How To Make Money Selling Photography Online

If you think photography is an expensive hobby, you are right, it can be. But that does not mean you need pro-quality equipment to generate money from your own photos! How To Make Money Selling Photography Online

In actuality, if you’ve got a good phone cam and a steady hand, you are already in with a shot.

But you get your clicks, there are an increasing number of opportunities to monetise photos you have already taken. And when photography’s already your luggage, you will find heaps more ways to develop your skills, and income; from selling your Insta inventory to pulling a Brooklyn Beckham (famous parents optional).

You know the drill: read, learn, and give it a bash for yourself!

If you’ve got a digital camera (or fancy picking up one to get a sneak ), you’ll have more options for selling pics to stock libraries, to sites for prints, or for print-on-demand products. This is because cameras will generally produce larger file photographs (although some camera phones are trumping digi cams nowadays so this isn’t always the case).

Got a camera phone? A growing amount of stock libraries are catering for cellular snaps, and you still have a shot at the other biz ideas below. Continue reading!

It helps to have…

Some kind of editing software can help buff your pics for best results, so it’s well worth sniffing out a decent package (and learning how to use it!) So you can make more money with your own photos.

Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop are industry standards for picture editing. But they cost dollars! Don’t crack open your wallet until you’ve checked out the freebies:

FastStone Image Viewer can open RAW files straight from your digital camera and save them as JPG, TIFF or PNGs. OK for basic edits such as color correction, straightening, cropping and contrast.
Raw Therapee is a Lightroom-like editor with loads of tools for tweaking colors, curves and much more.
PIXLR is a persuasive alternative to Photoshop, and even recognises the very same shortcuts right out the bag. You can run it directly from a browser through the program for free.
GIMP can do a lot of what Photoshop excels at, though some users reckon it’s a more demanding learning curve.
There are loads of phone editing programs to be obtained for free or a few pence, but Snapseed (iPhone, Android, free) consistently makes the best-of lists.
Don’t forget the bloatware image software bundled into your’puter, telephone or laptop. Many can make light work of the fundamentals.

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Selling Through Stock Libraries

Stock libraries purchase’n’ sell digital photographs to use on websites, in books, on goods as well as in ads, together with the photographer getting a cut of the sale each time.

Selling photographs through a stock site is a top way to browse passive income streams: you can upload a photo once and sell it over and over again, pretty much forever!

You might need to submit a selection of pics (and be accepted) before you can become a stock library contributor. After that, some sites will continue reviewing all your submissions, and will happily bounce any they do not think meet criteria.

What that means is you’ll always need to be on the ball about picking your best shots. Don’t get too hung up about rejections, however; join multiple sites and post pics to them to get the best possible policy.

Which Websites Pay Most?

Swing by Alamy first. Their student contributor scheme provides you 100% of the sales price of your pictures for two years. Total win! Your uni will need to be part of the scheme, but loads of UK and US institutions are already on the books. How To Make Money Selling Photography Online

Alamy reckons images typically sell for $90 (USD) each, but you could get anywhere from $20 to $500 depending what it is used for. If you are not a student, or your uni isn’t registered, the pay-out’s still a fairly decent 50%. Selling phone pics through their Stockimo app (iStore only) earns you a 20% cut.

Other Websites to Check Out:

Picfair comes with a twist: you decide to what extent your pictures sell for. Picfair then add 20 percent on top for their cut, but the sales price you set is what you get if your image sells.
EyeEm: if Instagram and Alamy had a love child, this is what it would look like. EyeEm is a photo sharing website butif you want to earn more than’enjoys’, you could also pimp your pictures through the market. EyeEm divide every sale with you 50/50, with photos selling from $20-$250. EyeEm Bonus: regular how-to articles, themed missions run by large brands, plus you can upload pics via the web or phone.
Foap is built around telephone photographers, with everything managed through the program (Android, iTunes, free). Foap sells photos for $10 each and divides it 50/50, so you’ll make $5 per pic. They also run monthly Missions, where you are able to submit photographs on a theme to be in with a chance of winning extra cash and perks.

Big Name Websites

Dreamstime offer up to 60% for exclusives. How much your photo sells for also goes up the more it is downloaded: newbie images start at between $0.34 and $2.38 (USD). If you’re shooting a phone, begin with the free Dreamstime program (Android, iPhone).

IStock hands over 15% of a picture’s sales price, but guarantee a bigger cut if you make the pic exclusive to the site. Photos typically sell for #7 or #20 a go, but the type of licence or subscription program the customer buys determines how your slice is calculated.

Shutterstock coughs up $0.25 (USD) per sale on the most frequent subscription plans, but say you will find a larger cut as your lifetime earnings pass various levels. To put that into context, as soon as you’ve earned $10,000, you’ll be bumped up to the heady heights of 38 cents an image…

Playing the Stock (photo) Market

Earning money with stock photos can involve a significant cash-in, but there are a couple of things worth bearing in mind…

Stock photography is a numbers game: if you want sales, you will need to upload lots of quality pics to a number of sites.
Photos of people are always in demand, but anybody you pap may need to signal a model release form to say they are OK with you with it (your inventory library will have template forms you can print, sign and publish ).
Check the account terms! When are you going to get paid, and in what currency? What happens to your photos if you want to cancel your account in the future?
You often won’t get a state in how customers use your photos, so if you don’t want your selfies turning up in ads for STDs or hemorrhoid ointment, do not upload’em!
Sign-up for contributor newsletters, as they could clue you in on what sells, what to snap next, as well as how to improve your camera or editing skills.
Add plenty of keywords when you upload your images. It helps people find (and hopefully purchase!) your pics.

Selling Your Prints

There’s loads of liberty in selling prints (i.e., printed copies of your photographs ). You decide what to shoot, who to market to, and for how much and, like selling through stock libraries, it can be a nice little passive revenue earner.

Now, before you leg it down to Boots to batch publish your holiday snaps, there is a little more to it. While you can run off photos on your home printer or at a high-street laboratory, better quality means greater profits! How To Make Money Selling Photography Online

That means using a suitable printing laboratory (one which specialises in art or framed prints), opting for specialist paper, or even selling limited or signed editions. Sounds like a drag? Not necessarily; there is inspiration below to get you started.

Use a Photo Host

Photographer-friendly site hosts provide you with a safe place to store your digital pics, a portfolio (so you can show’em away ) and purchasing tools (so you can sell prints, downloads and wall art).

They even take care of the printing and any postage every time you make a purchase. Hashtag hallelujah, right?

But the big catch is, not only do they charge for hosting your site, they also take a cheeky cut from each sale — and that’s not everyone’s cup of cocoa! If you want to give it a whirl, be aware of free 14-day trials before you pony up the cash: try Zenfolio or Smugmug.

Get Your Own Photo Shop

Alternatively, you could always get your own website or Etsy store and hang onto more of your profit!

Getting prints or gifts to sell is also super easy; go for print-on-demand and you won’t have to store any stock (or be out of pocket if you can not shift it!) .

Sell on Social Media Platforms

Eventually the social networking giants will wise-up and start letting us sell photos and other content directly from our profiles.

But until then, take a hint from street photographer Daniel Arnold: he offered Instagram followers the opportunity to order prints from his feed — and made $15k in one day. Obviously it helps if you’ve already got a strong fanbase, but if you have talent (and the right hashtags) it is worth a shot!

The best thing about selling on social media is that you don’t even need a website: your feed is your portfolio, and you’ve got a enormous potential audience!

>>LEARN HOW TO SELL YOUR PHOTOS AND VIDEOS ONLINE HERE<<

Go print-on-demand

Print-on-demand is a brilliantly simple way to make moolah from mouse mats, keyrings, t-shirts, bags, books and much more — often with zero set-up costs.

The real beauty of print-on-demand is that while you may advertise tons of products, none of them actually exist until somebody buys’em — so there is no stock to shop, lose, or fall over. Better still, there are websites out there that do all the printing, printing and posting for you, so all you have to do is take the photographs!

Photo books

First stop: Blurb, the self-publishing publishing platform (learn how that all works here!) .

Blurb lets you create photo books just by importing your Facebook or Insta pictures — and you’ll be able to sell your final book on Blurb or Amazon.co.uk. You can even advertise books on your website (if you’ve got one), but have Blurb/Amazon manage the payment. Easy! How To Make Money Selling Photography Online

Gifts and Goodies

Turns out you can slap a photograph on pretty much anything, from shower curtains to pet clothing and PJs; and you do not even need a glue gun to get started!

Most print-on-demand outfits allow you to upload your photographs (or illustrations), select which products you wish to sell them on, and give you a cut of the profits if they sell.

CafePress pays you 10% if your products sell in their market, but you may opt to have your very own online store and add a mark-up into the price (which you get as your royalty) instead. It’s free to set-up and run a store, but CafePress take 10% of your royalties each month, up to a $10 max.
Zazzle lets you set your own royalty rate between 5 percent and 99% but, while it’s tempting to dial it up to full whack, keep in mind that your cut is added to the sales price: go OTT and you might find it more difficult to make sales.
With Spreadshirt you may add a mark-up of $1 to $20 on items sold through the marketplace, or you can start your own store and catch 20% commission.
Redbubble begins with a product base price and lets you add on a mark-up — the default is 20%, but you can tweak it as much as you like.

Running a print-on-demand shop is low-fuss and low-cost — if you are happy with the occasional sale, it can be a wonderful way to generate money on the side for relatively little effort.

The word from successful vendors is that, to earn proper bucks, you’ll want to put in the hours (so just like a project, sadly). We’re talking uploading plenty of photos or designs, getting the word out, and generally making an effort!

Go Freelance

Selling photographs anonymously online is simple enough. But if you want to build a rep, get more glory or just have customers of your own, here are some tips to get started as a freelancer photographer:

Know your niche. When it’s people, pets, food or something totally left-field, it is a lot easier to market yourself if your portfolio showcases what you do best.
Take time to learn your craft. You can get lucky selling stock in case you don’t understand your aperture out of your elbow, but you can’t afford to chance it when someone’s paying you for wedding pics!
Work out your rate and make sure it covers your time, your costs and leaves you a little on top for gain. And get insurance to your equipment!
Offer to photo events, portraits or parties for family and friends to build up a portfolio, and ask them to spread the word for you. Or search out your favourite bloggers and pitch them your pic ideas!
Batter your social networking account with your best pics, let folk know you’re available, and tell’em how to get connected. Get cheeky and take alternative promo shots for brands, then tag them to get noticed.
Get in touch with picture editors at newspapers, magazines or sites and ask if you can submit photographs or pay local events.
You may have more chance of being adopted by Madonna than getting a press pass, but it’s like a golden ticket which could get you into sports, fashion and other exclusive events. You will need to apply each time (or be a member of the National Union of Journalists) however, as soon as you’re in, you’ll get plenty of saleable photo opps!

While everybody with an Insta account appears to reckon they’re a pro photographer, the reality is that being a freelancer may be the toughest route you may take.

You’ll need tons of patience, perseverance, good shoes and adequate pics — and you may well have to give away images for free when you first start out to get noticed. If you’re in it for the career, do not give up. If you’re in it for the money, get your game on with the other ideas on this page in the meantime!

Bonus Tips for Aspiring Photographers

Carry your camera everywhere — and not just when you’re doing something or going somewhere special. Loads of businesses and brands are after photographs of everyday life and often it’s the simple things which make the best pics — believe streets, food (street food?) , facial expressions, family, pets, sports… anything!
Back-up your best pics (or any you would hate to lose): maintain copies on an external drive or in cloud storage (Dropbox provides you 2GB of space for free).
Once you start getting sales, get to grips with tax and the freelancing fundamentals. It will save you stress in the long term, and can save you money on your tax invoice.
You may not be able to sell photos should they include trademarked products, brands or even specific buildings. Check out the terms with your stock library, or get the company involved and ask if you require permission to hawk your snaps.
Don’t just do the same-old or what everyone else is doing. Quirky, cute or weird is always in vogue. Amen to that! How To Make Money Selling Photography Online

>>MY RECOMMENDATION FOR LEARNING HOW TO SELL PHOTOS AND VIDEOS ONLINE<<