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Messages - Alamy
126
« on: September 30, 2013, 05:49 »
Thanks for the views and comments here, we do drop in from time to time and it's always good to read. As usual, it's easier for me to reply in the way of bullet points: - Vectors. Yes, we are looking to take in vectors. For the next couple of months, we're only looking to take on collections over 1000 and they must be via hard drive. After this initial phase is complete, users will be able to upload smaller amounts via the usual online uploader. We envisage this will be available at the start of 2014. If you're interested in submitting high volumes now, please email me - [email protected]- Payments. We've recently reduced our threshold from $250 to $175 but we are working on lowering that (announcement to come soon). If you cancel your contract with us, we check your closed account every month to see if any other pending sales have cleared. If they have, we pay you that amount at the beginning of the next month, even if it is below the threshold. - Sale clearing times. Unlike many other agencies, we report sales in real time. This means, you get notification of the sale when the licence is ordered, not when the client pays. When the client pays, the sale becomes cleared and your balance updated in your Alamy account. Why do sales take at least 45 days to clear? For account customers, depending on who they are and their deal with us, some will have long payment terms. This is normal in the industry, and that's one reason for the time delay. The other, is to allow a grace period where a refund can be issued for the customer. Projects get swapped around and changed frequently and we need to be flexible and allow cancellations of licences within a short time period. If you've ever had a 'refund' on an Alamy sale as a contributor, then it's likely that the sale had never cleared. With that in mind, a refund is more like a cancellation. - Key customers having images prior to paying. Related to the point above really. All agencies (aside from microstock) offer this service, it's essential. It may be less noticeable on other agencies as they may only report sales once they have cleared, not in real time like us, when they can still be cancelled by the client. I'll pop back to answer any follow up questions if you have them and look forward to hearing from anyone interested in vector submissions. I've already had a few emails since this thread appeared, so that's great. Thanks again for posting. James Allsworth Content Executive Alamy
127
« on: September 10, 2013, 03:12 »
I wonder if people get glamour emails..."we have deactivated your image AMA123 because it is too glamour oriented". Yes - we do send those out periodically and sweep through the collection at different points of the year to remove glamour content that gets through the submission system. This blog post helps explain our policy: http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2008/05/14/2763.aspxCheers James Allsworth Content Executive Alamy
129
« on: June 27, 2013, 05:03 »
Having spent such a lot of time doing the alamy keywords, I couldn't disagree more. They aren't going to change it just to keep the microstockers happy. I like the way they do it and think every other site should do the same. Giving all keywords the same priority when people use 50 keywords isn't a good idea because all the spam keywords mess up the search.
But it makes no difference.
Their search engine picks out words from title, caption or any of the keyword fields at random.
Are you referring to our search engine here? If so, that statement is incorrect. Full info here:
http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/captions-keywords-descriptions.asp
I have read that, but looking at my measures, and at random search results doesn't suggest that it works as it should, although spam clouds the issue on a general search.
I have also read this page:
http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/annotation-options.asp where we are advised to put quotations around keyword phrases and square brackets around related words. Do either of these actually work?
Two points here: 1 - the keyword weighting does work and the search results are formed from a combination of elements including ranking and customer activity data. It certainly is not random. 2 - the full set of additional annotation options are not live at the moment but it doesn't mean they never will be. We constantly run test scenarios on the searches and test this feature out, but due to the prevalence of inaccurate entering of data from a wide range of contributors, the overall effect does not improve the search results sufficiently for us to deploy the feature to the live site right now.
130
« on: June 26, 2013, 03:24 »
Having spent such a lot of time doing the alamy keywords, I couldn't disagree more. They aren't going to change it just to keep the microstockers happy. I like the way they do it and think every other site should do the same. Giving all keywords the same priority when people use 50 keywords isn't a good idea because all the spam keywords mess up the search.
But it makes no difference.
Their search engine picks out words from title, caption or any of the keyword fields at random.
Are you referring to our search engine here? If so, that statement is incorrect. Full info here: http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/captions-keywords-descriptions.asp
131
« on: June 25, 2013, 05:43 »
Hi everyone, Thanks for your comments. Sorry there seems to be some questions you would have liked to ask but have missed the deadline. If we repeat this feature I'll be sure to post here to let you know when your next opportunity to ask a question is. In the meantime, part two is now live for you to view here: http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2013/06/21/5400.aspxMany thanks  James Allsworth
133
« on: June 10, 2013, 09:43 »
134
« on: May 29, 2013, 04:23 »
A few points here: - The prices charged by distributors reflect local rates so will often be different than your 'primary' markets.
- We regularly see lots of high value sales (four and even five figures) come in via the distribution scheme.
- Our distributors work hard to sell your content into local markets. It's been mentioned in this thread that they 'do next to nothing' and 'why don't customers just use Alamy.com?' - well the answer is that there are still many, many customers who only like to deal in their own language with a local distributor that they already have a business relationship with. All sales via distribution are *additional* revenue streams on top of your primary Alamy.com sales.
- Regarding the price/size miss-match: it's not a case of "ripping off" a customer in any way at all. Quite often a distributor has to report thousands of sales in one invoice and it's impractical to work through each image and note the exact size it was used. Therefore a single size is usually selected and the price reflects the true size it was used at. This is not ideal of course but at least you can be sure the price is correct.
- Finally, on average, being fully opted into the distribution scheme boosts your overall revenue on Alamy by 20%. With this in mind we would always recommend opting in as it is a way of maximising your selling potential on Alamy.
James Allsworth Content Executive Alamy
135
« on: April 22, 2013, 07:07 »
I'd only ventured over there a few times but never found it to be my cup of tea. (I can only handle one lot of edgy, opinionated, bossy creatives, and here they at least like microstock).
I do love this quote from Alamy Admins: With this in mind, we've now made it compulsory to be a registered Alamy photographer before you can post. Although you'll be able to pick a forum alias the first time you log in, you'll need to log in using your existing Alamy website credentials and your profile on the new forum will contain a link to your image collection on Alamy. We believe this will promote a more honest and less hostile environment. Also, users are now able to give (or take away) reputation points on posts and users. Again, we hope this will promote a more positive and overall constructive place for discussion.
of course we all fear the backlash of speaking out (hello iS!), so having some anonymity can be helpful, but I do think this transparency is a good thing overall. There are quite a few mouthy types here who like to whinge, yet I've no idea if it's justified as i can't see their ports.
perhaps a "show me yours, i'll show you mine" policy could be implemented?
Thanks for the encouragement Gillian. James Allsworth, Alamy.
136
« on: April 22, 2013, 03:53 »
Hi there - if we receive your email during office hours, the average response time is less than an hour.
Did you receive an auto-email back? If not, it may mean we are not receiving your mails or you are not receiving ours. If you can provide me with your real name then I will be able to check to see if we received an email from you.
Kind regards
James Allsworth
Content Executive
Alamy.
137
« on: April 04, 2013, 03:39 »
Enable the site to read metadata for Title, Caption and drop all the keywords into Comprehensive, we can edit from there. People will send you vast praise and thanks.
I like the Essential Box limit which makes people think about what words really count and matter, instead of their favorite 500 words that are often distant or irrelevant. (spam) But making it easier to add keywords and some EXIF data, would be very kind of you.
We import the IPTC metadata when we upload your images, but only extract the caption, description, keyword and date fields depending on which version of Photoshop you are using. IPTC headers in Photoshop 6 & 7- The caption field corresponds with our caption field which is limited to 128 characters. If you add more than 128 characters in Photoshop we will transfer your data to our description field. You will then need to add a new caption.
- The keyword field corresponds with our comprehensive keyword field. We limit the keyword field to 856 characters and we truncate any words over this amount.
- In the IPTC keyword field add each word individually as there is a cut-off point of 32 characters (including spaces) beyond which Photoshop will truncate a list of keywords. Click Add after youve entered each keyword.
IPTC headers in Photoshop CS and above- The description field corresponds with our caption field. We limit the caption field to 128 characters and any additional IPTC data overflows to our description field.
- The keyword field corresponds with our comprehensive keywords field. We limit the compehensive keywords field to 856 characters and any additional IPTC data is truncated.
- Separate your keywords with semicolons in Photoshop to ensure they transfer correctly.
James Allsworth Alamy
138
« on: March 28, 2013, 04:39 »
I'd like to thank everyone here for their comments in this thread - we read all the feedback we can, not just on our own site and find it all very useful.
Best wishes
James Allsworth.
139
« on: March 28, 2013, 04:36 »
by the way, just banned from their forum again for complaining about the forum being now invisible from home page !
good, deleted the alamy forum from my bookmarks.
good riddance guys, and dont worry the few forumers left over there will soon move here with some time.
Hi Xanox - You were banned because this was yet another registration of yours on our forum, in a string of anonymous names and multiple registrations, where you have previously been banned for continuously breaking the forum rules. You keep changing your name, but the ban will remain I'm afraid. The forum is still linked to the homepage via the "for sellers" link at the top of the page and we welcome contributors to use it. We are also working on a new and improved version which we are very excited about to launch soon. James Allsworth Content Executive and Social Media Manager Alamy
140
« on: March 26, 2013, 07:52 »
Would be REALLY nice if you had a nice, succinct financial summary by month, quarter and calendar year and also specified date range summaries.
Again, it's something we are aware is cumbersome and not very user friendly - even though it does technically work and is functional. Have you looked at the Net Revenue pages? You can set specific date ranges to suit you... We've launched phase one of the new site today with some great features ( http://www.alamy.com/whatsnew.asp) - the next phase is to improve some contributor facing pages. I can't say for sure when the financial summary pages will get a re-work, but I can assure you that it is on our road-map of improvements to be made. We are already working on the next version of "My Alamy" and a great looking contributor dashboard that will help you get to the important information much quicker - and it will look a darn sight nicer than it does currently. All in all, many more improvements are on the way and it's always good for us to get this kind of feedback, so thank you. Cheers James
141
« on: March 26, 2013, 04:33 »
Thanks James, I'm glad some ideas are in place to ease the upload burden on contributors. I'm not sure about the excel thing though. Like most of us, I embed keywords, title and description data when I save the image prior to uploading as the other agencies simply utilise that 'as is'. It sounds as though I'd have to open every image I want to upload and copy paste the metadata across to a spreadsheet, is that right? If so that would also be a very long-winded task for anyone with anything between several hundred and several thousand images.
I can't speak for your specific workflow, but many contributors keep a database of their metadata and send this out to agencies via excel templates. I'm no expert on database management, but I would assume that it would be relatively simple to export your data from your images into a spreadsheet format - if something doesn't exist that makes this simple, then there is a gap in the market! Best wishes James
142
« on: March 25, 2013, 12:02 »
Hi James,
Are there any plans in the upcoming overhaul to make uploading simpler? For other sites we don't have to sit with each file deciding how to prioritise keywords into subsets after upload - they just populate a single form field with the keywords from our IPTC data. Because this is consistent across other sites, it's easy to just upload everything to them all in one sitting.
OTOH, if I want to upload to Alamy, I have to carve out time for a separate sitting and enter a different headspace to deal with the unique post-upload work required. I would have sent a lot of images to Alamy if it weren't for the extra time required to jump that hurdle.
Could you not just advise uploaders to prioritise keywords the way you want them within the IPTC data and cut out the post-upload requirements?
(ETA: This is assuming, of course, that the system hasn't been changed since I last uploaded!)
Hi there, Although our multi-tier keyword system does have numerous benefits, we are well aware that the post upload workload imposed on our contributors can be an off-putting and at times a laborious task. With this in mind, we are currently working on some fresh ideas that we hope to have in place at some point in the not too distant future. There are a few updates we need to make first, but it is very much in our thoughts. In the meantime, if you have a high volume of images (eg, several hundred) you need to apply metadata to, if you email [email protected] there are a few things we can do to help, particularly in the way of offering an excel metadata template you can populate and email us which we will then apply to your images. This can often work out to be a quicker method than using the online Manage Images tools. Best wishes James Allsworth
143
« on: March 25, 2013, 09:59 »
James, in regards to the lower prices and 50 cent royalties on Novel Scheme images and what not, can you lower the payout threshold? 175 dollar on 50 cent sales is taking really long if not forever. I know you can blow 175 dollar out of the water with one sale, but I and many others dont have 80.000 photos online like some do. And with the heavily discounted pricing and giving away hi res images for a re-calculated royalty of 12%, I think its only fair to lower the payout threshold to match your new low pricing and reduced royalties.
We are always looking at the numbers and ensuring that our payout threshold is suitable for the majority of contributors. We recently reduced the threshold from $250 down to $175. I can understand your point, but equally we hear from a number of contributors who have asked us to raise the threshold. The alternative would be a system where contributors "cash out" and request to be paid when it suits them. We may be able to offer something like this in the future, but the resource and development time required to put something like this in place would best be diverted elsewhere for now. We've got a complete overhaul of the site starting very soon, with further developments for contributor facing features on the horizon for later this year. Thanks, James
144
« on: March 14, 2013, 06:42 »
...Yes, it could be viewed as unfortunate that the distributor gets more than the artist but again, this is not an unusual trend in the industry. Indeed, I could mention many agencies that take more than the artist for direct sales, not even third party.
...
Thanks for the response. Regarding the other agencies taking more than 50% of direct sales, that's true, although some of us are slowly shedding them unless there's some really good reason to keep the agency. The big "bribe" to contributors for lousy splits is such a high volume of sales that the monthly total from our portfolios is high. When the volume of sales is low, as it is in Alamy's case, it makes it really hard to justify. Shutterstock and (before I left them) iStock make much more per month from my portfolio than Alamy does.
I guess I'll go see about opting out of third party deals and Novel Use (got one of those the other day and I thought they were going away/gone).
Your volume of sales on Alamy is dependent on your competition, style of content and keywording. It's true that for your style of content, volume of sales will likely be lower than what you would expect on high volume/subscription based micro sites but high volume is still possible on Alamy and of course our average price will be much higher. Ultimately Alamy will work better for some photographers rather than others, but it's part of the reason we remain committed to being non-exclusive and not tying our contributors into lengthy, restrictive contracts. Alamy won't be for *everyone* but most photographers should at least be using Alamy as an additional source of income, part of a wider network of distributors for their work. Thinking specifically of the distribution scheme, although you will sometimes see lower value sales compared to that of your primary territories, it does account for around 20% of Alamy's total sales and we will often see 4 figure, sometimes 5 figure, individual sales come in via distribution. If you want your images to reach clients in countries Alamy doesn't currently target directly then we would always recommend opting in. Of course we understand though that this will not be for everyone, which is why you have the option to opt out should you wish. Best wishes James
145
« on: March 11, 2013, 10:41 »
Also personal test I placed one image for two different pseudonyms. One with no sales one with all my editorial sales. They appear in the BHZ game, next to each other. The rank is for the person, not the pseudo as far as I can see?
Now, that's REALLY interesting, as the common 'wisdom' on the forums is that the pseudos are ranked independently, so the pseudo system is a way to bizarrely 'evade' the rather doubtful strategy of ranking contributors rather than relevance of images.
That said, 'relevance' does seem to be improving in my few and unrepresentative regular searches.
The pseudonyms are ranked, not the person. I can say that 100% officially. If you have images under different pseudonyms appearing next to each other then it will likely mean that you have not enough customer data associated with either pseudonym to give a rank other than the median. For another recent post I made on Alamy rank and BHZ, please see here: http://www.microstockgroup.com/alamy-com/how-important-is-ctr-for-your-alamy-rank/msg298400/#msg298400Thanks James Allsworth Content Executive Alamy
146
« on: March 06, 2013, 04:29 »
[Why does the third party distributor get a bigger cut than the artist?
Good point! I can imagine (putting words into Alamy's mouth) that they'd say this is the contract they have with distributors. Fair enough, but over the last several years, Alamy's commission has changed from 30% to 40% to (now) 50% and all of the change has come out of the contributor's hide.
Alamy revised the contract with contributors, with notice, and they can do the same with distributors. I think that the distributor should get a maximum of 25% of the gross - and if they want more money, sell more licenses.
I just went back to check and my first Alamy sale in 2007 had a commission for Alamy of 30% - I'm not making up numbers for rhetorical effect...
The commission on your first sale was actually 35% to Alamy in total. Our commission split back then (2007) was 65% to the photographer. It will be seen in your balance of account as 30% to Alamy then you will also see an account fee that is an additional 5% that takes the total to 35. In order to be able to work with third party distributors, we have to negotiate the best deals possible and 40% is standard across the industry. Yes, it could be viewed as unfortunate that the distributor gets more than the artist but again, this is not an unusual trend in the industry. Indeed, I could mention many agencies that take more than the artist for direct sales, not even third party. The pricing can be lower in these markets than what you would see in your primary markets but we also see very high value sales also. It's also worth baring in mind that if you are not comfortable with the third party additional revenue opportunities you can opt out during the month of April. Best wishes James
147
« on: March 04, 2013, 04:52 »
To round out the month, I received a distributor sale today - $26.46 for a 1580 x 1053 that "lists" for $190.
$26.46 was the gross. The distributor gets 40% off the top - $10.58 - and then Alamy and I split the rest, leaving me with $7.94
It doesn't list the distributor, so I have no way of knowing if this is just some Alamy subsidiary - which would then allow them to keep 70% of the total. If you ask Alamy will they tell you which distributor sold this image?
I want to like Alamy, but they take forever for sales to clear, their payout is $250 even though they're selling more and more cheaply, the discounting is massive and they can't even be bothered to tell you how much you made on a sale (you need to substract their commission from the total; I assume they're hoping you won't notice the actual money in your pocket and focus on the gross number.
Hi there, Sorry to read about your frustration with Alamy - I'd just like to clarify a few points raised: >> "I have no way of knowing if this is just some Alamy subsidiary - which would then allow them to keep 70% of the total" All distributor sales are third party, meaning that the split goes 40% to distributor, 30% to Alamy, 30% to photographer. There are no exceptions to this with distributor sales. >> "they take forever for sales to clear" Unlike other agencies/portals, we report sales in real time. This means that you can see exactly when the sale was made and an invoice raised to the customer. A sale will clear when we have received payment from the customer and 45 days has passed since the time of invoice. A sale will take 45 days as this gives us a chance to offer a refund period to the customer, but also protect us against credit card fraud. Some invoices take longer than 45 days to clear if a customer doesn't pay on time. If this happens, our credit control team work around the clock to secure payment. Most other agencies only report the sale to you when the money is in their hands, making it appear as though their sales clear much quicker. The reality is that the timescales will be very similar to ours. >>"their payout is $250" Our payout threshold has been $175 for quite some time now. >> " they can't even be bothered to tell you how much you made on a sale" I can only presume that you are looking at the "summary of images sold" only. There are two sections of the site within "My Alamy" (that have always been available) that give you the full breakdown of your sales: Balance of Account and Net Revenue. If you look in Net Revenue, you can produce a report that breaks down everything from the image ref (Alamy ref and your ref), to the commission split, the price, the date of invoice and the date cleared etc. You can export all this and download to excel if you wish for your records. Many thanks James Allsworth Content Executive Alamy
148
« on: February 13, 2013, 04:05 »
I will deactivate at least a part of my portfolio at iStock and would like to sell part of it as RM on Alamy.
Does Alamy accept images that have been RF somewhere else and that have sold as such before?
Yes, you can do this but you are ultimately responsible for managing your license history. EG, if you want to sell the images as RM, you need to make sure they are not for sale as RF anywhere else. Also, any RF images that have previously sold would not be available for an exclusive RM sale. These are however rare and in cases where an exclusive may be in the works our sales team would be contacting you to ask about the previous history on the image - if there were no conflicts we could proceed with the sale. James Allsworth Content Executive Alamy
149
« on: February 13, 2013, 03:58 »
James, you legend you !! Thank for clearing that up, now I feel a lot better about my chances. I have been doing some keyword admin and slashed all unrelevant keywords. I got too many views on images that were not related to the search. Too many cryptic stuff etc.
Also, had a few sales, so my rank should be positively affected now, and I am adding more images as we speak.
Yes !! Alamy just became relevant for me 
Glad to hear it!
150
« on: February 12, 2013, 08:38 »
^^ It's only zooms from a selected number of Alamy's most important buyers which get counted.
It's true that not all customer data is counted (otherwise photographers could just register a fake client account and zoom all their own images) but it also may have been the case that the client in this case was not logged in.
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