Recently, I wrote an article comparing the advantages and disadvantages of various marketing strategies. I suggested that in terms of the number of images licensed for commercial uses "rights-managed licenses account for 3% of the total number of annual licenses. Traditional royalty-free images make up 6%; 20% goes to subscription services and 71% to microstock.”
How long will it take before traditional prices drop to microstock levels? If Alamy's sales are any indication, microstock sellers might not be cannibalizing traditional sales in terms of number of units licensed, but they certainly are cannibalizing revenue as traditional sellers fight to compete.
It is difficult to estimate the number of image licensed annually using this model due to the lack of solid statistical information, which is more easily available with other licensing models. Nevertheless, I estimate the units licensed by subscription at 20% of the worldwide total. It could be higher. If so, the corresponding percentage that microstock makes up would be lower.
Alamy's sales for the first quarter of 2009 were down. Yet despite the drop in revenue, the company actually licensed rights to more images in the first quarter of 2009 than during the same period of the previous year.
In terms of number of images licensed, microstock has been taking the industry by storm in the last few years. About 71% of images currently sold annually are licensed using the microstock model.
Traditional royalty-free images currently account for perhaps 6% of the images licensed worldwide. In relative terms, the number of images licensed using this model is declining most rapidly.
There are four basic strategies to consider when trying to decide how to market stock images. These are rights-managed, royalty-free, microstock and subscription. Most sellers favor one strategy and are often adamantly opposed to the others. Some, however, argue that there is merit in using several of these strategies. Starting with rights-managed licensing, this series of articles will analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each model.
Leading iStockphoto contributors saw their sales drop by almost 9% in April compared to March, according to our analysis of the numbers available through iStockcharts. To some extent, this might be explained by a loss of one business day to Easter.
In the face of declining pricing and revenue percentages, many photographers have found new ways to supplement their freelance income. Some may have staff photography jobs and freelance on the side. A growing number work in similar or allied fields, such as graphic design, or even hold a totally unrelated job of real-estate agent, teacher or flight attendant.
To help measure how representative the survey results might be, responders were asked to indicate their affiliation with trade organizations. Close to a third (29%) of the total 136 respondents did not belong to any such group, while 25 (18%) belonged to organizations other than the choices provided in the survey.