Hi there

Have fun in South Africa, and don't forget the 2010 football (soccer to the Americans) World cup.

South Africa will be huge in newspaper travel supplements next year, so editorial outlets will need all the locations of world cup stadiums, inside, out, surrounding attractions etc. If you don't already, send some the macro's way.

Plenty of scope for lots of football pics - youths on Capetown beach at dusk, couple of silhouetted goals etc, etc..

My advice, watch out for the buffalos and take a football as a prop! 

Rgds

Oldhand

Nice one! Looks like drinks on you then.

Cheers Gostwyk - they certainly are! Had another at Alamy for an illustration, which was a first - just an experiment I tried selling them on Alamy.

All good

Oldhand

For my two good old english pounds worth -

Nice one! I thought it was very amusing, would have ruffled a few complacent feathers, and actually quite catchy.

Quite rightly not worth a legal fight, but as a shot across the bows from a competitor very funny.

The Vetta pics are great, but were launched very pretentiously. For what it's worth I had my portfolio with Cutcaster on hold (only a couple of hundred pics and no sales). I joined after a recommendation over at microstockdiaries, and as he is still singing your praises and you have a similar sense of mischief to myself, I started uploading the rest of my portfolio tonight.

I'm no great micro player,  but I'll send a couple of thousand pics you way over the next couple of months.

Betta than Vetta
Betterstock than Istock?

Oldhand

On the plus side I sold my first pic on Alamy for several months - one which was in "direct competition" to the Getty collection they withdrew - looks to be one of their UK editorial newspaper scheme ones.

I see Alamy have highlighted the photographers and agents they represent on the front page, with links to all sorts of great portfolios. I recognized a couple of names from Micro  - Kirsty Pargeter (Under the selected showcase link) and Andres Rodriguez. Is he the same one as Micro, as he has a interesting gardening hobby.

http://www.alamy.com/contrib-browse.asp?cid={FAFD3C48-3E35-4691-8137-603C2128A052}&name=Andres++Rodrigue%2E%2E%2E

Any one recognise any one else?

Rgds

Oldhand

Hi there - thanks for all the replies, as it was such a large drop it had to be either a cull of poor images (I am sure that would have been mentioned on the forum) or a big supplier pulling out. With that many images a getty pull out would make sense.

I know Alamy were going to delete some pics over the British heritage copyright problems, but not that many!

Re the comments about Alamy rank, my fault the confusion, out rank is secret. I was referrring to my click through rate (CTR). Mine was abysmal, as were the placement of images on searches. I rejigged half my old editorial captions, keeping everything to the minimum. Result, my CTR increased to double the Alamy average. Since then I am always on the first page of thereabouts depending on how popular the subject is.

I should have done it a year ago when sales (for me) were better. Now I'm getting seen but not downloaded.

It will be interesting to see Alamy's results when they publish them for this quarter.

Rgds

Oldhand

Hi Gostwyk

That's also my take on it - I am sure all the figures are gross. The relativley low RPI must be the result of a lot of their portfolio's not selling  - obviously we have the differene between this model and a subscription one.

I re-keyworded half my portfolio on Alamy, which increased my Alamy rank substantially, so I am higher than the average. It's not led to any sales increase, and only a slight views one. For me they are an outlet on the slide.

More work required!

Oldhand

My two cents (pounds!) worth!

Easy upload and high acceptance are well documented for the site and true.

Bottom line, I make between 50 and 100 $ every month. There are two reasons for this as most of my material is proabably average.

One, portfolio size, just over 2000 pics online.

Two, this allows me to fave over 100 images - obviously my best. The number of fave downloads is disproportionate to the rest of my portfolio, making the most income.

Never had any mysterious deductions etc, so for me it's a site with reasonable potential.

Rgds

Oldhand

Hi there

I watched this last night - interesting old chap!

He took the oddest subjects, on a camera that looked to the unititiated like someething out of the dark ages!

Well worth a view.

Oldhand

Hi all - actually it's the second Spanish agent I have lost in 2 years - I had one for sport, and one for everything else. The sport one got swallowed by a larger competitor, the other a victim of the economy and, in their words, direct competition from micro. Add to that a German one last year that found it's RF market disintegrate with competition.

I supply Alamy, they have nose-dived the in the editorial market, and those I supply directly are cutting back on budgets.

My only growth area - micro.

Capitalism is great if you diversify

Oldhand

Just got this lovely email from an old macro agent in Spain I have been supplying for 10 years, I'll have to avoid specific names, as I am friendly with them - suffice to say they are big and well established.

"As you must know, we have been focus during the last 30 years on the
market of lifestyle, health and beauty, travel, sports, RM and RF...and
food. 

The general situation of the economy in Europe and specially in Spain has
caused that a lot of our clients has close their doors, and most others have
reduced their budget to less that 50%. So , the microstock has grown a lot
of lately. If the general situation of Spanish agencies wasn�t good,
microstock has getting worse their economy.

All the other areas so much saturated and prices are lower each month, and
 it�s not interested to work, neither for us nor our suppliers. I know that this
is the same situation formuch of the Spanish agencies, that are experiencing
economic problems that we want to avoid. "

Another outlet in macro gone.

This isn't a complaining thread, just further evidence of where the wind is blowing in the macro world - thought it might interest some of you who haven't as many contacts in these areas.

It is, however, the first time I have heard of an agency citing microstock as a reason for abandoning it's core business practices. Glad I got my lifebelt on early, at this rate I'll jump ship totally in a couple of years.

Rgds

Oldhand

Hi there

No Jupiter sales - per image downloads substaintailly higher than usual.
Oldhand

So true.  I believe that is why the OP started this thread - to get some help separating the wheat from the chaff.  And macro shooters don't seem inclined to give specific guidance on which agencies are worth the effort. 

Not that I blame them.  If I was sitting on good returns from some not-commonly-known macro agencies I doubt I would be telling either. 

The comments  you all make about good size portfolios are entirely valid, most macro want a regular supply of good images to make it worth their while representing your material, When I started a trad agency I had zero pictures. The internet was in it's infancy, and that's where I found contributors. I approached people with large collections of good sellable pics, who would not have otherwise thought that they could sell - all amateurs. Had to be ao f a good standard and decent amount, otherwise in the macro market you could not get decent returns from them on a portfolio less than say 500.

As to why I personally don't divulge specific name,  becauase seperating the good from bad takes a lot of work - old friend of mine spent two weeks flying around Europe visiting all the top agents before deciding who could represent his material - agreement's were country exclusive, so get a bad agent in Germany, then you can expect no sales from Germany for it's duration.

Prsonally I'l look for agents dealing with type of photo's I take who have been around a good while. Problem is saturation of images, you have to offer a different slant on what they have got to succeed - much like micro really.

Oldhand