non-exclusive contract

It looks like you are just on a probation period of 45 days, but your photos are NOT exclusive based upon what you posted.

I haven't read their agreement and don't submit there, so I can't be sure though.

You can legally sell non-exclusive royalty free images there, although many people consider it unethical due to huge differences in prices between Alamy and microstock sites.

I got a $1 sale (and $0.50 royalty) at Alamy last month, despite not being into the "scheme" to do so and got a $4 royalty on a RM image this week!  I'm starting to reconsider offering my micro images there if they keep this trend, but at least I got some more regular sales to make me happy for now.

After buying a new camera I uploaded some to Alamy 10 in total approved now so I hope for the best. 

Thank you for your insight Lisa! I already have some of my RF images online on Alamy but I mentioned ethical issues as it was discussed on this forum a few times.  In a way, I'm glad my line of thinking is not our of the way with reality.

I know those threads you are talking about.  I used to worry about it too, but now sell RF on both with a clear conscience.  

Guess you and I have no reason to feel guilty Goldenangel

I read this from ALAMY web:

Join Alamy as a Contributor and:
you sign a non-exclusive contract with a 45 day notice period;

So all photos on ALAMY must be exclusive?

No it is not exclusive.

What's hard to understand about the bolded part in your message? Non-exclusive means you are non-exclusive and can sell anywhere. Same deal with the no RF photos can ever be sold as RM or anything but RF... forever. Many people offer the same RF images on Alamy and micro. It's up to you. There's no rule against it except the possibility that a buyer will find it for a buck later after buying it for $200 on Alamy and be mighty PO'ed and never buy from you again. Or maybe cancel the buy from Alamy and go get it from the microstock site, which means you just made a dollar and lost $120. You are competiting with yourself, with the identical images, which seems fruitless. But again, no rule against it.

The contract says "Any amendments take 45 days to come into effect" which means they will give notice (see above, 45 day notice period?) before making changes, unlike some other sites we know that announce that, a change has been made.  

Alamy is just one more way to sell images. I have almost exclusively Editorial on Alamy, very few RF or RM. Everything I have on Micro is RF, no models or releases. Lazy mans way to work the system.

The new lower sales that people are reporting are for the special newspaper price reduction. It's come down to, selling for something or selling nothing. They bring more than micro prices and less than the usual Alamy sales. It's a different type of sale, not the standard license. The two are not the same.

It all depends on what you have and where you want to go with it. If you shoot travel, you may be happier with Alamy, especially if it's to places that aren't well covered. If you shoot more of the creative stock that Micros sell, you may want to market those in the volume marketplace. The good part is you have a free will choice.

Of course if English is a second language for you and you don't read legalize as a hobby, I can understand why it may look the opposite of what you thought it said? 

Thank you very much, RacePhoto.

Now I know what to do. I will upload some photos that I like very much but not sold good on other agencies as RF photos. And all my editorial photos on ALAMY even though I had no editorial photos now...

In fact, I was reading the article "Traveling the world with microstock" from Microstock Diaries. And Holger Mette said that:

How well does Alamy do for you?
I�m fairly new to Alamy and have a rights-managed editorial portfolio there that�s been online since the start of this year. On monthly averages, Alamy currently sits just behind the big 4, but well ahead of the lower income sites. The nice thing is that I get high value sales on images that I like, but often wouldn�t sell on micro-stock. Creatively it allows you to concentrate more on what you want to capture rather than thinking about whether there are visible trademarks or recognisable faces.

http://www.microstockdiaries.com/traveling-the-world-with-microstock.html


So, that's why I want to join ALAMY.

Another reason to join ALAMY was I try to separate Micro and Macro stock photos.

Thanks you reading my poor English article.

... If you want to upload a perfectly useless photo, that will never sell, but it's perfect exposure, feel free. Don't expect it to make any money. ...

I would be careful with that statement as previous cases have shown that completely "useless" images could generate several thousands of dollars in royalties with a single sale.

If you have been following Alamy's yearly contributor meetings they used to show some of these cases.

One of them was a picture of an old water heater in the basement. A photographer took an image for insurance purposes and also uploaded it to Alamy.
Some buyer purchased a license for that image paying over $2000.

I think that's totally worth a try to upload technically good but so called "useless" images to Alamy...

I joined Alamy a while ago and put about 12 images out there. All are also available on microstock sites so they are royalty free. Shortly after I had a sale for $45. I think that was the purchase price, not my commision. But on April 7 a refund was given to the buyer.

It took me 23 seconds (really, I'm not kidding you) to find at Google the term Barnegat Light House, search results sent me to Dreamstime, found an image of the light house and in the inferior part of the page your photo shows at a similar...  Buyers are not fools.  Your image can be found via Google with little effort and then buyers will request a refund and never come back to Alamy, or at least if they come to your image they will then check out if it is available at the micros.  

The same happens with "Petite Pink Lily flower", Google shows it at BigStock.  The "Kid in the Kayak" shows as first search result in CanStockPhoto... It goes on...

You even use your name at both sites (Alamy and micros)!

Nothing prevents you from doing this, posting the same images at both price levels, but expect to see lots of refunded sales by doing so.

Remember that there has been a lot of SEO by micros lately and pages are titled usually "stock photo of..." using in the title of the page the description you provide.  That makes Google your main enemy for this.

I've been thinking about starting to submit to Almay as well and it has been my intention to upload files there that I don't have on the micro sites.  However, I was thinking I might upload files to Almay that come from a series that I uploaded to the micros.  My intent would be to use the best photo from the series for Almay and send the rest to the micros.

So, although the exact image offered on Almay wouldn't be available cheap from a micro site, very similar files might be.

Does this sound like a reasonable strategy to those that have experience in this area?

The theory of customers getting refunds if they find the same images on the micros makes sense.  Nothing wrong with that if they want to shop around.

In my limited experience (6 months at Alamy), I have had 37 sales of images that are also on the micros and never had a refund issued.   

Infact as you already said Alamy RF license is similar to an EL license on Micro, so a buyer looking for that kind of license wouldn't find it much cheaper on Micro and just stick with Alamy.

...BTW: I think it's stupid and unethical to sell the same images at such different price points. Yes, you may get some stupid buyer to pay more for the same cheap images, but that dilutes the whole point of macrostock. It's a very short-sighted approach.

And don't get started about EL vs. Alamy RF, only a very marginal amount of sales has to deal with that issue.

I don't think it is stupid or unethical, as alamy have done nothing to stop people uploading their microstock portfolios there.  I watched their annual meeting video a couple of years ago and they made it clear that it is up to use where we sell our images and they wont restrict us.  There was no indication that they thought it was wrong to have microstock images on alamy as RF. 

Personally, I would much prefer it if they had a separate microstock site and I hope they do that one day.  I still haven't uploaded any of my microstock portfolio there but if they don't change their strategy, I probably will in the future.

Just had a look over on the Alamy forum, there is a thread about a bad September, then as I am reading down there is a reply!

Great start for October! I just made an $1100.00 sale on a common general stock photo I shot 3 years ago!

The sale could have been a couple of months ago, but it just shows you never know what will sell and when.

David