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Messages - pancaketom
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226
« on: February 07, 2022, 11:45 »
In all fairness to Alamy, in January the lowest sale I got was $1.20 (for me, $3 gross) average sale for me was a little below $25 and they were my highest earner for the month. Plus I got another 26.7 ASCRL payment.
I will definitely complain about the drop from 50% to 60% and even lower for distributor sales and I will complain even more about getting pennies for sales to China (or anywhere else) and I think the 20% is even crappier (but I made enough in January to avoid that for this year), but they also deliver some bigger priced sales and those are what matter. SS used to deliver those, but I think I made more bigger sales on Alamy in January than I did at SS from 2018 until I turned them off after the ~50% drop in RPD and RPI.
Like most of the business I think they are moving in the wrong direction, but they haven't gone as far in that direction as some places with initials like SS and IS/Getty.
I do agree that the super low sales - especially from so called distributors are pointless as far as contributors are concerned and I wish they wouldn't pursue those "exciting" opportunities but at the end of the day the bigger sales are what matters, and although they are not very steady at Alamy, at least for me they deliver them more often than anyone else does, at least since 2016 or so.
227
« on: January 30, 2022, 16:53 »
The search placement is almost everything for sales of common easy subjects. Sure, you need a good enough image, but that is within the capabilities of almost every producer. What it takes to get onto the first page, or even the first few lines is a much more complex subject and you can endlessly try to game the system, but you probably don't know what all goes into the sauce and even if you did it might change or be something you can't control or can only somewhat control (like location based parameters).
For about 5 years I had an image almost always on the top line of the search for a common 1 word search on SS. It sold about once a day. One day they changed something in the search and I couldn't find it going back 10 or more pages. Eventually it moved back up to somewhere in the page 5-10 range, but sales were never the same (more like once a month). When I uploaded it SS had an indexing glitch right after it was indexed and no new images were indexed for a few days - so it was on the first line of newest first and got enough sales there to put it on page one where it stayed until it wasn't. Obviously that isn't something I can repeat or count on ever happening again, especially for a subject with over 11,000 pages of results. It certainly would be worth taking pics of all the things that they say not to bother photographing if you could be on page 1 of the search for them though - flowers, sliced foods, pets, sunsets, you name it.
228
« on: January 30, 2022, 16:28 »
Thank you for your kind replies.
I counted my sales of a certain time span. The average was 6.8$ per sale which is much lower than it used to be 2 years ago, when if was 18.4$. Last year was similar to now. From 45 sales 13 were the 0.25$ ones. I know I said it was more than that, but I was mistaken. There are many under 3 dollars, though. The highest one was 35$.
I could say all is good as long as I sell more files, but the question is: will the customers stop paying more at other places because of Shutterstock or not?
more likely the other places will lower prices to compete with SS.
229
« on: January 25, 2022, 12:12 »
I guess if you shot in a cold place (outside in the winter or a walk in freezer) or very dry air you might not get the condensation either. Of course you might have other issues to deal with.
230
« on: January 24, 2022, 12:40 »
If a January reset is equitable and improves motivation think how much better one every month would be.
231
« on: January 22, 2022, 12:31 »
Just had a look at my photo that has earned me the most in one sale (a swan head macro for $52) and was told by Shutterstock that its popularity is 'high' and that it is 'frequently used'.
LOL. It's only sold 3 times.
It's extraordinary that Sstock hasn't yet seen fit to sort out this misleading information.
Thanks for sharing that. That's interesting about only 3 downloads. I am starting to think now whether the ratings are based on dollars earned?
I just looked through my list and picked out an image that also only sold 3 times, for a total of $41.49. It says popularity "none" and "never used".
Another image that sold 3 times for a total of only 8.60$ has popularity "high" and "high usage".
This rating is all a mistery to me.
Neither download times nor dollars earned seem to be the main factor. Maybe downloads per time? Like an image that sold 3 times within 3 months will get a better rating than an image that sold 3 times within 3 years? Though, if you ask me, no image that only sold 3 times should be labeled with "high usage", regardless of any other factors, just like no image that has ever sold should be labeled "never used". It's both wrong and misleading to the customer.
for a long time search placement was some combination of sales/time with a boost early on, and perhaps an increasing penalty as time went on. Then they decided as a technology company that was too simple and shook everything up and now it doesn't really make any sense. I wonder if they even really know what is going on with it anymore.
232
« on: January 21, 2022, 15:12 »
Ok. Thanks Mat.
Get Microstockr, and you'll have all these missing stats and more, not only for AS but for all your microstock sites.
Really? $5.99 a month to read the stats on Adobe? I hope that Mat has been lobbying to get us some decent lifetime earnings details for images. It just seems silly to have to go 13 months at a time and collect things on our own. For all the things that Adobe does right, the information about our earnings and assets performance is lacking.
This is why representatives from most of the agencies never come here, or stopped after a small number of visits. People like you who find something wrong with everything. And when they do try to answer you find something wrong with that too? Mat has been here many times before and over many years. The least people here could do is act like adults and a little bit professional?
(neh, just messing with you Pete:) )
I don't see this as an attack on Mat or anything else.
I see it just like Pete as quite strange that an agency with such technical know-how is not able to provide a reasonable statistic or an app - as it is obviously desired by most users.
Especially when it is something that they used to have and removed.
233
« on: January 21, 2022, 12:19 »
I too have been opted out of novel use for as long as I was aware of it (before I ever had a sale on Alamy I think). I got these sales. And no - 4 cent sales are not a market I want to make any inroads into.
234
« on: January 14, 2022, 21:09 »
Thanks for coming here and talking too us. I still think you need to have a floor on what people can sell our images at - and anything that gets us single digit cents is too low. Especially if a distributor isn't delivering any higher prices sales, as far as I'm concerned, the contributors and Alamy are better off without them.
In the interest of average sales over the last few years - all are rounded...
year gross avg sale my avg take per sale
2016 34 18
2017 78 36 a good year
2018 50.5 26.5
2019 44.5 20
2020 39 17
2021 20 9
That said, I did make slightly more in 2021 than in 2020, but it wasn't the $1.50 or whatever I made from the 4 cent sales that did it.
edited to add my take includes DACS and ASCRL and so on, so is higher than the actual sale number,
235
« on: January 13, 2022, 17:06 »
In fact I would say that SS designed it so that the bigger packages would be attractive to more buyers - instead of a 25/day limit, make it 750/month - or whatever, and who knows what secret under the table deals they have going on. They don't really care how many are available in the subscription, they know most places won't use anywhere near the total and all they have to pay is .10 each - at least until they feel the need to lower what they pay us. I would even say that a lot of the reason they changed the terms was so that they could charge less and still make plenty of $.
Wait for the first quarter earnings report to see what %age they are actually paying out overall. My guess is pretty low.
236
« on: January 12, 2022, 16:06 »
Are OODs also dependant on levels?
Yes, all sales are.
Yes, right, that's the point. For subs, levels are nearly irrelevant, but for other sales where we get commissions, levels make a difference.
I guess this needs to be posted again?
Where the trick is with the Subs is, most of the time, they are paying us more than the percentage, because there's a 10 minimum, and the price of the download is so low, that they have to give us more. Everything in the pink we get more money than the level percentage would have earned.
Example of a level 3 person and a sub from a 350 pack. The buyer pays 39 cents, level 3 gets 25% which would be .0975 so SSTK raises it to 10 cents. A level 1 same license sale, at 15% would earn us .0585 which forces SSTK to elevate the amount to 10 cents.
Please accept this as humor, but that means SSTK is losing money on every sale, when they have to pay us more than our promised commission, because of the guaranteed minimum. I feel so sad for their loss.
However if they charge a real value price for a download, then we get the level percentage.
And just think, the more 10c sales anyone gets, the faster we rise into a higher level! Exciting? Where we still get 10 cents, except the rare OD, SO and EL licenses.
Going for a higher level
What we really get for sub downloads
I think with the subs you have to remember that almost nobody uses their entire subscription. That is why back in the day when SS raised prices they would wait a month or 2 to see what the rates were and then have the new tiers (or whatever it was that got us to .25,.... to .38 per sub download. You better believe they weren't losing money even if they would have had the subscribers downloaded all they were allowed to. By changing things now they can charge less and still make a killing paying out .10 (or whatever pittance higher).
237
« on: January 11, 2022, 16:33 »
Sales through Alamy gets you 40% of gross, distributor sales gets you 30% of gross, so I you got 30% thats distributor sale in my opinion.
Yes and I made an example, but: 15 cents +(- .045) +(- .06) = +.045 commission - also makes me see that the .045 in the front is rounded up to .05 and the .045 for the contributor is rounded down to .04 ? They just picked up a half cent that way. Slick accounting in their favor?
it's actually 60% For Alamy of whatever is left after Distributor commission not 50%
Show me that math I can't see how you got 60%
15 x .4 = 6 cents to distributor leaving 9 9 x .6 = 5.4 they rounded down to 5 leaving 4 for me
238
« on: January 10, 2022, 14:23 »
But in the interest of fairness, I must point out that so far this year Alamy is far ahead with 3 sales for which I will get $86.11 if I did my math right (it was so much easier when it was 50/50)
Well done, I've just had my second sale of the year, taking my total net to $2.49.
BTW, (in case you don't know, and if you do know, it might help someone else) you can see what you've netted for each sale on the 'Net Revenue Sales Report', which is downloadable from your homepage via the 'Download Sales Report' button.
Thanks, that is helpful once you check the right boxes. I actually didn't get that much from my 3 sales, there was $26.70 in ASCRL Nov 2021 payment included too. Still better than the sales at the end of December 2021. I suspect that the official answer is that is what you get ($.04 per sale). Hopefully behind the scenes they are annoyed they are so low and do something to put a floor on sales. The way the market is going I wouldn't put any money on it though up to a hundred sales for an individual is only $4 but 10,000 for Alamy is $600. I also think that taking 80% from the sales for the ports that they are unable to sell well is lame. Another reason why I wouldn't recommend getting into this business anymore. The percentage of low sales is much less than SS, but the overall number of sales is much much less and I went years without a sale over $30 (for me) at SS. It is up to everyone to decide how much they are willing to put up with before they stop uploading or pull their ports entirely. For a long while I made much much more at SS than Alamy, I think it wasn't far off by 2019 - more because SS came down so much and Alamy didn't fall as much.
239
« on: January 10, 2022, 11:21 »
I got a usual pap response from my e-mail asking about them and if there was a way to avoid sales that low...
"These sales were made through one of our Distributors and theyll charge what they think to be a competitive price in their market. Its in everyones interest to get the highest price for each sale as the money is split three ways, but sometimes these prices look small when compared with similar licenses in the UK & US.
Remember these are customers we wouldnt normally reach as its a sale through our Distribution scheme and an Additional Revenue Option.
You can only opt out or remove countries in April of every year; this is so we can give our distributors a consistent collection."
But in the interest of fairness, I must point out that so far this year Alamy is far ahead with 3 sales for which I will get $86.11 if I did my math right (it was so much easier when it was 50/50)
240
« on: January 05, 2022, 20:02 »
I sent the "close account" request yesterday - how long till they even respond with the hoops I'll have to jump through?
I received a reply from support this morning. Other than asking if there was anything they could do to persuade me to stay, there were no hoops to jump through 
I hope you told them 50/50 split and no sales under X amount, where X >$1
241
« on: January 04, 2022, 15:55 »
15% is, was, and will be a greedy insult.
242
« on: December 31, 2021, 00:17 »
Sadly, photo sales have always been pretty slow on P5, they used to talk about starting their photo promotion push, but I haven't heard anything about that in ages, and sales seem if anything even slower this year although nowhere near the drop it sounds like video sales have made.
I also got 9 of those $0.04 sales at Alamy today. They should put a floor on the amount the so called distributors can sell for. ($0.15 sale price, I get a whopping 27% rounded up). That brings my RPD for the month down to $2.96. Definitely in the microstock range level.
I have tied the total number of sales for the year with my previous best year, 2012, but the total $ images sold for was beat 6 other years, and I am sure that the amount I actually get out of these sales is even less compared to previous years.
243
« on: December 24, 2021, 13:31 »
not surprising that "1234" is the most popular 4 digit number, but who knew 4970 and 8529 could be so popular, or maybe they are the only ones that have sold.
I think long ago I tried to upload a few blurry backgrounds like that - all rejected. I clearly missed out on a goldmine. Looks like they are all titled the same, I didn't bother to check the keywords though. I guess SS is getting what they are paying for.
244
« on: December 22, 2021, 22:42 »
I would start with "microstock is a long term losing proposition". Then I would talk about how much work you would have to put in to make X money, and how X will decrease for as long as the supply vastly outstrips demand.
Sure, with skill and hard work you can make $, but with skill and hard work you could probably make more doing something else.
245
« on: December 21, 2021, 18:14 »
We didn't come so very far together, after selling my stuff for years you decided it wasn't good enough anymore and dropped me like a first wife. I guess you are enjoying your new "community" now.
246
« on: November 29, 2021, 19:45 »
I think there are many factors out of the artists control that goes into images taking off or languishing. Mostly issues of timing and early sales, but also if the site feeds different content to buyers based on location (of the buyer or the photographer). A lot of it is just the sites secret sauce that might include such things that really don't usually matter like camera, image size (as long as it is big enough), location, how a port does overall, age of the image, how many uploads you have made recently, your acceptance ratio, etc. The big sites probably do a lot of A/B testing and tweak the search continuously. I'm pretty sure that if you could upload the same image through different accounts or at different times (or even at the same time) they would do very differently.
Still - good in demand images will generally do better than crappy images and a port full of the former will definitely outperform a port of the latter, That doesn't mean that one mediocre image might not vastly outperform another one for no apparent reason.
I doubt they have much overall pushing of specific ports up or down, although they certainly could if they wanted to. Personally I think they should push spammers down, but that doesn't seem to be something they really care about.
247
« on: November 18, 2021, 17:35 »
Hi All,
Hopefully I can add some clarity here.
Firstly, this survey is 100% optional and anonymous. We will end up with % numbers against the survey questions with no identifiable information next to the answers. The data itself is not accessible other than to view results as a summary and there is absolutely zero chance of us "selling this data on" (as has been suggested in this thread).
Picture buyers in the publishing world are increasingly interested in this type of information, and when I say interested, I'm not talking about us "tapping into" some kind of trend.
We have face to face meetings with world leading publishers who ask us specific questions about where the images on Alamy come from and who takes them. They are keen to source images from a diverse mix of providers that demonstrate equal opportunities and ethical dealings. This subject has become increasingly common in our client meetings over recent times and we felt that we did not have the right level of information to inform them, but also closer to home, we want to make sure we are operating in an ethical and inclusive way.
That is the reason as to why this has been sent. The format, wording and distribution method we've chosen has been reviewed at all levels within the business and signed off by the in-house legal team within PA Media.
I hope this clears up any confusion around the survey, if you have any specific questions then please feel free to email [email protected] and the Contributor Releations team will be happy to help.
Many thanks,
James Allsworth
Head of Content
ooh ooh ooh, I bet the buyers would be really happy to know that you restored the 50/50 split to contributors to help out your diverse contributors. or even better roll it back to the 60 percent for the contributor. I'll tell you I am whatever ethnicity or whatever you want if you do that.
248
« on: November 04, 2021, 19:40 »
I got 3 listed, Does anyone know if Alamy is taking 60% of DACS that they collect now? If so I should figure out how to apply for it myself, for 3 figures I can spend a few hours applying.
"Q. I dont understand clause 28 of the contract
A. This clause confirms we can claim a share of royalties for secondary uses of your images from collecting societies such as DACS. We will pay you a 50% share of these royalties after recouping our administration charges of around 1 per claim."
From https://www.alamy.com/contributor/faqs/most-frequently-asked-questions/?section=9
I had taken this to mean 1 pound per person per year. Not 1 pound for every usage. That would seem crazy expensive to me.
I got $16 for DACS TV usage which I don't claim directly because Alamy has this info. I can't get it here in Canada. I too got about $550 for the rest, so it is definitely worth your while to claim yourself. But I think it may be too late for you. Once Alamy claims for you your stuck and can't back out anymore.
I presume that is it for this year, but maybe next year I can claim it myself. I should set myself a reminder.
249
« on: November 04, 2021, 14:18 »
I got 3 listed, Does anyone know if Alamy is taking 60% of DACS that they collect now? If so I should figure out how to apply for it myself, for 3 figures I can spend a few hours applying.
"Q. I dont understand clause 28 of the contract
A. This clause confirms we can claim a share of royalties for secondary uses of your images from collecting societies such as DACS. We will pay you a 50% share of these royalties after recouping our administration charges of around 1 per claim."
From https://www.alamy.com/contributor/faqs/most-frequently-asked-questions/?section=9
My total this year was $33.11 (in two separate line items; not sure why). The money would have to be much more for me to want to set the calendar reminders and spend time filling out the paperwork. I think a 50% share plus 1 per claim is pretty outrageous (I could see a minimum for administration fees, but to take a flat fee plus 50% takes chutzpah, IMO), but I'm not motivated to take on the task of applying
thanks, Maybe each time they list it is a separate "claim" so they can hit you for another pound... re: Firn above, I am pretty sure it is for uses in the UK, not just UK citizens. in the past I have always been paid the money eventually. Their accounting reporting certainly isn't clear or obvious but other than balances that have never cleared has always added up eventually.
250
« on: November 04, 2021, 10:39 »
I got 3 listed, Does anyone know if Alamy is taking 60% of DACS that they collect now? If so I should figure out how to apply for it myself, for 3 figures I can spend a few hours applying.
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