but that it takes at least 5-6000 images on sale to make a living or trying to.

I can't imagine how bad you really are if you need 5-6k to make a living. And as you said you live in a shithole in (south east) Asia, where you can get by just nicely with a few hundred bucks. I sold over 10% of my port at SS in sheer numbers today (meaning over 100 images if I had a port of 1000) and I don't consider myself to be a great ms tog.

Quote from: Poncke on July 16, 2012, 17:50

Quote from: antistock on July 16, 2012, 07:59

, as far as i'm concerned newbies can just pi-ss off.

....You have a lot of hate in you. Smoke a joint.....

Hate is good. It drives us to work harder.

Speak for yourself.
Or is that as in, "I hate that iStock pays 15%, so I'll work so much harder and they'll give me 16%"

Quote from: antistock on July 16, 2012, 07:59

but that it takes at least 5-6000 images on sale to make a living or trying to.

I can't imagine how bad you really are if you need 5-6k to make a living. And as you said you live in a shithole in (south east) Asia, where you can get by just nicely with a few hundred bucks. I sold over 10% of my port at SS in sheer numbers today (meaning over 100 images if I had a port of 1000) and I don't consider myself to be a great ms tog.

But you don't have 1000 images do you?  It gets harder as your portfolio grows.  The law of diminishing returns seems to hit everyone at some point.  Some people can make a lot with a smaller portfolio but they might experience bigger ups and downs and it might not be so easy to maintain earnings over a long period.  They also might find it harder as their portfolio gets copied by all the copycats.  My best selling photo has been copied so many times now, it makes a fraction of what it used to.

But if I can do it with 500, than there's no way I couldn't make a living with 1k,2k or even 6k

Dream on.

Quote from: wut on July 17, 2012, 06:59

But if I can do it with 500, than there's no way I couldn't make a living with 1k,2k or even 6k

Dream on.

Shes a Scottish lass, be careful or she bushwhack you right smack in the B....................S

Quote from: ShadySue on July 17, 2012, 07:24

Quote from: wut on July 17, 2012, 06:59

But if I can do it with 500, than there's no way I couldn't make a living with 1k,2k or even 6k

Dream on.

Shes a Scottish lass, be careful or she bushwhack you right smack in the B....................S

YBBI

Quote from: ShadySue on July 17, 2012, 08:59

Quote from: wut on July 17, 2012, 08:29

Quote from: ShadySue on July 17, 2012, 07:24

Quote from: wut on July 17, 2012, 06:59

But if I can do it with 500, than there's no way I couldn't make a living with 1k,2k or even 6k

Dream on.

What's up with you lately? :s

No change. Cynical realist.

Well the sudden change of attitude towards me, puzzles me. I thought you had just a bad day yesterday...And you're certainly not realistic, since you don't know my real numbers, but I guess you have your own reasons to think of me as a liar, someone as pathetic to lie about his earnings

OK. You and I have about the same dl/ul rate at iStock (You can't see my actual figures, but it's showing as 11,977), and you're thinking of going exclusive. But I have a lot more files, so I'm presumably getting more actual dls than you. You currently have sales elsewhere, but exclusive %ages at iStock are higher.
I can assure you I don't anything like make a living from my iStock earnings though my stock outgoings are almost nil, my mortage is paid and I have no family to support at the moment.
So unless you're making a fortune at Alamy, where I admit I'm a dismal failure, averaging almost the exact popular projection of 1dl/month per 1000 images, that's where I'm getting my figures from.
If your figures are that much better, from your sales at other sites, don't even consider exclusivity for a moment longer. If you're doing that much better at Alamy, put all your effort there.

BTW, if you don't think you'll hit the wall, like almost everyone else has, consider aeonf. For ages they were extremly bullish, doing better and better month on month, but even they have been slipping for the last couple of months. They're shooting models/studio stuff.

Hate is good. It drives us to work harder.

WOW, Yuri must be the god of hate then...

Quote from: wut on July 17, 2012, 09:16

Quote from: ShadySue on July 17, 2012, 08:59

Quote from: wut on July 17, 2012, 08:29

Quote from: ShadySue on July 17, 2012, 07:24

Quote from: wut on July 17, 2012, 06:59

But if I can do it with 500, than there's no way I couldn't make a living with 1k,2k or even 6k

Dream on.

What's up with you lately? :s

No change. Cynical realist.

Well the sudden change of attitude towards me, puzzles me. I thought you had just a bad day yesterday...And you're certainly not realistic, since you don't know my real numbers, but I guess you have your own reasons to think of me as a liar, someone as pathetic to lie about his earnings

OK. You and I have about the same dl/ul rate at iStock (You can't see my actual figures, but it's showing as 11,977), and you're thinking of going exclusive. But I have a lot more files, so I'm presumably getting more actual dls than you. You currently have sales elsewhere, but exclusive %ages at iStock are higher.
I can assure you I don't anything like make a living from my iStock earnings though my stock outgoings are almost nil, my mortage is paid and I have no family to support at the moment.
So unless you're making a fortune at Alamy, where I admit I'm a dismal failure, averaging almost the exact popular projection of 1dl/month per 1000 images, that's where I'm getting my figures from.
If your figures are that much better, from your sales at other sites, don't even consider exclusivity for a moment longer. If you're doing that much better at Alamy, put all your effort there.

BTW, if you don't think you'll hit the wall, like almost everyone else has, consider aeonf. For ages they were extremly bullish, doing better and better month on month, but even they have been slipping for the last couple of months. They're shooting models/studio stuff.

If you're getting over 400 or even 500, then yes, you are (I can send you a printscreen so I won't get called names etc;)

What you didn't consider is that costs of living over here are half of what are in your area. That being said I also own a flat, have no mortgages etc. I'm not making much at Alamy, sales are disappointing, only 2 so far this month for instance. But then again, I already reached a BME at FT yesterday, 3rd BME at IS a week ago and something really terrible would have to happen to my sales to not make it to a BME, it's projected to be a big one. SS is doing great as well on my way to my 2nd BME, so IS is closing the gap, but OTOH FT is doing it as well, so I'll just have to see about exclusivity. It was easier before when I had only 2 sites selling really well.

I was always saying I will, but if that happens when I'll be earning 3-30k like some ppl over here that are complaining about their sales plateauing, I'll be one happy fool. I won't complain at all! I'll just miss the days of rising sales I guess, but that kind of money would really allow me to indulge myself (travel more and eat even better) . And most seem to hit the wall when their port reaches 3k+ so judging by that I have a long, long way to go (you know that I don't shoot a lot and add very little new material every month). BTW, many ppl here seem to be happy for aeonf's loss. I guess they'll be even happier when it happens to me. But until then, I'll be the last one to laugh, muahahaahaha (joke, I know you don't care about that anyway;)

^^Mine's bigger than yours.  I think so anyway,  stomach in the way.

ROFL!  Great post

Here�s some number to consider. Through 2009 Alamy was supplying quarterly sales figures and rather detailed breakdowns of those figures to the public. Based on those numbers Alamy had gross revenue of $22,864,000 in 2009 down from over $31 million in 2008. In 2008 they paid out $20.8 million to contributors and in 2009 they paid out $12.5 million.

In Q4 2008 the average license fee for an RM image was $116. If the image was editorial the average price was $100 and the average for commercial use was $298. Of course the vast majority of sales were for editorial use.

At the end of 2008 they had about 15 million images on the site. Now they have almost 32 million.  In all of 2009 they licensed rights to use less than 200,000 images or a little over 1% of the images in their collection. Considering that a few images were licensed more than once, the number of unique images licensed was probably less than 1%. The number of images licensed in 2008 was about the same, but the average price per license was higher.

While the collection has more than doubled in size, based on conversations with photographers and agencies that have images on Alamy, I don�t think the number of total images licensed per year has risen much above 200,000, if at all. That means that today on average a photographer would need about 160 images in the collection in order to make 1 sale in the year. Of course some photographers do better than the average and others do worse.

Part of the original question was �How will historical images sell?� There is not anywhere near as much demand for historical images as images of contemporary people and lifestyle, or current views of travel locations. Thus, sales of historical images would probably be much lower than the average. Alamy will probably accept images that you can�t get accepted by microstock sites, but is it worth your trouble of preparing the images for the market.

very interesting numbers Jim, thanks for sharing!

how about RF?

No! this is in fact what I have suspected all along!  time to bail out of Alamy. They dont sell, simple as that.