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Author Topic: Alamy. I feel special. Now what?  (Read 3842 times)

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« on: March 20, 2013, 18:05 »
0
I just got accepted (2nd try...I think I resaved one to jpg one too may times on the 1st batch).

For those of you that sell photos on Alamy and microstock:
Do you upload the same photos to all of them?  Do you sell more on Alamy if you "reserve" a few of your best files for them?
Is the editorial stuff worth fooling with?  How about travel photography?
I must admit, I'm liking their pricing structure and commission.
I'd much rather sell a photo once a month for 30 dollars....um, I mean pounds, than sell it 50 times for 38 cents. I don't want something that would sell on the micros to sit there gathering dust on the Alamy shelf either.
Thanks for any insight! (Sue, are you there?)
Sorry for all the questions.  I see a "best of" search button, but not sure if that translates to "selling like hotcakes"?


« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2013, 23:05 »
+3
We've been on Alamy for years, but really started uploading a lot last year when we gave up IS exclusivity. We now have over 3000 there (about 1200 of them are also on the micros, the rest are not)  and are very pleased with the way it's going, with this month our BME already and still 10 days to go.
I keep batting on about this, but if you haven't seen my comments, I think it's a good idea to sort out which of your images are common and which are niche - if there are very few photos around of a certain subject, and you think it's not likely to sell very often, you may as well put it on Alamy or another macro site. The theory is that if a person needs it and it can't be found anywhere else they will be prepared to pay more for it, so why put it on the micros? For example, Sydney Harbour Bridge - common, hundreds of them around, put it on the micros, unless you were lucky enough to capture it in amazing light, in which case, macro.  Another location, known to you but off the beaten track - macro. When it comes to gathering dust, lots of images gather dust on the micros, too!
I would say that everything sells on Alamy. We have a lot of travel, a lot of food, and a lot of what I call "other" - they all sell.
As for editorial, we don't do very well with it, but I don't think we are very good at it! Other people seem to do well, so it must be us!
I would just ignore the best of button - you have no control over it, it's a new thing for Alamy and a work in progress.
If you haven't started reading the Alamy forum, you can learn a lot there, but I would stay quiet at least in the beginning, as some of them do not like microstockers.
Good luck at Alamy, but be prepared to give it a lot of time. You will rarely get the instant sales that you get on the micros.
Hope that helps.

« Reply #2 on: March 21, 2013, 00:26 »
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Thanks, Light!
I had already figured out from some MSG posts about Alamy that "micro" is a 4-letter word over there.  :D
Uncommon travel photos might be my best bet.  You wouldn't believe some of the places we park our "house" and boondock.

So you have 1200 on the micros and Alamy.  Do you think that having those files on the micros hurts your Alamy sales of them at all?
Or is it generally two different groups of buyers maybe?  I'm thinking there is no way I'd pay $50 for a photo at Alamy when I could get the exact same thing on SS for $10.  But then again, I'm a tightwad.

Thanks so much for the help.  It's tough to see what sells there just from their website.

« Reply #3 on: March 21, 2013, 01:21 »
+3
I just said this in another post about Alamy but I'll repeat myself for you - I have some of the same photos on Alamy & the micros - I took a bunch of them off the micros after they were zoomed on Alamy and purchased on Fotolia, which allows the same license as an EL anywhere else. So yes, I think it's a bad idea to put the same RF photos on both - though Alamy allows and even somewhat encourages it. I have photos (both RM and RF) which Alamy has licensed for $250 one day and then licensed to someplace else for $6 or $17 or $27, so it's really a toss-up.  With some I'd have done better getting $28 from Shutterstock for an EL.

I have some RF images that I've kept on Alamy and the micros because I've earned $150-$300 (that's net to me, not gross)+ for the same photo on both micro and Alamy, so for those I'm glad I kept them on both.

I only have about 624 photos on Alamy - hoping to upload a lot more this year as time permits (I only do this part-time) - and I make 2-3 sales per month (full priced sales - plus a bunch of NU which I don't count as "sales" and which supposedly they are discontinuing, though I've had one along with 3 regular sales so far this month, so they've haven't phased them out yet). So don't expect daily sales like you get on Shutterstock and Dreamstime, but one good sale can make a big difference there. These days, many more sales are under $100 whereas in 2011 and earlier most of my sales were in the $150-250 range. Micro prices have certainly affected the entire industry - especially at Alamy which has the same crowd-sourcing concept as the micros, albeit with better prices.

I sell a lot of travel, some editorial and some concept shots - though most of my concept photos are also on the micros and sell there more often. In a few cases I made as much as $295 for a single sale on Alamy of photos that are also on the micros, but each time I sweated that the photos would be returned and licensed elsewhere, which is another reason I now keep both portfolios separate. Deciding where to place which photos has slowed down my uploading a lot, and I'm now just making decisions as to where a shoot will go and trying not to second-guess myself. I agree that more generic stuff will probably do better on the micros due to repeat sales - as do background and other design elements - while more unusual photos that won't sell often are better on Alamy.

Interestingly, the stuff I have that sells best on both are my more iconic travel images - they don't need to be off the beaten path to sell on Alamy, although I've sold some obscure images there too. And I do have several photos on Alamy - both RM and RF - that have sold 2-6 times each, with other photos from the same shoot selling as well.  These are all very different - a few lighthouse photos and other iconic travel photos taken in the US, a purposely blurred model-released business concept photo, some editorial photos of buildings, some still life & other concept shots, and one food photo - so multiple sales there are definitely not out of the question.

I have two accounts there, one news/reportage and one regular stock. Here are the links if you want to take a look:
http://tinyurl.com/ccnoknl
http://tinyurl.com/cqxdldz

and compare them to my portfolio on shutterstock:

http://www.shutterstock.com/g/wordplanet?rid=223261
Good luck!
« Last Edit: March 21, 2013, 01:33 by wordplanet »

« Reply #4 on: March 21, 2013, 01:57 »
+1
Thanks, Light!
I had already figured out from some MSG posts about Alamy that "micro" is a 4-letter word over there.  :D
Uncommon travel photos might be my best bet.  You wouldn't believe some of the places we park our "house" and boondock.

So you have 1200 on the micros and Alamy.  Do you think that having those files on the micros hurts your Alamy sales of them at all?
Or is it generally two different groups of buyers maybe?  I'm thinking there is no way I'd pay $50 for a photo at Alamy when I could get the exact same thing on SS for $10.  But then again, I'm a tightwad.

Thanks so much for the help.  It's tough to see what sells there just from their website.

It's impossible to know if having files on both is good or bad. The contracts are very different, who's to say the buyers  don't go to Alamy after finding a file on the micros, to save themselves buying an EL? The prices vary wildly, as Wordplaneet has said, so you don't know if you are better or worse off.
I think it's a really good thing that you can't see what sells. It's hard for the copy cats!

Carl

  • Carl Stewart, CS Productions
« Reply #5 on: March 21, 2013, 05:26 »
+2
I've grown weary of seeing XL sales for less than 50 cents, so I've decided to go RM at Alamy.  It was really refreshing to upload my last batch to one site and be done with it, versus uploading to multiple RF micro sites.  Too soon to tell whether or not I made the right decision.

« Reply #6 on: March 21, 2013, 12:05 »
0
Word-Thanks so much for sharing your portfolios and telling me what has sold there.  I think I have a gameplan now. I really enjoyed looking at your travel photos especially.
I love lighthouses and I have a couple more on my bucket list after looking at your photos!

Light-I think I've decided on sending one or two best-of-the-bunch from every batch to just Alamy.  I'm going to try that for about a year and see how it works out.

CS-I've got to weed out some micros.  This uploading 10-20 every night to 8 different micros has got to stop.  It's starting to resemble a certain 4-letter word I said I was going to avoid at all costs when I retired.  ;)

Thanks Light, CS, Word.  You guys are great!

« Reply #7 on: April 09, 2013, 10:07 »
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You're welcome!
Good luck at alamy.

RacePhoto

« Reply #8 on: April 09, 2013, 10:33 »
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Just a follow-up. Loved the four letter word part.

Lighthouse on Alamy = 99,936 Results yours might make it 100?  :)

Popular subject. We have some around here. I've seen books full of them. I know someone who has made a trip and shot most of them in the Great Lakes. (promised a DVD, I haven't seen it yet) I had a company offer me $10,000 to go up and down Lake Michigan and shoot all of them. Once I figured expenses, I said "no thanks" Imagine that, turning down a nice piece of work like that. I would have needed to take a month and the expenses were more than the pay.

Now if I found I could keep the rights, I might change my mind? Upload them all to Alamy or Micro.

Have you tried Fine Arts America? Sorry no referral or spam links,  :D just something for fine arts images, maybe a way to make some more money. Free account you can put up your favorite 25 images and see if you make any sales?

Here's my page, I haven't really been busy and I just removed all the panoramas which displayed poorly and I've never had a sale. I decided to take a different approach with the free account and start adding more scenic shots.

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/pete-klinger.html




Word-Thanks so much for sharing your portfolios and telling me what has sold there.  I think I have a gameplan now. I really enjoyed looking at your travel photos especially.
I love lighthouses and I have a couple more on my bucket list after looking at your photos!

Light-I think I've decided on sending one or two best-of-the-bunch from every batch to just Alamy.  I'm going to try that for about a year and see how it works out.

CS-I've got to weed out some micros.  This uploading 10-20 every night to 8 different micros has got to stop.  It's starting to resemble a certain 4-letter word I said I was going to avoid at all costs when I retired.  ;)

Thanks Light, CS, Word.  You guys are great!

« Reply #9 on: April 09, 2013, 12:02 »
0
Just wanted to thank everyone for their comments on this thread, as I just started selling on Alamy and was wondering what to sell there versus micro versus both.  Great suggestions!

« Reply #10 on: April 09, 2013, 13:02 »
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I have a small portfolio on Fine Art America - I've made some nice sales there, but it's a very big marketplace. Glad you like my travel images. I commented on a couple of your images - and voted on them too since that helps your rank. My port is here: http://marianne-campolongo.artistwebsites.com/?tab=artwork

It's easy to get lost in the shuffle everywhere, especially with a small portfolio. I'm aiming to have 1000 at alamy this year and maybe on the micros too. Depends on how much assignment work I get - how much time I have.

On Alamy, If you put in a broad term like "lighthouse" 99,936 results, 833 pages, it's quite a search before any of mine show up - but it's not the type of search a typical alamy buyer would do, for "Nantucket Lighthouse", seven of my photos of both Sankaty and Brant Point lighthouse are on page 1,  "Port Clyde Lighthouse" several on page 1 and 2. I believe most Alamy customers do a pretty targeted search. Even a broader term like "New England Lighthouse" grabs some of mine on page 2. It's easy to get lost in the shuffle, but still your photos can be found.

Put in "Lighthouse" on shutterstock and go with "popular" out of 28,485 photos (285 pages), my best seller  is on page 1. Good because I think that shutterstock buyers are more likely to search more broadly sometimes. I had an EL of that image again this week - it still sells for me several times a week, and has been on there since January 2011. Although it's a very popular tourist destination, 34% of the sales came from the search term "lighthouse," and the next most popular term it was found under was "summer." Out of 23 search terms used by buyers, the location was number 21, whereas my lighthouse sales on alamy were all searched by specific location or by "New England".

On SS try "blue green abstract background" under most popular (55,188 results, 552 pages) and I have three on page one. That's what I love about shutterstock's search engine, images get ranked on their own merits and the same files sell again and again. Not bad for a port with 150 images. I'd prefer to have 2000 files of course, but it's just a tiny part of my income.
« Last Edit: April 09, 2013, 13:16 by wordplanet »


 

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