deeindiana Posted March 24, 2018 Share Posted March 24, 2018 Hi! I've been on Alamy for only three months with about 60 approved images. No sales yet and I'm wondering if I'm missing a step or doing something wrong. Is there any way to generate more sales? Or is it sheer volume and I just need to upload a lot more images? I'd appreciate any suggestions for selling some stuff! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colblimp Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 Hi Deb, welcome to the forum. To give you an idea, my first sale came after 4 months and 400 pics online. Alamy is a great platform to sell your images but it's a huge investment in terms of time and effort. Think volume and quality and you'll get the idea. Good luck with it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inchiquin Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 On 24/03/2018 at 15:07, deeindiana said: Or is it sheer volume and I just need to upload a lot more images? Yep, that's it. 61 images in a pool of 125 million gives you a 0.00005% chance of a sale. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 1 hour ago, Inchiquin said: Yep, that's it. 61 images in a pool of 125 million gives you a 0.00005% chance of a sale Sort of, but there are significant weighting factors which change the odds, In particular relevance to current search topics and the quality of the caption and keywords - not to mention the quality of the image itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DDoug Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 The total number of images on Alamy is less important than the number resulting from a particular tag/keyword search. "Bridal bouquet" is a field of close to 50K, whereas "fiddlehead fern" is under a thousand. Shoot less common flowers (or other subjects) which might nonetheless be searched and your chances of sales will improve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cryptoprocta Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 Your images are all/mostly of one topic, floral arrangements, for which there may be a limited market in stock, especially when photographed out of context. I'm guessing that perhaps you are a florist or have a regular contact in the business. I looked at one of your images, KW6F2W. It seems like you are keywording as though to sell the arrangement (what it might be used for), rather than keywording a stock photo. It's a photo of an elaborate flower arrangement with a background which looks like a kitchen showroom. But you have keywords like do it yourself (generally refers to home repairs), florist (there isn't one in the photo), flowers at work, flowers in the office, grand opening, office, office accessories, office decor, office flowers, office setting, small business, etc which are irrelevant to the photo. Think like a photo buyer: if you were looking for a photo of do it yourself, an office, or a florist, would you be happy to see this photo in your search? Putting wrong keywords in will just annoy buyers getting a poor search, it won't help you, and could push your positioning in search down. On a side note, the photo would be more attractive to buyers if you had removed the whiteish cloth (or whatever) from the worktop before you took the image; and IMO the bowl of grapes isn't helping the composition either. Also not sure about the flare spots, but maybe that's just me! You'd be best to go back over your existing files and clean up the keywords before adding any more (the more you have to work on, the more tedious the process is). Then think of your images as stock images. What could they be used for? Look at what's already on the site and think what you could do better, as you seem to be in the business. Could it be perhaps that buyers might like arrangements on a plain white background which they could compose into another image or layout? - you could offer both. FWIW, I was nearly eight months on Alamy and had over 800 images before I had my first sale, though several I uploaded before then have subsequently sold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 If you are in the business you will have an opportunity to make photos of people doing things and those are the sorts of photos that sell here. I do think you need to revisit your keywords since I saw bridal references on a photo of a pile of tulips. Try to make the keywords very specific to what is in the photo so you don't get irrelevant searches which can hurt you. You may have an unrealistic idea of what is possible here in terms of making money. It takes a lot of time and a lot of images. It helps a lot if you have access that others don't have so your images can be unique. Paulette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin B Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 8 minutes ago, NYCat said: Try to make the keywords very specific to what is in the photo so you don't get irrelevant searches which can hurt you. What she said, plus Latin or scientific names for each species of flower in an image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Robinson Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 Numbers and diversity. With only one subject you could do very well - if it's the right subject - or very badly if it isn't. It's not all about the standard of photography - there has to be a market there for the sort of things you photograph. I find the things I enjoy photographing most sell the least, unfortunately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cryptoprocta Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 1 hour ago, Phil Robinson said: ... I find the things I enjoy photographing most sell the least, unfortunately. Only too true here too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inchiquin Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 But over time you find yourself enjoying the same things that your wallet enjoys Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 I looked at your image of the pier. You have lovely conceptual keywords which sometimes are helpful here, but more than likely a photo editor would be looking for an image of that particular pier. You don't say where it is, if it has its' own name. I suggest you search through similar images of yours on Alamy and see how others caption and keyword their images. Captions should be factual. It should sate: Which pier in which town, city, country on which body of water. Specifics are more important on Alamy than general conceptual words Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Bell Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 Am I missing a way to generate sales? Apart from taking good saleable and well processed images. Being very diligent with your keywording as mentioned above. Then uploading more and more and more................. About all you can do is sit back and hope the buyers see your images and let Alamy do their job. Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Robinson Posted March 28, 2018 Share Posted March 28, 2018 On 3/26/2018 at 15:15, Inchiquin said: But over time you find yourself enjoying the same things that your wallet enjoys Alan I think I'll always enjoy photographing kingfishers more than lumps of rock (though I know what you mean) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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