pancakes

MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Author Topic: Alamy editorial vs iStock editorial sales  (Read 8304 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

« on: December 10, 2016, 07:35 »
0
Has anyone got any experience of how Alamy editorial sales compare to iStock editorial sales, for both volume and royalties?

iStock has stopped inspecting my editorial images for a month now and I can't get anyone to fix it so I'm thinking of sending my editorial images to Alamy as RM instead.

This is the sort of content I produce:

http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/search/photographer?collections=sku&photographer=fotovoyager&excludenudity=true&sort=best


ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #1 on: December 10, 2016, 07:42 »
+1
You'll just have to suck it and see.
Historically I did better from iS, but with a high proportion of my rapidly falling sales  being subs, and iS/Getty's contempt for both contributors and buyers, I'm only submitting to Alamy for the moment (inasmuch as I'm able to submit anything, [personal/time issues]).
« Last Edit: December 10, 2016, 18:58 by ShadySue »

« Reply #2 on: December 10, 2016, 12:11 »
+3
as for volume iStock still wins, but it's almost exclusively subscription sales for 0.28. I stopped submitting there a couple of months ago. At Alamy not so many sales but much higher revenue ranging between 15-150$/sale
« Last Edit: December 10, 2016, 12:38 by sigalavaca »

« Reply #3 on: December 10, 2016, 12:33 »
+1
Make that 5-150$ sale. Had 2 x 5$ in November.

« Reply #4 on: December 10, 2016, 12:39 »
+2
That's strange my recent editorials have been inspected in less than a day.  I'd say you should put the ones you don't expect to sell often on Alamy.

« Reply #5 on: December 10, 2016, 15:40 »
0
That's strange my recent editorials have been inspected in less than a day.  I'd say you should put the ones you don't expect to sell often on Alamy.

Almost a month for my last. Are you IS exclusive?

« Reply #6 on: December 10, 2016, 15:45 »
0
That's strange my recent editorials have been inspected in less than a day.  I'd say you should put the ones you don't expect to sell often on Alamy.

Almost a month for my last. Are you IS exclusive?
Yep, so is fotovoyager.  I do also have some RM on Alamy.

« Reply #7 on: December 10, 2016, 16:29 »
0
That's strange my recent editorials have been inspected in less than a day.  I'd say you should put the ones you don't expect to sell often on Alamy.

Almost a month for my last. Are you IS exclusive?
Yep, so is fotovoyager.  I do also have some RM on Alamy.

Well I always defended IS exclusive getting better treatment for loyalty. I guess there's one example. Faster editorial reviews. The pay for IS vs Alamy editorial is between 50 or 70 IS to one Alamy download money. The number of downloads from IS in much more then 70 to one, so it's pretty close depending on what the photo is. Maybe IS makes more, I have far too many RF other on IS to know just editorial sales compared.

« Reply #8 on: December 10, 2016, 22:40 »
0
My sales on Alamy are not near 70 times higher than my iStock sales even counting subs and pp.

« Reply #9 on: December 11, 2016, 05:05 »
0
I reckon 1 in 10 of my sales on iStock are editorial, with an average royalty of $8ish. I had high hopes for editorial images on Getty but they only transferred 400 of my 2000 editorial images with no feed back about what the problem is or when or if it'll be resolved.

I like the look of the Alamy site, and I definitely like the idea of 50% royalties, even if, as I suspect, a lot sales come through partners and you end up with 30%.

My previous RM agent has decided they don't want to do RM any more now that Getty have effectively hamstrung those sales so Alamy looks like a good place to go.

I'll give iStock till Xmas to sort my problem out, then I'll put the hundreds of editorial images from my last trip to Kathmandu and the Himalayas on Alamy and see how they go there over the next six months.

It's a shame because iStock has improved significantly for me over the past few months. I was hoping we'd turned a corner there, but if they won't sort my problems out I'll have to come up with alternatives.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #10 on: December 11, 2016, 06:24 »
+1
I reckon 1 in 10 of my sales on iStock are editorial, with an average royalty of $8ish.
Really? Even averaging over subs sales?
My editorial sales on iS are around 45%, but with so few credit sales nowadays, my average is much, much lower than that.

Quote
I had high hopes for editorial images on Getty but they only transferred 400 of my 2000 editorial images with no feed back about what the problem is or when or if it'll be resolved.
Apparently some have had half or 'most' of their files ported over.
I've had <3% ported over.

It's a mixed blessing, though. Nowadays some of my purple Getty sales net me less than a sub sale, even less than 20c, which is unacceptable to me.

Also, for some ridiculous reason they've declined to explain, iS editorial aren't going into Getty editorial, but into Getty 'creative' with a note that they can only be used editorially. So someone needing an editorial photo can't use an iS editorial file, and people may click on what looks like a 'creative' (stupid word for commercially-usable) file then find it isn't available. How to piss off possible buyers in one step, and is almost guaranteed that some editorial files will be used commercially (which already happens with iS editorial files, even though they're better indicated).

Quote
I like the look of the Alamy site, and I definitely like the idea of 50% royalties, even if, as I suspect, a lot sales come through partners and you end up with 30%.
...
I'll give iStock till Xmas to sort my problem out, then I'll put the hundreds of editorial images from my last trip to Kathmandu and the Himalayas on Alamy and see how they go there over the next six months.
I wouldn't bank on iS sorting any problems out, whether porting editorials (they also declined to explain why it was happening patchily between contributors and why it's taking time anyway) or sorting the false keywords their system is currently inserting into files without us or CR being able to do anything about it, which is really messing about searches. I suspect it's because iS's CV is being changed to be more in line with Getty's, which has long been inaccurate in many areas. Yet another regression.

Also, six months isn't long enough on Alamy. Some of their buyers don't even report sales during that time. I was 8 months/>800 images before I had my first reported sale, though obviously some sales, e.g. from one-off buyers, are reported and paid for immediately. You can opt out of distributor and UK Newspaper Scheme sales. Some distributor sales are very low value (eg from Italy), but some are high value, even though we only get 30%.

Quote
It's a shame because iStock has improved significantly for me over the past few months. I was hoping we'd turned a corner there, but if they won't sort my problems out I'll have to come up with alternatives.
Wow, congrats on your uptick on iStock. Is it commensurate with your current effort? From what I'm reading in various open and closed sources, the few people who are maintaining sales or $$ on iS are saying it still isn't worth their outlay/time/effort with new files.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #11 on: December 11, 2016, 06:31 »
0
My sales on Alamy are not near 70 times higher than my iStock sales even counting subs and pp.
My average rpd on Alamy is just under 5x my iS average including subs/GI/G+/Connect. However, I'm in both the UKNS and distribution. If I weren't, I'd have fewer sales but a higher rpd.
From what I see in the forum, which is only a tiny proportion of Alamy vendors, it seems that a lot of the people who are reporting high value (rather than, necessarily, high volume) sales have either solely or a high proportion of North American content, which has also been my experience (my higher value sales seem to be from my small US content). Possibly because a US magazine, newspaper or book probably has a much higher number of impressions than a corresponding UK publication, which in RM terms means more money.

« Reply #12 on: December 11, 2016, 07:38 »
0
I reckon 1 in 10 of my sales on iStock are editorial, with an average royalty of $8ish.
Really? Even averaging over subs sales?
My editorial sales on iS are around 45%, but with so few credit sales nowadays, my average is much, much lower than that.

That's just iStock credit sales. I have no way of easily measuring the percentage of sub sales.

My analysis scripts show that half my iStock credit downloads are S+ and are less than 2 years old, both of which I've worked hard to supply, so that may account for my improvement in sales.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #13 on: December 11, 2016, 10:36 »
0
I reckon 1 in 10 of my sales on iStock are editorial, with an average royalty of $8ish.
Really? Even averaging over subs sales?
My editorial sales on iS are around 45%, but with so few credit sales nowadays, my average is much, much lower than that.

That's just iStock credit sales. I have no way of easily measuring the percentage of sub sales.

My analysis scripts show that half my iStock credit downloads are S+ and are less than 2 years old, both of which I've worked hard to supply, so that may account for my improvement in sales.

Sorry, I meant is your average $8 even including subs, but if you have a lot of files going to Getty, that might, or might not, help your rpd. Some months I only have tiny value Getty sales, which pull the overall average down even further than subs, other months are luckier.
Still, if you're aiming for S+ that presumably means releases, so expenses for models, as well as time and effort finding and setting them up. If that's still paying off for you, well done!

« Reply #14 on: December 11, 2016, 14:33 »
+1
Well I'm not exclusive but I can confirm my editorials are always reviewed in under a day (often minutes). Uploaded some last night and they were approved when I got up this morning. Sounds like there may be some other issue here if yours are waiting a month. Non editorial, on the other hand, are currently taking several weeks before review.

« Reply #15 on: December 11, 2016, 17:14 »
0
I have a few thousand files at Alamy and a few thousands editorial at Istock/Getty. What I get from Alamy is peanuts compared to Istock editorial revenue. Although I really like Alamy as an agency, from a commercial point of view they are a complete waste of my time. Other might have different experiences.


 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
2 Replies
5295 Views
Last post October 09, 2008, 05:47
by Smithore
8 Replies
8288 Views
Last post August 28, 2010, 13:30
by ShadySue
5 Replies
9905 Views
Last post September 07, 2010, 19:24
by RacePhoto
2 Replies
4376 Views
Last post July 28, 2014, 21:22
by THP Creative
0 Replies
3582 Views
Last post October 07, 2015, 19:35
by anathaya

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors