance on a search returning the poorer images first. I haven't done this, since I still haven't learned why one of my photos was chosen rather than another, and as such I would be as likely as not to delete the ones that buyers might actually want. Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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