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A dollar per year for each image


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10 hours ago, klod said:

I would not buy equipment or incur expenses to produce stock photos.  I see it as a way to recycle thousands of photos on my drives. If you count the hours, cost of gear, etc, most would be in the red it think - unless you are one of the few members of the 100 000 or one million club.

Being a member of $100,000 club doesn't mean you can make a living out of stock. You can reach that with $5000 net per year over 10 years, ignoring costs that may be higher than the revenue. 

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I get $1 per image per year over at microland.

 

On here, so far this year I'm on pace for gross 45cents/image/year but still early days. My port is growing quickly so I think needs some time for files to be indexed and bots do their work. 

 

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1 hour ago, Brasilnut said:

I get $1 per image per year over at microland.

 

On here, so far this year I'm on pace for gross 45cents/image/year but still early days. My port is growing quickly so I think needs some time for files to be indexed and bots do their work. 

 

Is that $1 net from each micro library? 

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1 hour ago, andremichel said:

Being a member of $100,000 club doesn't mean you can make a living out of stock. You can reach that with $5000 net per year over 10 years, ignoring costs that may be higher than the revenue. 

 

 

Or work in a way that minimises your costs so that the margins are still positive. It's a business not a hobby

 

km

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I have found this to be a most interesting and useful thread. I have been struggling with Alamy, chasing, hoping and waiting for the bigger juicy lucretive sales and  wondering if I am wasting my time with  microstock etc. I am now learning that if I do eventually achieve modest success on Alamy I will not make anymore than I am already earning on microstock. I know there are big earners on Alamy. MOST WITH BIG portfolios and contributing for years. Well done them!.I am new to this game. Just over a year. Its hard work at times but the fun and challange is great. and I get a bit of a buzz every time I get another few cents from a microstock image sale. As far as Alamy is concerned I will just keep trying for the meantime. 

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1 hour ago, RedSnapper said:

 

 

Or work in a way that minimises your costs so that the margins are still positive. It's a business not a hobby

 

km

 

It is a business for you, but not for the majority of Alamy contributors. 

 

What I find impressive with your performance is not your total sales, but that you can continuously find new saleable subjects to photograph close to home, while keeping costs low. 

 

Andy

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5 hours ago, andremichel said:

What I find impressive with your performance is not your total sales, but that you can continuously find new saleable subjects to photograph close to home, while keeping costs low.

 

thanks

if you look at the first page of my photos you'll see

 

weather photos made about 200 yds from my house

good friday pix about 50 yds

snowy scenes made on my way to a commission in north wales

hotel interiors out takes of a commission

food photo from a commission

film and media outtakes  from two commissions

recycled fashion from a commission

a young farming couple and their livestock from a commission

and some drone shots ....off my own bat

 

all made in the last two or three weeks

 

i keep copyright in all my commissioned work so im free to licence it

 

Total out of pocket cost to me, about £2 in petrol to get to the abbey ruins and back

 

control the costs, maximise your income streams and it's still possible to make a living

 

km

 

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On 4/5/2018 at 12:47, John Mitchell said:

There are a lot of factors involved, but I'd say that these days $1 per year (gross) per 1000 images is a pretty good estimate for most contributors with "average" editorial collections. I did slightly better than that last year -- roughly $1.11 per image.

 

P.S. I don't have enough images with other agencies to accurately compare them with Alamy.

 

Hah, John, we must think alike.  I too had $1/1000 images in my response too, before I corrected myself on proofing. 

 

On another note: for a quick comparison, gross income does very well, mostly because it is so easy to see.  Take the dashboard amount from the graph and take 1000 images off for every year going back.  Calculating net is too much bother.

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1 hour ago, Reimar said:

 

Hah, John, we must think alike.  I too had $1/1000 images in my response too, before I corrected myself on proofing. 

 

On another note: for a quick comparison, gross income does very well, mostly because it is so easy to see.  Take the dashboard amount from the graph and take 1000 images off for every year going back.  Calculating net is too much bother.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. Just corrected my original post. Not sure what I was thinking... :unsure:

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18 hours ago, Brasilnut said:

I get $1 per image per year over at microland.

 

 

 

What is "microland"? Never heard of that one. Do you have different image on that site than you do on Alamy. or do you have the same images on both?

 

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54 minutes ago, Martin B said:

What is "microland"? Never heard of that one. Do you have different image on that site than you do on Alamy. or do you have the same images on both?

 

He's talking about all microstock sites that he's signed up to. 

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I agree with funkyworm - I shoot lots of catwalk shows, theatre performances and news. You tend to over-submit on these kind of images, too. 

But then, who knows what the clients are looking for? It might have just been the one you left out ... 

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Quote

do you have the same images on both?

 

I do save for the Live News and very specialist subjects (RM).

I'm afraid if I had to be exclusive on here and wait for sales I'd be in the poor house - that's the reality. 

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Oh dear, I wish I hadn't looked.

At the beginning of 2008 I had 919 files on my only micro, at the end of the year I had 1551,  most files added in or after August. That year I netted $5738, so over the year averaging  a bit under $5 per file.

 

Last year there it was 64c, here <30c. (different images).

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On 4/5/2018 at 17:47, John Mitchell said:

There are a lot of factors involved, but I'd say that these days $1 (gross) per image per year is a pretty good estimate for most contributors with "average" editorial collections. I did slightly better than that last year -- roughly $1.11 per image.

 

Where did you get your $1 (gross) per image per year for an "average" editorial collection from? I think it is way off the mark. It may be close for the average long term forum member, but I can't believe it is accurate across all contributors (currently active or given up) on Alamy. 

 

I am earning $0.60 currently on my 10,000 images. So you are suggesting I am way below average. Maybe you are right but I doubt it. I know people with good ports earning a fraction of that. 

 

With 125 million images, an average of $1 would mean Alamy's turnover would be $125 million when in fact it is only roughly $28 million per year (based on £20 million turnover from 2016 year's results). See thread 'Alamy Financial Results for 2016 now available' 

 

 

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Andre, the dollar per year per image number has been in circulation since the late sixties. It may well go back much further, but I don't. As an urban legend more than half a century old, it has been subject to all sorts of twists and turns. Gross or net? Or even dollars or pounds? (I've heard it every one of those ways.) My own personal belief is that it should be quoted at dollars net the contributing photographer when comparing stats. That way, the intricacies of commission and deduction calculations are left to each agency and their bookkeepers. 

 

While I don't think that a board owned by Alamy is the right place to discuss these things, net dollars per year per image is about the only way to properly compare the earning power of a given set of photos. No other numbers tell the story quite as clearly.

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1 hour ago, andremichel said:

 

Where did you get your $1 (gross) per image per year for an "average" editorial collection from? I think it is way off the mark. It may be close for the average long term forum member, but I can't believe it is accurate across all contributors (currently active or given up) on Alamy. 

 

I am earning $0.60 currently on my 10,000 images. So you are suggesting I am way below average. Maybe you are right but I doubt it. I know people with good ports earning a fraction of that. 

 

With 125 million images, an average of $1 would mean Alamy's turnover would be $125 million when in fact it is only roughly $28 million per year (based on £20 million turnover from 2016 year's results). See thread 'Alamy Financial Results for 2016 now available' 

 

 

 

Not saying it's accurate across all contributors,  just suggesting that -- for reasons unknown -- it still seems to be not a bad rough estimate of what newcomers can expect down the road. Not suggesting that you are "below average" either. As mentioned, there are a lot of factors involved. Everyone's situation is different. Also, judging from some of the posts in this thread, it sounds as if that $1.00 gross figure is trending downward for long-time contributors.

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1 hour ago, andremichel said:

With 125 million images, an average of $1 would mean Alamy's turnover would be $125 million when in fact it is only roughly $28 million per year (based on £20 million turnover from 2016 year's results). See thread 'Alamy Financial Results for 2016 now available' 

 

I'd forgotten that thread (and I started it :o ).  Alamy's 2016 financial results state that the number of images Alamy had on-line in rose from 66 to 98 million over the year. Giving an average of about 82 million. Their turnover in 2016 was £19M ($26M at average FX). Assuming all turnover came from image sales gives an overall average gross revenue/image/year in 2016 of $0.30.  I doubt it's got any better since then :(. I guess we would hope that new contributors with "fresh/topical/on trend" images should do better, as Alamy's overall numbers must be skewed by a lot of old images that rarely sell.

 

Mark

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1 hour ago, Brian Yarvin said:

Andre, the dollar per year per image number has been in circulation since the late sixties. It may well go back much further, but I don't. As an urban legend more than half a century old, it has been subject to all sorts of twists and turns. Gross or net? Or even dollars or pounds? (I've heard it every one of those ways.) My own personal belief is that it should be quoted at dollars net the contributing photographer when comparing stats. That way, the intricacies of commission and deduction calculations are left to each agency and their bookkeepers. 

 

While I don't think that a board owned by Alamy is the right place to discuss these things, net dollars per year per image is about the only way to properly compare the earning power of a given set of photos. No other numbers tell the story quite as clearly.

 

That's my impression as well. The $1 per image theory has been around as long as I can remember. Of course things were  different 30 or 50 years ago  -  fees were considerably higher and photographers often received more than 50% of gross sales, but photographers usually had less distribution options. Another important factor is the estimate was based on film images but even with dupes, the likelihood of making multiple sales of the same image, in a week or two, was less common.

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32 minutes ago, fotoDogue said:

 

That's my impression as well. The $1 per image theory has been around as long as I can remember. Of course things were  different then -  fees were considerably higher and photographers often received more than 50% of gross sales, but photographers usually had less distribution options. Another important factor is the estimate was based on film images but even with dupes, the likelihood of making multiple sales of the same image, in a week or two, was less common.

 

Yes, it's an old hypothesis. I'm basing things on my own experience over the past couple of years (after "the fall"), which sounds as if it might not be typical. My uploading is low volume and fairly steady, which might have something to do with it. I imagine that contributors who submit large numbers of images over short periods of time will probably see a much different pattern.

 

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4 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Yes, it's an old hypothesis. I'm basing things on my own experience over the past couple of years (after "the fall"), which sounds as if it might not be typical. My uploading is slow, low volume, and fairly steady, which might have something to do with it. I imagine that contributors who submit large numbers of images over short periods of time will probably see a much different pattern.

 

 

Editing is also a factor. Digital photographers tend to shoot more. If you upload a lot of similars then revenue per image is likely to be lower. A tightly edited port can sell just as well as a loosely edited port twice its size. When I first began contributing to Alamy I chose mostly images that had already sold elsewhere and my RPI was rather high. Now that I'm contributing newer work my RPI is lower. 

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