I have just seen on Alamy that they have given away one of my photos for free. It says RF 0. Is that normal? Can that happen? It never happened to me so far. That's worse than iStock.

Alamy's opaque bookkeeping drives me nuts.

Quote from: Hannafate on September 15, 2021, 08:50

Alamy's opaque bookkeeping drives me nuts.

Alamy is the only agency that I deal with that refers to the total sales value in my "Revenue" chart, prior to deducting their commission.   The other agencies at least are honest enough to report what we actually got paid after they deducted their large cut.

It used to be that seeing what the other companies took out of the full sale would have been super painful. eg - Istock - congrats on your $100 sale, we took $85. - not nearly as nice as you got a $15 sale. sadly Alamy now takes a pretty huge cut out of some sales, and a big cut out of the rest. I used to be more forgiving of waiting months for sales to clear etc. When they take over 75% of some sales though, it makes me much less forgiving and patient of their "quirks".

Soon they will give you $.10 and make you wait months and even refund that that image a few months later and take back your $.10

Wait! You would have some kind of problem with that??? 

Quote from: marthamarks on September 17, 2021, 08:58

Quote from: For Real on September 17, 2021, 08:22

Soon they will give you $.10 and make you wait months and even refund that that image a few months later and take back your $.10

Wait! You would have some kind of problem with that??? 

of course not 

 

I just had another 2 sales where I got $0. I thought Alamy is macrostock. I might as well put up my images on free websites maybe someone will buy me a coffee and I will get more for my images than from the agencies.

Quote from: JustAnImage on September 14, 2021, 06:42

Is it possible, that this sale is below $0.50, so that it gets rounded to $0 in the display on the main page?
Can you check your "Sales History" - there you will see the cent values too like $0,??

I had such a sale in July'21 where i got $0,25 which was shown as $0 on the main page

I just checked the sales history. Images where bought as editorial for $0.18.

$.18 is better than $.10 on SS--- it's the business model that we either accept or not.  Big sales are few now...

For me it would be 20% of 0.10 next year. So 0.02. Started at Alamy from June 2020 and I'm glad I received my $50 as I haven't been selling anything for the past months.

I wonder if photographers who upload on free stock websites earn more money. Not that I want to support that but I have seen a Christmas background which was downloaded 180000 times. I wonder how often someone bought that person a coffee. Why do people upload thousands of images there if they don't earn 1 cent?

The most astonishing thing about it is that they don't even mind that the agency, where they don't earn a cent for their work, is earning good money through advertising.

Quote from: HappyBunny on November 22, 2021, 04:42

I wonder if photographers who upload on free stock websites earn more money. Not that I want to support that but I have seen a Christmas background which was downloaded 180000 times. I wonder how often someone bought that person a coffee. Why do people upload thousands of images there if they don't earn 1 cent?

It's not about the money, it's about the dopamine. What the free sites (and social media like FB and Insta) have figured out very successfully is that people will spend all their time and money in creating something for them as long as they get instant validation. When you see your picture get a 100000 views and a 10000 downloads, it makes people feel good and that's what they're looking for.

That's true! But they could also be happy if they'd find out that an image has sold 1000, 5000 or 10000 times.

It's not about the money, it's about the dopamine. What the free sites (and social media like FB and Insta) have figured out very successfully is that people will spend all their time and money in creating something for them as long as they get instant validation. When you see your picture get a 100000 views and a 10000 downloads, it makes people feel good and that's what they're looking for.

You mean kinda like Microstock where someone buys equipment, works hard, has software for editing and gets a dime or less for a download? Some business plan, isn't that? But they get the joy of knowing their images have sold thousands of times. 

I'd love to see a real number from Dreamstime, as an example, of the number of people who joined, uploaded, and never made payout, which is $100.

Consider this, which I find funny. Back when we tried to get referrals for SS, from 2008 - 2020, I eventually got 17 people to sign up. Only one had any images accepted and that was 44 total. He did make some sales though. I'm sure Leaf has many more than that, but I wonder how many people, started and have zero images or never made payout?

Free image sites, are kind of dumb all over. For artists who think they will make anything, or anyone who thinks they will get any recognition or notice for their work, and especially because of the number of stolen images that are shared on those sites. Quicksand...

Quote from: HappyBunny on November 21, 2021, 01:25

I just had another 2 sales where I got $0. I thought Alamy is macrostock. I might as well put up my images on free websites maybe someone will buy me a coffee and I will get more for my images than from the agencies.

I had my first one of those this month - it was for 21 cents and I got 8.  Sucks big time.

Right now my balance is negative because they added a late distributor charge as cleared even though the sale has not cleared.  Not worth the effort to bother with them any more.

I think it's safe to say, Alamy with the new owners has become Microstock. Also for myself, getting to the minimum to stay at 40% is going to be harder, since the year runs until July and their prices, charged to customers have dropped. I thought I'd make $250 and already have, but now I think not, since it's July to July.

What I mean is, not only tiny prices and low percentages, I'll be making 20% instead of whatever I get now.