Thanks! - I never knew there was one till I apparently crossed it!

Started with Alamy in January 2014. Submitted hundreds of my best sellers, images that sell daily elsewhere. 0 sales. Stopped submitting because of their lazy review process where they check one image in a batch and refuse of deny the whole lot. So someone uploads 100 borderline garbage images, one barely passes, they all pass, search results get watered down. Another batch of 100 high quality, sale-able images, curator finds minor issue with one example, rejects them all and penalizes the contributor by delaying further reviews, and then they can't be bothered with specifying which image and why. Not a very well thought out system.

Then there's the lack of an upload option for video, and that new uploads seem to debut at the absolute bottom of search results without consideration of their quality or relevance, or a realistic chance of being seen let alone sold. Anyone with any success there had to be in years ago it seems. I definitely missed that boat. But since they offer a fair split and the faint hope of a healthy priced sale, I'll leave my content there. Not worth the time to continue uploading though, IMO.

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on August 10, 2014, 03:24

I think there's a difference between interesting documentary "street photography", and "here's the fence down the road from me, and this is the building next to it, and here's another, and here's the sign on the building" that some Alamy contributors do.

not directed at Alamy, but all ms sites
... and we must not forget all those " nice little flowers by the roadside, artistically-placed garbage bins, insects, birds, laundry of many colours, etc. these r inspirational as the toilet-seats, meat-coat, bars on the wall,etc we have in our national art musuems"

Yes, this is the difference between microstock and traditional stock.....those images of insects and birds and nice little flowers are getting licensed by natural history textbook producers, and as in the case of an image licensed at AGE about a year ago, that "laundry of many colours" image licensed for about 5 figures (in this case, it was stacked bath towels of many colours).

"Upload good work and you will not have any issues.  I have not had a single image rejected in over a year."

Not by any means claiming my images are perfect, but they were certainly "good" enough to be accepted and make sales in multiple other places. While I do understand that they have a different kind of standard, and I admit I'm not quite clear on what that is exactly, I can't for the life of me figure out which image they deemed unworthy from a given group, or why. "Throwing out the baby with the bath water", as they say. Definitely doesn't make figuring out what they want any clearer either.

It can't be good for the collection as a whole and the search results to have a system that might allow what could be hundreds of poor quality images to "sneak" through in a batch because the reviewer just looked at one and found it "good enough". Quality control isn't just for children.

"Just click on the "failed batch" in red on the track submissions page and the rejection reason and rejected image is clearly marked."

Clicked it, however all images in said batch just say "Failed QC" and the rejection reasons are all blank. Overall though, your points make perfect sense, thanks for the insight. Different strokes for different folks.

"Just click on the "failed batch" in red on the track submissions page and the rejection reason and rejected image is clearly marked."

Clicked it, however all images in said batch just say "Failed QC" and the rejection reasons are all blank. Overall though, your points make perfect sense, thanks for the insight. Different strokes for different folks.

Did you have more than one batch open at that time?  If so the failed image might be in another batch as all open batches get failed.  Other than that I've no idea, I have always gotten a reason even if I did not agree with it.

Alamy is my #2 earner behind SS.  But it is more erratic, some months very good money, some months nothing at all.  SS gives me a paycheck every month Alamy does not, but at the end of the year I feel I made money there.  it is really no bother to upload the RF stuff to Alamy, all the keywording and so on has already been done and since I only upload material that has been accepted widely elsewhere I do not worry about QC much.  The RM stuff is harder and I spend more time on it, but it is also fun to shoot things and not worry about how to frame every shot so there are no logos or people in them.

I think it is very hard to compare Alamy and Stocksy.  I really like the artists cooperative idea behind Stocksy and really wanted to belong.   I have a background in member owned cooperative management and thought it would be a good fit.  I had no expectations of what I would make.

Alamy is very old school and many contributors there started with film and slides so the attitude is different.  I like the agency, I think they try to treat contributors fairly and are very responsive to questions and issues.  The upload / keyword system is dated, even archaic but likely too hard to change now.  There is a plugin for Lightroom that makes things a lot easier though.  Sales are erratic and if you are used to logging in to SS several times a day to see your sales you will be sorely disappointed.

Stocksy, is (to me) mostly a concept or idea. Since I was not accepted I have no idea how they operate or if I would like being there.  I like the idea, I think it would be great to belong and help but as an outsider I cannot really give you any opinion on how they compare to Alamy.

 much appreciated u took the trouble 2 respond so promptly. cheers

My Alamy earnings would probably be better if I didn't have some of the same RF photos on Alamy and the micros - nearly every time I have an image that's on both zoomed on Alamy, it sells on one of the micros, so I mostly stick with keeping the two portfolios separate these days.

I shoot a lot of travel, nature and editorial, so Alamy is a good outlet for my work and I've seen an uptick this year after a couple of years of dwindling sales. Since I'm licensing more images on my own these days, in order to protect the work I submit to publishers on my own, I've been uploading more as either RM or as RF without adding the same work to the micros.

My best sales on Alamy were $250+ and a few years back most were $100+, but this year my average sale there has been $48 (with $24 to me), which means I still get those $100+ sales but also some really small ones (ike Shady Sue, I'm in the newspaper scheme, meaning $3-16 sales). Sales are picking up and I expect 2014 to be much better than 2013.

Alamy was my best site last month, but that is still the exception rather than the rule. They've lowered their payout threshold from $250 to $75 and the minimum size photo from 48MB to 24MB since I started in 2008, so in that sense they are responding to the realities of the stock photo market (they also decreased royalties from 60% to 50%, still way above average). And recently they licensed a couple of my old 6MP images that I upsized to 48MB back in 2008, so old photos are selling there. Most of my travel and editorial stuff is illustrative editorial so I think they'll have a good shelf-life on Alamy. I'm averaging less than 2 but more than 1 sale per month with 600+ images.

Honestly, a lot of my travel stuff would sell equally well on both Alamy and micro (and many more times on micro) so I often have a hard time deciding where to place my work which makes it tough for me to give you advice. The best thing I can say is that the more work you have up there the better you'll probably do, and to point out the benefits of RM with this example: I have one photo that was purchased twice this month by a book publisher - since it was RM, they had to license it twice to use it twice in the same book. I have another that is RF and a magazine publisher with 20+ magazines licensed it once and can use it in all of their publications worldwide as many times as they want. The RM sales were both for more $ than the RF sale.

I also licensed that RM photo to a calendar company last year. Those 3 sales have netted me almost half as much as my best-seller ($-wise) on SS which has been licensed 261 times, including 10 ELs. Both images are comparable in many ways, of popular travel locations in New England, so I think the comparison is illustrative. Hard to say if I'd have earned twice as much on SS if I'd uploaded that same image there as RF instead, but it would require hundreds of sales, not just 3.

We are very different to microstock so a different strategy is needed.

It would be very interesting if you would spell out exactly how you feel you are different - given that so many of my images sell for less from Alamy than (other) images I have on iS sell for (totally different images and RM vs RF), and what our 'different strategy' should be.

One of the most frustrating things about Alamy IMO is that no matter how rare the subject matter of a file is, it can still be sold for peanuts because of a client's negotiated discount. I'm intrigued about what strategy I can adopt to prevent that.

Just to say: You have a private message from me a couple of days ago and I hope will get response from Alamy:)

Thanks!
Deyan

It will - but we're very busy at the moment so it might not be for a couple more days.

Despite my best year at Alamy being 2013, my average sale gross was $42.63.
This year, not only have sales slumped, but my average  in 2014 has been $36.24 gross.

Would also therefore be interested to know what kinds of images sell for the $100 gross you quoted - presumably high production value studio shots with models - except that is bread and butter for micro, and you're different.
Does RF sell better/for more than RM on Alamy?

We're not ignoring this, just have a lot on at present and will respond shortly.

Interesting.
Here are my non-'UK newspaper scheme sales' for this year (note how few, I'm running under 50% of last year's sales, and c30% of last year's $$) - sales figures below are gross, mostly 50% to me; a few distributor, 40% to me:

Country: Worldwide
Usage: Editorial
Media: Textbook - print and e-book
Print run: Unlimited
Placement: Inside
Image Size: 1 page
Start: 01 January 2014
End: 01 January 2024
$113.14

Country: Worldwide
Usage: iQ sale: Magazine, editorial print and digital use, up to DPS, cover and/or inside, repeat use for a single title
Industry sector: Media, design & publishing
Start: 04 February 2014
End: 04 February 2016
$75

Country: United States
Usage: iQ sale: Magazine, Any editorial digital use. cover or inside.One time use only.
Industry sector: Media, design & publishing
Start: 19 February 2014
End: 19 February 2016
$45

Country: Italy
Usage: Editorial
Media: Magazine - Print only
Print run: up to 50,000
Placement: Inside
Image Size: 1/8 page
Start: 26 February 2014
End: 26 March 2014
$32.92

Country: United Kingdom
Usage: Editorial
Media: Magazine - Print only
Print run: up to 150,000
Placement: Inside
Image Size: Spot size
Start: 22 March 2014
End: 22 June 2014
�In-Context� online usage included. Print run: 120,000. UK - Includes up to 5% overseas distribution
$40.85

Country: World English Language
Usage: Editorial
Media: Textbook - print and e-book
Print run: up to 50,000
Placement: Inside
Image Size: 1 page
Start: 11 April 2014
End: 11 April 2024
$73.22

Country: Russian Federation
Usage: Editorial
Media: Magazine - Print only
Print run: up to 10,000
Placement: Inside
Image Size: 1/2 page
Start: 01 April 2014
End: 01 May 2014
$44.79

Country: Worldwide
Usage: iQ sale: Magazine, editorial print and digital use, inside, repeat use within a single issue
Industry sector: Media, design & publishing
Start: 03 June 2014
End: 03 June 2016
$57.33

Country: Worldwide
Usage: iQ sale: Retail book. Editorial print + digital use. Up to DPS.inside.One time use only
Industry sector: Media, design & publishing
Start: 10 June 2014
End: 10 June 2039
$65.52

Country: Australia, New Zealand and Oceania
Usage: iQ sale: Magazine, editorial print and digital use, cover and/or inside, one time use only
Industry sector: Media, design & publishing
Start: 10 June 2014
End: 10 June 2016
$69.81

Country: Germany
Usage: Editorial
Media: Retail book - print only
Print run: up to 5,000
Placement: Inside
Image Size: 1/8 page
Start: 01 May 2014
End: 01 May 2015
$46.74

Country: Germany
Usage: Editorial
Media: Retail book - print only
Print run: up to 5,000
Placement: Inside
Image Size: 1/8 page
Start: 01 May 2014
End: 01 May 2015
$34.23

Country: Worldwide
Usage: Editorial
Media: Editorial website
Placement: Single Placement
Image Size: up to full area
Start: 01 July 2014
End: 01 July 2017
Editorial web use, multiple placement; rights granted in line with customer agreement which may vary from invoice details above
$10.00

So you can see, only one sale over $100 gross, and my UK newspaper scheme sales take the average way down from the above.

AIUI, and Alamy can correct me if I'm wrong, the amount paid for a photo is dependent only on the discount the buyer has negotiated, and nothing to do with the quality or rarity of the image itself.
Also, Alamy have said that buyers in the UK newspaper scheme don't see images which aren't opted into the scheme (though presumably they could choose to look through the rest of the collection if the image was rare enough and they were willing to pay full a higher price), and you can't, AFAIK, opt rare images 'out'.

Note also the bizarre, internally contradictory terms bolded in the last sale noted.

It was noted above that the BBC website uses Alamy pics. I see them very seldom, and suspect they're a source of last resort. What I see mostly there is Getty for celebs and Thinkstock for ordinary stock photos. I had a sole Alamy photo of a certain UK location, and incredibly a 'national newsworthy' incident took place there a couple of months after I took it. I had exactly the spot where the incident happened - and the Beeb chose to use a 'near enough' fuzzy/distorted pic cropped from Google Earth.

As far as micros go, up until whatever disaster iStock visited on themselves in late Sept 2012, my editorial sales there were almost on a par with Alamy, and obviously for a lot more than $1 (and more than Alamy's UK Newspaper Scheme). Now my iS editorial and 'creative' sales are equally down the swannee. I was never on the others, but can't imagine making the effort for 25c at some other places.

my overall gross is $53.4 per sale. for 2014 it is 69.3 (but a lot less sales so far compared to 2012) -  50% of 2013 with a bit past 50% of the year.

They were my #2 agency 2012 and 2013. Sales seem pretty random there though. I didn't have much there until they lowered the size requirement.