Quote from: Elenathewise on February 14, 2012, 16:45

Hmm. If you're shooting regular stock and want to earn a couple of thousands dollars per month, you'd need about 30-40 thousands images. That's take you a while to shoot and upload. Unless you're a stock genius and can do it with 5,000 images.
I have heard that editorial images sell better on Alamy than regular stock, but I haven't tried that myself yet.

Why is that so? I mean working with MS agencies you could earn that with 5k as you said easily, even with half of that. If you're a decent tog (not great or even the best) you can easily get a RPI of over 1$ a year. I'm getting around 2 and I'm sure my RPI is not even at 10% of the best togs.

Yes 2/image. As of late, 9 or so, but it doesn't matter since SS brings in more than half of the dough and apart from a few dozen bucks, the rest is split between the other top 5 sites.

I've hinted around this on other threads, but i'd like to just ask this outright....  Is it possible to start with Alamy now and make a living from it?  I understand it takes time, but is it possible for an average photographer like me to make a go of it in say a year or so if i upload a bunch?  (assuming i get accepted, haven't figured out what 4 pix to get to them for initial QC)  Thanks for all the help.  Roger

Hmm. If you're shooting regular stock and want to earn a couple of thousands dollars per month, you'd need about 30-40 thousands images. That's take you a while to shoot and upload. Unless you're a stock genius and can do it with 5,000 images.
I have heard that editorial images sell better on Alamy than regular stock, but I haven't tried that myself yet.

Quote from: Ed on February 14, 2012, 18:58

Quote from: wut on February 14, 2012, 18:02

Yes 2/image. As of late, 9 or so, but it doesn't matter since SS brings in more than half of the dough and apart from a few dozen bucks, the rest is split between the other top 5 sites.

$9 per image per year!  Wow!  I don't know of anyone that has a 200 image portfolio that is making $1,800/year....I don't know anyone that has a 3,000 image portfolio that is making $27,000/year on those images alone.

You misunderstood, I was replying to his questions one by one (one question=one sentence). So it's 2$/image. But I've also made a mistake, it's 2$/month, not year, which would translate to 24k/year if you have a 1k port. Earning 27k/year off of 3k images doesn't sound all that good to me. It's OK, but not good and not even close to being great. For instance Lise Gagne has 7839 images, yet she sells at least 300k images/year, lets say her RPD is only 4$, that makes it 1,2 mil. Her RPI is just over 153$ (with that very low RPD and only 300k images sold we used for the calculation). It might just as well be 2 or 3 times higher . Now a RPI of 2$/year looks pretty pathetic, doesn't it

I've hinted around this on other threads, but i'd like to just ask this outright....  Is it possible to start with Alamy now and make a living from it?  I understand it takes time, but is it possible for an average photographer like me to make a go of it in say a year or so if i upload a bunch?  (assuming i get accepted, haven't figured out what 4 pix to get to them for initial QC)  Thanks for all the help.  Roger

I don't know if it's even worth it anymore, check out this pathetic sale and to make it even more absurd this is the gross price: 14 February 2012    Novel use    Novel Use Scheme 1
   $ 1.00

It takes at least 10x more time to upload and edit a photo and than they mock you with such sales at a macro site. 60c, that's just unbelievable...They've put me off of ULing for a while and if I won't earn at least as much as at FT and DT, forever

Quote from: Chicago on February 14, 2012, 16:17

I've hinted around this on other threads, but i'd like to just ask this outright....  Is it possible to start with Alamy now and make a living from it?  I understand it takes time, but is it possible for an average photographer like me to make a go of it in say a year or so if i upload a bunch?  (assuming i get accepted, haven't figured out what 4 pix to get to them for initial QC)  Thanks for all the help.  Roger

In which case the answer would be - no.

No offence intended personally, I'd say you could start with any agency and make a living from it with less than 1000 images, but those images would have to be brilliant and targeted, if you're not even sure what to send in for the initial assessment my advice would be not to give up your day job.