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Messages - Alamy
26
« on: October 19, 2018, 02:43 »
Do you sell RM? If so, it's in your sales history.
If RF, I don't know, maybe Alamy has that info (?)
Yes, I have some RM, news/sport but I have no sales recorded for any of them in sales history or elsewhere.
Thank you ShadySue.
The team will be happy to check this for you - please email the details to [email protected]Best, James Allsworth Contributor Experience Manager
27
« on: October 18, 2018, 13:32 »
I had virtually the same experience as the original poster. I had an acceptance rate of over 99% but had a rejection for a iPhone image
My QC was dropped from 3 stars to one and frozen for 10 days.
I wrote a polite message 6 weeks ago and no reply.
Followed up with a second message and still no reply.
I have always looked favorably at Alamy but I am reticent to start uploading again when I seem to be treated with contempt
Hi, We never ignore emails so I'm very surprised to hear this! I want to find out what happened. Can you drop me a PM or email with your Alamy details so I can check? Also, quick question - are you getting the auto-reply from us when you email? If not then it will suggest our emails are being blocked in some way. Cheers James Allsworth Contributor Experience Manager Alamy
28
« on: October 18, 2018, 13:28 »
punishing a otherwise good contributor 3 or more ways for adding one iPhone image to an otherwise fine batch is overkill, no matter how you explain out the individual reasons. Yep - I do agree with that. To re-iterate though, the 'freezing' element for unsuitable cameras is an automated process that we're working on a change for. On the whole, it works well but in cases like this, it really doesn't. This is why we had offered to unfreeze your account in this case. There's clearly a flaw in the process. I asked for clarification, and now my sales are currently in the longest gap in 2 years. I can't possibly know why for sure, but that's some severely coincidental timing.
I can see from your post history here last year that you had mentioned that your sales occurrence with us was rare, but that was last year so things may have changed. I'm genuinely happy to look into your account in detail and see if I can spot a reason for your recent drop in sales activity but I can unreservedly say - without any doubt whatsoever - that your current dry patch does not have anything to do with this. It's so far removed from anything we do or what we stand for - not to mention technically impossible for anyone within my team to implement. I do appreciate your response here, however. Had my follow-up questions not been ignored and my sales not suddenly stopped cold, I would have liked to keep this between myself and Alamy. I felt like had little else to do about the situation than post a caution here.
If you felt that you had no other option than to post this then again, I'm disappointed to read that - as you shouldn't feel that way. I'd actually advise people to do the opposite as to what you are suggesting - that is, if you feel we have got it wrong then absolutely do let us know. That's the only way we can make changes. If we don't get that feedback, then we won't learn.
I frequently get much less than 50% from Alamy sales due to the distributors cut being larger than mine.
The distribution scheme is an opt-in, so we don't enforce our contributors to include their collection in that. The split is 30% to you, 30% to us and 40% to the distributor. Of course I can appreciate the frustration at being at 30% when you are accustomed to higher but I would recommend all contributors opt-in as on average it will boost your overall revenue for the year by 15-20%. Again though, this is an optional thing. I've been unable to fully check the details and the exchange between yourself and us as it looks like you may be registered with us under a different name compared to here. If you want me to take a deeper look or continue the conversation on email (or even the phone) just get in touch via [email protected] and we can take it from there. Cheers James
29
« on: October 18, 2018, 11:34 »
If you only got frozen out for ten days, that's because of your previous good record; it can be a month for a QC failure. (Your account isn't actually frozen, your existing files can still be searched and sell, you just can't upload.)
This is incorrect information - the upload freeze is never longer than 10 days .
That has changed, then (I'm glad to hear). It's been years since it happened to me and it was either a month or 28 days.
Upload freezing was bought in around 2 years ago and has always been set at 10 days. You may be getting mixed up with our previous system which never had an upload freeze but there was a delay in the result notification of up to 28 days. Long gone now though so I just wanted to clarify that. James
30
« on: October 18, 2018, 11:26 »
Alamy staff is proving to be petty, easily offended and vindictive. I recommend that if you have something potentially negative or critical to say to the about their policies or behavior, that you keep it to yourself. They only represented 5-10% of my income, but it still sucks to "lose" that income over something so juvenile. I'm sure others rely on them more, so watch what you say, fellow contributors.
Hi Daryl, Really sorry to read this - something has clearly been misunderstood in this whole process and I want to fix it. Firstly, I can 100% confirm to you (and anyone else) that your QC rank has absolutely no effect on sales potential or search placement - or anything else for that matter - other than the speed by which your submissions go through QC (which is still quick regardless of the star rating). If you upload regularly and pass regularly the rating will go up. I can also 100% confirm that any dip you are seeing in sales since this exchange started is purely co-incidental. We have a very small, in house team who do our quality checks. We don't farm the process out to external staff and we work on a spot check basis. This allows us to offer a higher commission rate than those competitors you mentioned at 50%. This is why when an image is uploaded from an unsuitable camera then there is a freeze applied to the upload route for you for 10 days. This stops us getting flooded with images from unsuitable cameras and again, keeps our costs down. At the moment, it's an automated process but we are working on some changes behind the scenes that should stop this auto-freezing in the near future. I notice in this case the team had offered to take the freeze off for you. If you only got frozen out for ten days, that's because of your previous good record; it can be a month for a QC failure. (Your account isn't actually frozen, your existing files can still be searched and sell, you just can't upload.)
This is incorrect information - the upload freeze is never longer than 10 days. I'm more than happy to discuss further with you if you have any other questions, and if you want to email me you can do so and I'll be more than happy to take a closer look at anything. Cheers James Allsworth Contributor Experience Manager Email: [email protected]
31
« on: April 11, 2018, 10:27 »
I just got the letter today, and it is dated as a contract change of 10th April 2018.
Haven't read it through, but I noticed this, which hasn't been thought through:
"Any information supplied for display with any Image, including captions, keywords, ... and does not include ... any personal details from which a living person can be identified."
I don't think that's what they mean, or else they are going to lose a lot of sales from searches relating to well-known people.
However, even if it's not what they mean, it's what they said.
Full text:
"4:11 Any information supplied for display with any Image, including captions, keywords, Pseudonyms, agency names and descriptions only includes information that is pertaining to the specific Image itself, and does not include contact details, web addresses, Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), copyright and rights management information or any personal details from which a living person can be identified."
Hi Everyone, Apologies for the confusion regarding the unclear wording of clause 4.11. We've updated the wording now to make it clearer. You can view the updated summary of changes here: http://www.alamy.com/terms/contributor-contract-changes.asp And the updated full contract here: http://www.alamy.com/terms/contributor.asp If you've got any questions, please email the Contributor Relations team on [email protected]. Thanks, Alamy
32
« on: February 02, 2018, 09:13 »
Oh really?  You really believed that? That was another publicity stunt coordinated by the likes of the OP. Lol!
Hey there, You're of course entitled to your opinion, but I can confirm that no-one at Alamy had anything to do with encouraging others to post their results here. There was no publicity stunt. Reading through the comments here, it seems many take the view that $100k gross sales (before commission deductions) is not a significant figure or "not enough to earn a living off". A couple of points on that if I may: 1 - The "$100k" club has a nice ring to it - as mentioned in my first post, many have made several hundred, but that's the minimum requirement to be featured 2 - Alamy has always been honest and has openly encouraged photographers to use us for additional revenue streams on top of their other ventures. We're non-exclusive. We want photographers to make the most they can from their portfolio. We'd love to be the only agency they use, but we've never claimed to necessarily be the only place you should place your work. Lots of photographers do use us exclusively and lots of photographers earn a very nice living from Alamy sales alone, but many have other irons in the fire too - whether that's private commissions, other full time jobs or the use of other non-exclusive libraries. It's your call as to how you feel, but we read these forums to engage with photographers, learn and understand what's important to you. We're not here for any publicity stunts or tricks. I posted a link to these blogs because there are lots of questions posted here about "who's selling" and "whats selling" on Alamy, so hopefully they provide a bit of insight. Cheers James A
35
« on: November 18, 2016, 10:51 »
Ok, they seem to he showing now so I am wondering if there is some delay in the images being picked up after I re-keyworded ? If so, I don't mind at all.
One more thing, is the title or caption or the image description more crucial ? Also, is it important to state time, place and date for better sales ?
If all that has been stopping me getting sales is my keywording I will happlily take back all the criticism I have made.
Thanks.
Here's a PDF guide about Alamy captions and keywords: http://www.alamy.com/contributors/captions-and-keywords-for-alamy-images.pdfHere are our help pages that should hopefully answer any other questions you may have: http://www.alamy.com/contributor/how-to-sell-images/captions-and-keywords-for-images/?section=8Let us know if there is anything else though. Our contributor tools are currently being updated and the roll-out will begin soon. This should make it easier to get images annotated with us quickly - aside from a whole bunch of improvements, there will be less mandatory fields to fill in and only one keyword box. Cheers Alamy
36
« on: November 18, 2016, 08:58 »
I am wondering why I don't get any sales and now I see. When I search on the Alamy front page with keywords, it fails to bring up my images even though I have ALL the keywords I put in the search. I have looked carefully at my images, checked all the keywords are there and yet the search engine fails to show them. This is why I don't get sales I believe because their algorythm fails.
Hmm - we're certainly not aware of any errors on this subject. Of course we'd be happy to investigate further for you but it would mean giving us some details to be able to do so. Without knowing any details though, we can almost guarantee that there will be a simple explanation for this and it's extremely unlikely that something like this would be happening to the extent where it would be causing you to not make sales. If you don't want to share details here, just email [email protected] and the team will be more than happy to help you. Cheers Alamy
37
« on: October 14, 2016, 04:46 »
September 2016 was simply our best sales month ever. This comes against the general trend of 25% revenue growth for Alamy sales year on year. We blogged about it here: http://www.alamy.com/blog/simply-the-best-month-ever-and-other-newsThanks to all of you who continue to contribute to Alamy and be part of the success. 
38
« on: September 12, 2016, 04:31 »
...With the release of the new tools (coming soon) you'll be able to select RF editorial too.
Cheers
James A
I've been holding off uploading more to Alamy hoping for the release of these new tools and went to their forums today to see if there was any news. A couple of days ago another contributor started a topic to ask if there was a date yet and the answer was no - they're "coming soon", but no date.
Rushing things out without testing them has tripped other agencies up and clearly isn't a good thing. On the other hand, we're six months down the road from the original mention of these tools and still not close enough to give any kind of target date for release.
If these tools are another year away because they really aren't a high priority, then it'd make sense to go through the very painful process of using the current Manage Images tool to get stuff online. It would be a courtesy to contributors to give some sort of timeframe (and this is done regularly by software companies; this isn't a pie-in-the-sky request) so we can figure out how best to proceed.
Hi there, These are a high priority and the tools will not be another year away. We don't like to give out dates because if they are not met it becomes frustrating for all involved. For example, in March it looked like we were very close to release, however we wanted to make some further improvements that have taken longer than expected. We're in the final stages of testing again now and hope that the roll out will begin in weeks rather than months, but this all depends on how successful the current round of testing is and whether or not we need to make any further changes. This is a huge project that has wide-ranging implications across our entire site, so we need to get it right. This does mean that extensive testing across all areas of the site needs to be complete and when you're dealing with a collection our size, this does take time. We appreciate everyone's patience, we're just as excited to get the tools released to the live site. Cheers Alamy
39
« on: September 02, 2016, 09:09 »
I had a look at what they had to offer. You can choose from four courses: photography, videography, Photoshop, and Lightroom. But they are all beginner courses. Basically anybody who needs to learn the information in the courses shouldn't be shooting anything for money.
A whole bunch of other course also available, check the link below the main ones highlighted. Hopefully you'll find something useful, but no worries if not - just an optional offer  Cheers Alamy
40
« on: May 20, 2016, 04:25 »
I'm astonished that buyers don't complain about this, as I've said often enough.
You have a blurry finger, or tiny smudges which may be people, way in the distance.
You have to tick 'one person' or 'more than 4 people' as appropriate.
These images Then show up if a buyer wants to see 'one person' or 'more than 4 people', but in the vast majority of cases, if a buyer ticks wants to see one/however many people, they actually want to see the person/people, not blurry fingers or out of focus dots.
We actually introduced this requirement following on from buyer requests that we do this to help ensure a safer RF collection. If the person in the image can prove it is them for example by proving they were there at that time and place that the image was taken etc etc that can be all that is needed - it's not always about being recognizable as such. Perhaps the legal landscape will shift in due course, but we didn't introduce this requirement without first getting feedback from buyers and then legal advice from our lawyers. At the end of the day, it's about trying to safe-guard both our clients and contributors against possible future legal issues. Cheers James A
41
« on: April 01, 2016, 08:36 »
James,
Just out of curiosity. Will RF Editorial still be unedited? It will be like if we choose that we dont have releases for a property or person a RF image will get automatically the status Editorial Use Only?
Thanks!!!!!
Hi Mirco - well, you're now veering into asking support type questions for things that are not yet live!
There will be an editorial only option you can select for your RF photos on Alamy - as far as that being automatically assigned etc, that would be logical and is in our plans for testing but I can't confirm that things will work exactly in this way just yet until we've finalised everything.
We appreciate your patience.
Cheers
James A
James, thanks for the information! Can you tell us when is approximate ETA of new contributor keywording tools/upload system (someone mentioned earlier in other thread) and arrival of RF Editorials?
It's not possible for us to give solid dates at the moment as things change and we don't want to give inaccurate info, but it will likely be a few months from now. Thanks James A
42
« on: March 31, 2016, 08:26 »
So much interested in the new tools! Do you need a beta tester ?
Not at the moment but we'll let everyone know if some opportunities come up. Cheers James A
43
« on: March 31, 2016, 08:23 »
James,
Just out of curiosity. Will RF Editorial still be unedited? It will be like if we choose that we dont have releases for a property or person a RF image will get automatically the status Editorial Use Only?
Thanks!!!!!
Hi Mirco - well, you're now veering into asking support type questions for things that are not yet live! There will be an editorial only option you can select for your RF photos on Alamy - as far as that being automatically assigned etc, that would be logical and is in our plans for testing but I can't confirm that things will work exactly in this way just yet until we've finalised everything. We appreciate your patience. Cheers James A
44
« on: March 31, 2016, 05:23 »
It happened to me to set unintentionally some photos as RM on Alamy
Then I wrote them asking to change it in RF and they did it it very fast.
So yes their support is very good.
Their system is a little tricky by the way It would be more simple to have the possibility to set a kind of licence as preference, and then change it for the single image if necessary.
But all the Alamy system is unnecessarily complex.
It remembers me the old French adage "Why to do it simple when you can do it complex?"
You can set a default licence - just go to Manage Images, select "Defaults and Pseudonyms" from the top and make your choice.
With the release of the new tools (coming soon) you'll be able to select RF editorial too.
Cheers
James A
Yes, I have set RF under"Default attributes and pseudonym management", and chosen my default pseudonym too.
But every time that I use the batch to change the attributes of more files I have to reset up the licence kind and the pseudonym.
(Mac + Chrome)
You should be able to leave this and just use the batch editor to change the attributes you want... I'm not quite sure I can fully understand the issue you're facing here but rather than take the thread too far off topic, please drop [email protected] an email to see if we can help further Cheers James A
45
« on: March 31, 2016, 05:21 »
With the release of the new tools (coming soon) you'll be able to select RF editorial too.
Cheers
James A
Wow! Did I just read and understand that correctly? We'll be able to upload editorial images which we currently have under an RF license elsewhere?
That's fantastic news if I've understood correctly. The vast majority of my port is editorial, but I cannot currently upload those to Alamy because they have to be RM if editorial.
Kind regards, david.
Yes, you read and understood that correctly
Cheers
James A
Bradley from news has been awesome with me.. he's helped me gain media creds for a bunch of motorsport events over the last few weeks.. he's polite, prompt and an absolute champ!
Thanks, I'll pass that along to him. Cheers James A
46
« on: March 31, 2016, 03:00 »
I joined Alamy 3 years ago and have sold nothing. I started uploading again and sent in 4 batches totalling 92 all of which passed QC the same day. However since uploading a batch of 80 on 25th March I have received no QC approval. Would Easter have slowed down the approval process or have I been sin binned as 5 more uploads are all awaiting QC since. I am new to Alamy and am very confused .If I am sin binned for my large upload failing should I not be stopped from further uploading as it seems that all these will also fail? I wonder is it worth the time and effort compared to SS where everything is so much easier? Thanks for your insights.
Hi Aly, Without knowing who you are it would be impossible for me to take a look to see what's happened - if you PM me your details I'll check it out. Our QC pass rate is around 94% at the moment and turnaround time is on average a day or two - this is one of the quickest approval times in the business! There have been some slight delays over Easter (as expected). If you fail QC the turnaround times may be longer. Best James A
47
« on: March 30, 2016, 16:22 »
But in case you don't know, deleted files can still be sold by Alamy for six months (to cover someone having comped a file but having a long lead time). To make sure no-one else can find your file after you delete it, remove all caption, description, keyword, location etc information BEFORE hitting the delete button: you can't do it afterwards.
Not great advice really, as any customer who already may have seen the shot / made a note of the ref / downloaded a comp will still be able to find the image using the reference code or download link.
That's why I said "To make sure no-one else can find your file after you delete it".
Yes, but we'd still never advise doing this because it doesn't solve the issue. Also, the image could be found by someone clicking on the contributor name within a comp to show their full portfolio. If there is ever a situation like this it's always best to contact us as we can usually help out. Cheers James A
48
« on: March 30, 2016, 10:03 »
With the release of the new tools (coming soon) you'll be able to select RF editorial too.
Cheers
James A
Wow! Did I just read and understand that correctly? We'll be able to upload editorial images which we currently have under an RF license elsewhere?
That's fantastic news if I've understood correctly. The vast majority of my port is editorial, but I cannot currently upload those to Alamy because they have to be RM if editorial.
Kind regards, david.
Yes, you read and understood that correctly Cheers James A
49
« on: March 30, 2016, 09:20 »
It happened to me to set unintentionally some photos as RM on Alamy
Then I wrote them asking to change it in RF and they did it it very fast.
So yes their support is very good.
Their system is a little tricky by the way It would be more simple to have the possibility to set a kind of licence as preference, and then change it for the single image if necessary.
But all the Alamy system is unnecessarily complex.
It remembers me the old French adage "Why to do it simple when you can do it complex?"
You can set a default licence - just go to Manage Images, select "Defaults and Pseudonyms" from the top and make your choice. With the release of the new tools (coming soon) you'll be able to select RF editorial too. Cheers James A
50
« on: March 30, 2016, 09:19 »
Just drop us an email at [email protected] or PM me the image refs here and I'll take care of it.
Thanks, James. Just PM'ed you with the reference numbers. Your help is highly appreciated!
No problem - all taken care of and I've replied to your PM. Cheers James A
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