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.