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Messages - Firn
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326
« on: November 07, 2021, 10:39 »
Just a note and I don't know if anyone else mentioned it, Alamy pays by bank transfer. Last time I collected for myself I got almost nothing, because of the fees.
Yes, they could find more, but then they take 50% (or something?) so I get less. BUT... if I have to pay the bank fees, and I don't have as much data, then, it's possible, they are getting me more, the same or maybe less. 
I get paid via PayPal. Would have prefered bank transfer, at least before Brexit, because there would not have been any bank transfer fees for me then (unlike with paypal) , but it didn't work. I didn't get paid at all in the beginning and upon asking what was up with that they claimed my bank data was incorrect and the money was returned, but no matter how often I double- and triple- checked, by bank data was correct (I always paste it from a document on my computer anyways, to make sure there are no typos), so I could not offer them any different "correct" bank data and had to switch to PayPal. 
DACS lets you use PayPal? I can switch back to my own filing and get more.
What? Now I am confused. No. You said "Alamy pays by bank transfer" and I said I get paid by PayPal from Alamy.
327
« on: November 06, 2021, 01:12 »
Just a note and I don't know if anyone else mentioned it, Alamy pays by bank transfer. Last time I collected for myself I got almost nothing, because of the fees.
Yes, they could find more, but then they take 50% (or something?) so I get less. BUT... if I have to pay the bank fees, and I don't have as much data, then, it's possible, they are getting me more, the same or maybe less.
I get paid via PayPal. Would have prefered bank transfer, at least before Brexit, because there would not have been any bank transfer fees for me then (unlike with paypal) , but it didn't work. I didn't get paid at all in the beginning and upon asking what was up with that they claimed my bank data was incorrect and the money was returned, but no matter how often I double- and triple- checked, by bank data was correct (I always paste it from a document on my computer anyways, to make sure there are no typos), so I could not offer them any different "correct" bank data and had to switch to PayPal.
328
« on: November 05, 2021, 04:36 »
Before I contact Alamy, can someone please take a look at this and tell me whether there is something I just don't understand?
How much of the amount that is listed as DACS payment should have been added to my balance? Half of it or is the shown amount already 50% of what Alamy collected? Are these two seperate payments that should both have been added to my account balance?
None of these were added to my account's cleared balance, even though they are listed as "cleared". One doesn't appear anywhere, the other is listed under "Balance carried forward", which I don't understand. Why is it carried forward (into the next month?) instead of being added to my balance now?
I am very confused about all of this, but I don't want to bother Alamy support if everything is alright and I just do not understand it.
You are misreading the balance statement.
The two amounts you mentioned earlier ($138.97 and $124.22) are NOT your DACS payments.
The DACS payments are listed in the "Credit" column, in your case 14,75 and 0,08.
In the "Balance" column you find the total balance of your account after the corresponding line has been added.
Looks all correct to me.
Ah, thank you, I think now I finally understand. Very confusing though. I was wondering about this high amount, because Alamy is not an agency that performs well for me.  Now it makes sense.
329
« on: November 05, 2021, 03:50 »
Before I contact Alamy, can someone please take a look at this and tell me whether there is something I just don't understand?
How much of the amount that is listed as DACS payment should have been added to my balance? Half of it or is the shown amount already 50% of what Alamy collected? Are these two seperate payments that should both have been added to my account balance?
None of these were added to my account's cleared balance, even though they are listed as "cleared". One doesn't appear anywhere, the other is listed under "Balance carried forward", which I don't understand. Why is it carried forward (into the next month?) instead of being added to my balance now?
I am very confused about all of this, but I don't want to bother Alamy support if everything is alright and I just do not understand it.
330
« on: November 04, 2021, 15:08 »
but other than balances that have never cleared has always added up eventually.
But in this case the amount is already listed as "cleared", but hasn't been added to the sum of my cleared balance.
My "Current Cleared Balance" - as shown on the dashboard - has increased by the amount of the DACS payment. Possibly some sort of bug? My balance was about $1 under the threshold; shame they waited until after November 1 to post the DACS money 
You could wait a day or two or write to support - I think only they can tell why.
Okay, thank you. My current cleared balance has also increased today, but not by the amount of the DACS payments (also not by 50% of it, as, if I am corrct that's what Alamy pays? Correct me if I am wrong, this DACS things is really new to me) and with Alamy's delay of clearing sales and a lot of not cleared sales on my account I don't know where exactly that money came from.
331
« on: November 04, 2021, 14:29 »
but other than balances that have never cleared has always added up eventually.
But in this case the amount is already listed as "cleared", but hasn't been added to the sum of my cleared balance.
332
« on: November 04, 2021, 12:44 »
I am sorry, can anyone fill me in about this DACS bussiness? I am a bit confused. I know what DACS is, at least the basic concept, but I thought it was only for UK citizens and also don't think I got this on Alamy before.
I have listed DACS payments listed as "cleared", yet the amount was not added to my account balance, as far as I can tell?
333
« on: November 03, 2021, 04:11 »
If they were as important as amazon they'd never get away with paying so badly.
Amazon is known for paying their employees extremely poorly.
334
« on: November 03, 2021, 02:51 »
So I understand that on Alamy clients are able to download without ever having to pay for the download? It's all on trust basis and self-reporting? That's a really weird way of doing business.
Yes, and unfortunately it is evicent that this trust basis business model doesn't work. Otherwise contributors would not need to hunt down their own sales. I only reported a sale that never showed up on my dashboard that was used in an online article as far back as 2020! Never showed up on my Alamy dashboard, but was credited back to Alamy + me. And the most frustrating part is that of course we can assume that there are many sales we never notice and never get paid for, because if the site that used my image doesn't add credits to the image (which isn't necessary for commercial use image), I have no way of finding it. Just using an invert image search on thousands of my photos is hardly possible and without credits I don't know what site the image was bought from. When I search for my username + Alamy on google, most of the sales that did get reported don't even show up, so I can assume that only like 10% of my image sales can be detected like this. So, how man images of mine has Alamy given away for free? I'll never know.
335
« on: November 03, 2021, 01:30 »
Haven't experienced this at all. But I don't submit all that many landscape photos.
336
« on: October 29, 2021, 16:11 »
I just know that Shutterstock is not real time for sure when it comes to sales through their API partners. There was once a case where someone tried buying a sticker with his artwork through a site that claimed to be a partner of SS to see whether the sale will register and it took quite a while for the sale to show up on his dashboard. I also noticed that for like 1-2 weeks after holidays like Halloween and Christmas I keep selling way more holiday-related images then through the rest of the year even though the holiday is already over. I always assumed these were also API partner sales. I know of at least 2 other stock sites where it was confirmed by staff that partner sales can take as long as 3 months to show up.
I would assume that partner sales also aren't real time with iStock and Adobe, because they have to wait for the partners to report the sales to them, but with these agencies I can't tell for sure.
337
« on: October 27, 2021, 07:15 »
You might not be, but I am worried about other people's placement if it can have a negative impact on my placement, which then again can lead to me earning less money.
I did not assume buyers were stupid. These are your words. I just said some buyers will not care about whether their image has the best quality or simply illustrates whatever they need a picture of for an article. And on Shutterstock not the best image will be bought, but the one with the best placement.
Yes, complaining and worrying doesn't acomplish anything, yet we do it all the time, because that's part of what forums are for.
We will just have to agree to disagree on this topic, because we see things differently and I don't see this discussion going anywhere.
You worry too much about others and placement while you are insulting buyers saying not the best image will be bought. Write all you want on a forum, that changes nothing but feeding your worry. Is the best image yours or do you get your sales because of placement?
Not sure where you see me insulting buyers - that's your wrong interpretation, not what I said and certainly not what I meant. I can only repeat what I already wrote 2 times before: Some buyers will not care about whether their image has the best quality, but simply want something that illustrates whatever they need a picture of for an article. That has nothing to do with "stupid". These are your words, not mine. If I write, for example, an article about puppies being in demand during Corona for a local newspaper, I will just need "a" picture of a puppy. It doesn't have to be a photo with a perfect artistic composition, beautiful atmospheric light, a perfect pose. It just needs to be a freaking puppy. It's time efficiency. Searching for the best quality image of a puppy among hundred thousands of search results when you just need a random puppy image and could just take the first search result, that would be stupid. I don't get the last question. Yes, I get my sales because of placement. Images that are on the first page of serach results for certain keywords of mine get frequent sales, images of better quality of mine with no placement on the first page get no or rare sales. Some images that have great placement on some agencies get sold hundreds of times, but never sold on other agencies where they don't have a good placement. Selling images on microstock is 90% about good placement. Having images placed on the first page of search results for relevant often searched keywords makes a huge difference in sales. And, I can say the exact same thing to you: "Write all you want on a forum, that changes nothing." So, why did you make that post, if it "changes nothing"? You don't have any right to tell me what I am allowed to worry about or not. Worry about what worries you, I worry about what worries me and I have the right to express these worries. You are not in a position where you have to worry about scammers and cheaters having an impact on what you earn a living with? Good for you!
338
« on: October 27, 2021, 01:29 »
I use the download version.
339
« on: October 27, 2021, 01:27 »
I got mine on October 21st already - I did not get any notification mail about it though, so maybe you want to check your PayPal account (or whatever you use to receive your money).
340
« on: October 26, 2021, 06:02 »
? I'd also be genuinely interested if there's anything missing in the blogpost. Please let me know!
You're missing that Alamy is not the agency with the highest comissions in the indusry. I had commissions as low as 0.2$ with them, so even lower than the Shutterstock minimum and these small comissions for a few cents or few dollars are becoming more and more common. Yes, big sales can happen, but so can they on other agencies as well.
341
« on: October 26, 2021, 03:44 »
I think all releases should be accepted on all agencies, they all contain the same information after all.
I use the one from Shutterstock and had it accepted on all agencies. On iStock you need to make sure to add a reference photo, while it's optional for other agencies.
342
« on: October 25, 2021, 12:26 »
You might not be, but I am worried about other people's placement if it can have a negative impact on my placement, which then again can lead to me earning less money.
I did not assume buyers were stupid. These are your words. I just said some buyers will not care about whether their image has the best quality or simply illustrates whatever they need a picture of for an article. And on Shutterstock not the best image will be bought, but the one with the best placement.
Yes, complaining and worrying doesn't acomplish anything, yet we do it all the time, because that's part of what forums are for.
We will just have to agree to disagree on this topic, because we see things differently and I don't see this discussion going anywhere.
343
« on: October 25, 2021, 07:33 »
Shutterstock disabled the forum on October 15th.
344
« on: October 25, 2021, 06:24 »
50 sales a day also isn't normal for me, I wish!  I think my average is more like 30 downloads a day on weekdays, but Halloween is giving me a boost, because I sell a lot of dog costume photos.
345
« on: October 25, 2021, 00:45 »
But I think the discussion also came down to, so what? His images aren't as good as many others on page one, so he's still not getting sales.
See, that's what I absolutely don't believe. Yes, he most likely is not getting anywhere near as many sales as the other images on the top of the search results, because there is such a big quality difference between his images and the others. But he will still get more sales than he would if his images were on page 5657. I've seen images of poor quality getting way more sales just because they rank high compared to much better images that don't rank anywhere close to the first page just with my port alone. It happens and quite often. Some customers just don't care much about quality, just want "some" image that somehow fits the topic without having to search. And even if he is getting much less sales compared to the other higher quality images in the top serach results, considering that he managed this with every singel one of his photos and even with the most essential keywords like "beach, dog, man", etc. I think that the sales accumulate to quite a high amount of sales. Also - regardless of whether he is having sales or not - he is taking away multiple spots on the top search results from other contributors. Spots someone else of us could have, so sales we could have, but don't get. Instead the sales go to (either him or) any other of the images on the first page of the search results. My image could rank 105 because he is unrightfully taking up space on the first page and most customers will not look past page 1 (just like no one ever looks past page 1 of google search results, unless you absolutely can't find what you are looking for on page 1 - but what's the chance someone looking for a random beach image won't find that on page 1?). So everyone of us could be missing out on sales because of him, so yes, of course it is bothering me.
346
« on: October 24, 2021, 11:01 »
Today sums up my whole month on SS pretty accurately: Had 50 sales today and still only a single digit earning amount. 
Single digit from 50 sales. I don't understand. What single digit? Like under $10 you mean? WOW
Yes, under $10 for 50 sales was what I meant. Sorry, English isn't my first language, maybe you don't say it like this in English.
347
« on: October 24, 2021, 01:06 »
With 2 images matching all the required search/metadata SS make a lot more profit if the level 1 image is bought vs the level 5.
Simple tweaks like ranking, display order and so on can easily lead the lower images into a position where they're more likely to be bought.
Especially as there may not always be a quality difference.
This theory can easily be debunked, because we all start out at level 1 in January. If SS tweaked the search algorithm to sell more images from level 1 contributors, everyone would continously sell less and less images when rising in level- I had noticable more sales last month at level 5 than I had in January. (Also, the difference in earnings between level 1 and level 5 is highly overrated. Most of my sales are 0.10-0.15$ sales. You get 0.10$ sales at level 1 just as you get them at level 5 and the 0.11, 0.12, 0.13$ etc. sales make only a difference of a 1-3cents maybe. It's not really noticable. My income definitly did not go up in proportion with higher level and higher sale numbers. )
348
« on: October 21, 2021, 13:20 »
Today sums up my whole month on SS pretty accurately: Had 50 sales today and still only a single digit earning amount.
349
« on: October 21, 2021, 04:08 »
You're quite right Firn. On the other hand, there are many examples with too few or wrong words. Some insect photos have a lot of wrong names. Or no scientific name at all. When I photograph a seagull, tree, I find out what species it is. I also look for the name of windmills. A customer might just be looking for that windmill.
But you are right, I think very often it is luck if you are at the top with your photo.
Do you remember the thread on the Shutterstock forum, that we were talking about a man who was at the top with almost all of his photos? Which was impossible. I didn't hear anything about it after that.
Yes, of course, there are many topics were specific keywords are very important, mostly with animals, including insects, but also with plants and flowers, same as with places. Of course these things must be described accurately. But there are also a lot of cases where it will not really matter much wether you have 10 or 50 keywords, as long as you have the most relevant and obvious ones. For the photo of mine I was talking about SS shows me the following as keywords that were used the most to find it: christmas, dog, pet, holiday, funny, clothes. Of course I have many other keywords that describe the picture accurately, but no customer really cares that the dogs are "fawn colored" or "small", etc. As you can see from this example, in fact, people didn't even care about the breed. There are certainly images where the breed of a dog is very important, for example when you want to show health issues that are assoicated with a breed, or a customer might need a photo of a certain breed to illustrate an article about an incident with a certain dog, but in the case of Christmas dog costumes, the breed isn't very important. You should still add it of course, but it's not going to be the keyword that makes the image successfull. Yes, I remember the thread. There was also one about it here, but people weren't really any wiser about it. Oleg is still at the top for all keywords with his photos, so nothing changed about that. It's abslutely obvious to me that something isn't right about it, there is some kind of cheating involved that goes far beyond just using some clever keywords, but Shutterstock doesn't care, so fretting about it won't get us anywhere.
350
« on: October 21, 2021, 03:02 »
I left it as a holiday photo on my website and did not put it on Shuttestock.
Now it is of course much worse at sunsets photos. Keep in mind that you could win the competitors with the correct keywords.
I don't think the lottery has much to do with the correct keywords - but with luck. Most people tend to use rather too many irrelevant keywords than not enough relevant ones. And, with for example a sunset photo - what would be the "correct" keywords there? What would a customer search for besides "sunset" ? He would possibly narrow it down to "sunset at beach", "sunset at forest", etc... but other than that? I think 95% will just enter "sunset" and go for one of the frst search results. Now, I think the main factor is really luck - you need to upload an image just at the right time and be lucky that one or preferable more customers are looking for it at the right time and look at the "new" tab before your image gets burried among thousands of newer images with the same keyword. Then it rises to the top of the serach results and newer photos get an additional boost on SS - Some get mixed in with the "most relevant" search for a short amount of time (not sure it's at random, or has something to do with downloads or views as well. Could not figure that one out) It's not the "right" keywords that get you to the top (or, better said, not "the right keywors alone". Of course, of your image is missing the most obvious keywords, like you only wrote "sun going down" instead of "sunset", you will not raise to the top for the "sunset" keyword), but mostly luck. I can try to illustrate this with an example of mine: I do many dog costume photos and am doing quite well with them. Last year I wanted to do some photos with my dogs before Christmas in two specific costumes, but it wasn't snowing and didn't really look very Christmasy outsides. So I did these photos somewhere on our walk on the field with some shrubbery in the background. Strangely that image made it to the top of the serach results for "Christmas dog" and is doing really well for me. Later I had the chance to recreate the photo under better circumstances. I actually got to photography my dogs with the same costumes once in snow and once in a Cristmas studio setting. Both are much "better" photos in the sense that they fit the Christmas theme much better than two dogs in front of some green shrubbery. (Technical quality wise they should all be about the same) I used the exact same keywords for these photos, just copying them over. I probably added "snow" to the one and "studio" to the other, but no keywords were removed. If the sucess of the photos depended on the keywords alone, these images should have been found and bought by the customers just as well, or actually better, yet they never did. They might have had 2-3 sales maybe, while the first one literally has hundreds of sales. It was just luck with timing that lead the first photo to be successfull. It's actually one of the things I find so extremely frustrating about microstock - Luck is too big of a factor, so you can spend lots of time, effort and even money creating a really great photo, but a much worse one (and usually not yours), will get all the downloads because of sheer luck.
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