What are Alamy Pseudonyms?

Alamy has one of the most creative ways to manage your images in pseudonyms.  I wish all agencies had a program like this!

A pseudonym is the name under which you sell your images and which will be credited by customers. You may use your own name or create one or more pseudonyms to represent and brand your collection.

Your approved images can all be under your own name or they can be under a name you create to represent a specific collection.

AlamyRank is calculated per pseudonym NOT for your entire profile.  A new pseudonym is given a “median” rank until the actual rank is established.

Why use a pseudonym?

I’m going to start using one basically the moment I push publish on this post.  I have always just used my name but I have done enough research now to think I want to try it.  Under a pseudonym, your group of images can be theme or type related.  I have done model shooting in the past, fractals and illustrations, now mostly food.  Whatever I am shooting gets lumped into one big pile.

Well, with pseudonyms, I can separate those piles.  I can use my food photography site name (StartingtoCook) for my food photography and keep my name for model work.  I can also separate out the illustration and fractal work which sells less and give that it’s own pile.  If it sells there, it sells, but I’m strengthening the main collection of model work and strengthening the food work by branding it.  Because of AlamyRank, having them lumped together gives me a lower rank for every image.

Alamy rank is Views / Clicks + Sales.  So if you have 100 views, 2 clicks and 2 sales, your AR is 25.  If you have 1000 views, 5 clicks and 2 sales your AR would be 100.  You do want views – but you really want clicks and sales, too.

Ranks are calculated every 100 days using the previous 300 days data.  What you don’t want is 20,000 views, 1 click and 1 sale.   (Alamy explains their ranking system VERY clearly – better than anyone – here.)

Another great reason to use a pseudonym is for managing your RF and RM collections.  Put your RF under one name, RM under another and it’s easier to track usage using Google’s image search.

How do I use a pseudonym?

1. Go to My Alamy.
2. Under “Organise images”, click “Manage images”.
3. In the top menu, click “Defaults and pseudonyms”.
4. Create, delete and set default pseudonyms.