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Author Topic: What happen to Alamy  (Read 23881 times)

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Buffalo Bill

« on: November 08, 2014, 13:45 »
+3
My Alamy sales have fallen off the earth- is anyone else having similar bad luck? Hard to continue to upload, especially with their process, to them  :-[




« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2014, 15:33 »
+2
Sorry for your bad luck. Sales are normal for me.

« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2014, 16:03 »
+3
My sales were pretty decent last month but terrible for a while before that. It will come back, don't worry.

« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2014, 17:06 »
0
I got on the bad list at Alamy. Now all my images are rejected all the time. I was able to get 2000 images approved without much trouble in the first year.  Now not at all............Guess maybe in a year or so maybe i will be back on the good list.

Buffalo Bill

« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2014, 17:07 »
0
I got on the bad list at Alamy. Now all my images are rejected all the time. I was able to get 2000 images approved without much trouble in the first year.  Now not at all............Guess maybe in a year or so maybe i will be back on the good list.

Sorry to hear that- did you write them?

« Reply #5 on: November 08, 2014, 20:32 »
+2
Last year I had 13 sales from my 250 images.  This year, so far, 3.    Apparently some sorts of things just don't sell there any more.

« Reply #6 on: November 08, 2014, 21:14 »
0
There are so many opinions what sells good on Alamy.
And what are Your best seller?

Buffalo Bill

« Reply #7 on: November 08, 2014, 21:54 »
0
Last year I had 13 sales from my 250 images.  This year, so far, 3.    Apparently some sorts of things just don't sell there any more.

Yeah, like my stuff  :-\


Ed

« Reply #8 on: November 08, 2014, 23:18 »
+2
Last year I had 13 sales from my 250 images.  This year, so far, 3.    Apparently some sorts of things just don't sell there any more.

Yeah, like my stuff  :-\

How many images do you have on Alamy?  I'm hoping you realize that you're competing with over 50 million.

I keep adding...sales are on par with what I would expect.  I have about 5,050 on their site at the moment.

For what it's worth, 13 images licensed from 250 images is exceptional and out of the ordinary in my experience.

Buffalo Bill

« Reply #9 on: November 08, 2014, 23:35 »
0
Last year I had 13 sales from my 250 images.  This year, so far, 3.    Apparently some sorts of things just don't sell there any more.

Yeah, like my stuff  :-\

How many images do you have on Alamy?  I'm hoping you realize that you're competing with over 50 million.

I keep adding...sales are on par with what I would expect.  I have about 5,050 on their site at the moment.

For what it's worth, 13 images licensed from 250 images is exceptional and out of the ordinary in my experience.

17 sales on 2,700 for 2014- I didn't even bother to check my rating which I am sure is way below average...

« Reply #10 on: November 08, 2014, 23:45 »
+1
Fell to me too, not off the planet, but fell.

Buffalo Bill

« Reply #11 on: November 08, 2014, 23:52 »
+2
they account for about 5% of my overall income - not a huge blow but still sucks to lose the income... :-\



ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #12 on: November 09, 2014, 07:00 »
0
With 3/4 of the year over, I'm just over 1/2 of last year's dl total, and under 1/2 last year's $$:

I just came out of the UK Newspaper Scheme a couple of days ago, so I guess it will fall even further now. I'll see how it pans out.
« Last Edit: November 09, 2014, 07:03 by ShadySue »

« Reply #13 on: November 09, 2014, 10:11 »
+1
I got on the bad list at Alamy. Now all my images are rejected all the time. I was able to get 2000 images approved without much trouble in the first year.  Now not at all............Guess maybe in a year or so maybe i will be back on the good list.

Sorry to hear that- did you write them?

BB good idea . I just sent Alamy a note about my constant rejections. I have about 2000 images on Alamy that actually produce a good income each year . I hope they will start to accepting new images from me as that is the only way to keep my income fluid.   

« Reply #14 on: November 09, 2014, 11:37 »
0
I think it is interesting to share what sells on Alamy these days... my bestsellers are very travel/editorial, with a couple of images of a famous university campus in the lead. That is in terms of sales -- in terms of revenue, random stock photos are the best, as they are RF and still net a lot per sale on Alamy.

« Reply #15 on: November 09, 2014, 12:39 »
+1
Alexa rating:

Alamy:  12.335

SS:    217

 :o

« Reply #16 on: November 09, 2014, 12:53 »
0
Alexa rating:

Alamy:  12.335

SS:    217

 :o

More or less quoting myself here from another thread:

The Alexa data relating to iStock, Shutterstock and Alamy etc is estimated rather than measured according to Alexa. My understanding is that this means it is extrapolated from the data collected from users who have the Alexa toolbar installed. IMO this raises 3 key issues:

1. I have never met anyone who has the Alexa toolbar installed. I am not convinced that a typical sample group of stock buyers have the Alexa toolbar installed.
2. The last time I Googled it various of the main anti malware security vendors had the Alexa toolbar blacklisted for blocking or marked as malware.
3. The toolbar is not even available for Safari which is the default browser on Macs. As we know, many stock buyers are Mac users.

For these reasons I doubt the value of Alexa anything with respect to stock.

Tror

« Reply #17 on: November 09, 2014, 12:57 »
+4
Alamy is very disappointing these days. Especially since I had high hopes for them in the past. 

I got on the bad list at Alamy. Now all my images are rejected all the time. I was able to get 2000 images approved without much trouble in the first year. 

They should fire the responsible person and rework their whole approval process. Even at SS I have very high approval rate. Alamy rejects at random a whole batch. To be honest, I do not mind much if a couple if images, or even a high percentage, gets rejected. Usually reasonable rejections are healthy for a Agency.

The problem is that a whole series of batches gets stuck for a month because one image might have some chromatic aberration somewhere. Well, fine...please reject it. Or even the whole batch - as you state in your conditions. But rejecting not only ONE batch but the uploads of a whole month (usually about 2000 files for me) and full stopping the whole workflow for 28 working days (a considerable percentage of the whole year) is just not constructive. It helps nobody. I shows only a bad attitude. Or the helplessness of the responsible people to deal with a high amount of material coming in on a continuous basis.

We are here for business. Reject what you do not like for whatever reason but keep the objective in mind to build up a competitive library and bring in revenue for yourself and the photographers.

« Reply #18 on: November 09, 2014, 13:25 »
0
Alamy is doing pretty good over here with a small < 500 portfolio, compared to some other agencies in which my portfolio is triple the size.

« Reply #19 on: November 09, 2014, 13:32 »
0
With 4800 images at Alamy my charts look  very similar to ShadySue above.

« Reply #20 on: November 09, 2014, 14:46 »
0
I had an earnings peak at Alamy in 2012.  That dropped in 2013 back to 2011 levels and this year is almost exactly the same as last year.

As for rejections, once they notice that you have submitted something sub-standard (they normally only look at one or two photos per batch) they start to look much more closely at your work. As soon as they find anything wrong with any image they will reject the whole batch (and "blacklisted" contributors are reviewed less frequently, allowing batches to pile up). If you are submitting anything with sensor spots, significant WB problems, camera shake etc. you are taking a big risk, but the inspection standard seems to be reasonably relaxed. It's been several years since I got any rejections there.
The thing is, they want you to do your own inspections, not leave it to them to weed out your poorer work.

« Reply #21 on: November 09, 2014, 15:30 »
0
With 4800 images at Alamy my charts look  very similar to ShadySue above.

So just under $1000 last year and just over $400 this year ? That would be terrible if it was 4800 planned shots carefully processed. But it would be a really good result if it was 4800 mostly out of camera snaps of stuff found and noticed along the route. I think there is a lot of luck with that sort of thing.

Every shot I have sold at Alamy so far was shot off a to-do list. I have lots which were never on a to-do list but they have never sold. That tells me that from now on I would mostly be wasting valuable time processing and keywording random stuff which does not somehow illustrate a likely potential thing. My time would be better spent making lists.
« Last Edit: November 09, 2014, 15:36 by bunhill »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #22 on: November 09, 2014, 15:36 »
0
With 4800 images at Alamy my charts look  very similar to ShadySue above.
So just under $1000 last year and just over $400 this year ?
That's not my figures, whether you're imagining gross or net - the y-axis indicators aren't the same for everyone, as it depends on your sales, but of course, they're internally consistent for each contributor.
Also, Stan didn't say he had the same figures as me (how could he?), just that his charts are a similar shape to mine.
« Last Edit: November 09, 2014, 15:44 by ShadySue »

Ed

« Reply #23 on: November 09, 2014, 15:52 »
0
Every shot I have sold at Alamy so far was shot off a to-do list. I have lots which were never on a to-do list but they have never sold. That tells me that from now on I would mostly be wasting valuable time processing and keywording random stuff which does not somehow illustrate a likely potential thing. My time would be better spent making lists.


That's an interesting observation.  I've never shot from a to-do list and I've found that my planned photo shoots of people rarely ever get licensed.  Out of over 5,000 images online, I think I've licensed two images from planned photo shoots at Alamy.

99% of the time, my licensed images are editorial photos - whether it's from a newsworthy event or from something you won't find on the micros.

Having passed the first week of the month last week, I have one image reported as licensed.  My views/zooms for the month are lower than normal and based on searches I've done (I don't use BHZ), it appears I've fallen in rank so maybe there was a re-rank.

The thing that I do find fascinating is how people are ranked.  For some searches I've done, the images that flow to the top are not the best images available - and many are downright awful.  I'll be the first to admit I'm not the best photographer in the world, but I often look to see what the rest of the portfolio has to offer and I'm very surprised the person has achieved that rank.

As for advice to the OP, I would take a look at a few found images threads - you'll see many of the same photographers coming up month after month.  It's a huge clue as to what does get licensed.

Here's my stats so far for the year.  I've written the year off as I don't expect another payout before next January due to timing differences....but it has been a good year comparatively speaking.

 

Tror

« Reply #24 on: November 09, 2014, 17:39 »
+1
As for rejections, once they notice that you have submitted something sub-standard (they normally only look at one or two photos per batch) they start to look much more closely at your work.

I do not submit sub-standard work. Other than a couple of files with the quoted chromatic aberration issues (which are probably present in 90% of every wide angle shot below 12mm, especially with zooms ) or maybe some purple fringe here or there you won`t find many issues in my work nowadays. Sometimes I even scale the files down to 6000x4000 or 5000x3333 when I am not totally happy with the sharpness or if I think the retoucher overdid something.

I have more the same impression like the other people who raised their voice here regarding the subject that it is a purely subjective thing without any objective reasoning. Or simply random to limit the influx of material.

Otherwise, if I would do mistakes and this would be understandable or objectively, I would be more than happy to improve like I did in the last ten years. We are here to learn and improve, otherwise nobody can survive in this market. Professional attitude has nothing todo with ego games. And the same applies to Agencies and their contributor relations where randomness is not really advisable.


 

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