Alamy takes on United States Market

As posted in the Alamy Contributor Blog, Alamy has made the decision to create a US presence for themselves.  They will hopefully have an office in New York by early 2009 in an effort to market their images to a US audience.

Other changes include a decrease of 5% for contributors giving us photographers 60% of direct sales (instead of 65%) and 40% of sales through distributors (down from 45%).  This commission change shouldn’t occur till early 2009 as well from what I can tell.

What this means for me

Frankly, I see this as a good thing.  While the 60% commission is lower than it was, it’s still higher than many other agencies.  (Many seem to split 50/50)  Also, as a US based photographer, it means that my images will be marketed heavily in their home country — hopefully allowing them to sell better.

Alamy has always been a European agency selling mainly to that area of the world.  Prior to this announcement, the percentage of sales to the US was apparently around 30%.  They project that this number will rise with the dedicated US office.