I’ve Made Over $3000 Selling Licences To Use My Photographs

Summary

Susie Kearley, a photographer, has earned over $3000 by selling licenses for her photographs through Alamy Stock Photography, with a 50:50 revenue split, although the process is time-consuming and requires high-quality equipment and expertise.

Abstract

Susie Kearley has been a contributor to Alamy's stock photography website since 2016 and has sold approximately $6695 worth of photos, with a significant portion of sales occurring in the last three years. She emphasizes that while stock photography can be a profitable venture, it demands professional-grade equipment, meticulous editing, and adherence to strict quality standards. Kearley has uploaded around 8,000 photos to Alamy, each with 40-50 keywords to aid in discoverability. The process involves considerable time investment for keywording, captioning, and digital enhancement. Alamy offers a 50:50 revenue split, but recently reduced the standard rate to 40% unless contributors sell over$ 250 gross annually. Despite the challenges, Kearley finds satisfaction in her sales and retains copyright to her images, allowing her to sell licenses repeatedly.

Opinions

The author acknowledges that while stock photography can be lucrative, it is not easy and requires significant investment in equipment and time.
Kearley suggests that second-hand photography equipment can be a cost-effective option for beginners.
She advises that photographers must be prepared to spend time on post-processing tasks such as keywording and removing dust spots.
Kearley warns that uploading photos of certain locations, like National Trust houses, without proper authorization can lead to legal issues.
She appreciates that Alamy allows new photographers to join and finds it rewarding to see her images used.
Kearley expresses concern over Alamy's reduced commission rates and the complexity of the new contract, which may be difficult to understand due to legal jargon.
She recommends Pond 5 as an alternative platform for those interested in selling video content, noting its 50% royalty rate from the start.
Kearley encourages photographers to explore different platforms and methods, such as writing to market, to diversify their income streams.

It’s a 50:50 split with Alamy Stock Photography

Screengrab of one of my images on Alamy © Susie Kearley

I’m a keen contributor to Alamy’s stock photography website, where to date, I’ve sold $6695 of photos. That’s since I started contributing in 2016. Most of those sales were in the past three years and I received almost 50% of the income from the sales. It’s a 50:50 split with Alamy who deal with the sales side of things.

This might sound like a great way to make money online, and it can be lucrative, but I’m not going to pretend it’s easy. You need decent photography equipment to meet their requirements.

I’ve got about 8,000 photos on Alamy at present. They’ve all got about 40–50 keywords to help buyers find them. It takes a lot of work to get them all digitally enhanced, uploaded to Alamy, captioned and keyworded. It swallows up a lot of time.

The pictures all have to meet Alamy’s stringent quality standards, which means you mustn’t have dust spots in the sky, no grainy pictures where the ISO is set too high, and definitely no blur from hand shake!

You can get banned for three months for submitting a blurry photo. I know — it happened to me once, when I selected the wrong picture to upload by accident!

Things to remember

Getting decent photography equipment can be expensive, but you can get some good deals on second hand equipment, especially with online traders such as www.mpb.com.

You’ll need photo editing equipment like Photoshop and you’ll need to learn how to use it.

It swallows up a lot of time to do the keywording, captioning, digital enhancement, and take out dust spots.

Most visitor attractions prohibit photography, so if you’re thinking of putting up pictures of National Trust houses for example, think again. Unless you pay an annual fee to become one of their official photographers, you’re not allowed to sell those pics!

Alamy — the bad news

Alamy has recently reduced their rate for most contributors to 40%. You have to meet a certain threshold, even get that. You must sell more than $250 gross in 12 months before you get 40% of the value of sales. Below that, you only get 20%.

Sometimes the rate per sale is painfully low! They sold one of mine for 50c. Fortunately most pay a lot more!

The new contract might make you feel queezy — and that assumes you can understand all the legal speak.

Overall however, I’ve enjoyed making money online with my photography, and I plan to continue.

Want 50% royalties from day 1?

Another platform to consider if you want to grab a 50% incentive from day 1 is Pond 5, who are well known for supplying moving images to the television industry.

The problem with Pond 5 is that while they’re well established in video, they’re less well established in stills. The bottom line is they might not be best placed to sell your snap shots to tourist boards and newspapers… but if you create videos, they might be perfect! Why not take a look?

More from me:

I’ve Made Over $3000 Selling Licences To Use My Photographs

It’s a 50:50 split with Alamy Stock Photography

Things to remember

Alamy — the good news

Alamy — the bad news

Want 50% royalties from day 1?