Sell Photos Online

If you believe photography is an expensive hobby, you’re right, it can be. But that does not mean you need pro-quality equipment to generate money from your own photos! Sell Photos Online

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

But you get your clicks, you will find an increasing number of opportunities to monetise photos you have already taken. And if photography’s already your luggage, there are heaps more ways to develop your abilities, 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 one up for a steal), you’ll have more options for selling pics to stock libraries, to websites for prints, or for print-on-demand products. This is because cameras will usually produce larger file photographs (although some camera phones are trumping digi cams nowadays so this isn’t necessarily the case).

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

It helps to have…

Some type of editing program can help buff your pics for the best results, so it is worth sniffing out a decent bundle (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 directly out of your digital camera and save them as JPG, TIFF or PNGs. OK for basic edits like color correction, straightening, cropping and contrast.
Raw Therapee is a Lightroom-like editor with loads of tools for tweaking colours, curves and more.
PIXLR is a convincing alternative to Photoshop, and even recognises the same shortcuts directly out the bag. You can run it directly from a browser through the program at no cost.
GIMP can do a lot of what Photoshop excels at, though some users guess it’s a tougher learning curve.
There are tons of phone editing apps to be had for free or a few pence, but Snapseed (iPhone, Android, free) always makes the best-of lists.
Don’t overlook the bloatware image software bundled into your’puter, phone or laptop. Most can make light work of the basics.

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Selling Through Stock Libraries

Stock libraries buy’n’ sell digital photographs to use on websites, in books, on goods as well as in ads, 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 may have to submit a selection of pics (and be accepted) until you can become a stock library contributor. After that, some websites will continue reviewing all your submissions, and will gladly bounce any they do not think meet criteria.

What that means is you will always need to be on the ball about choosing your best shots. Do not get too hung up about rejections, though; combine a number of sites and post pics to all of them to find the best possible policy.

Which Websites Pay Most?

Swing by Alamy first. Their pupil contributor scheme gives you 100% of the sales price of your pictures for two years. Total win! Your uni will need to be part of this scheme, but lots of UK and US institutions are already on the books. Sell Photos 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 is not enrolled, the pay-out’s still a fairly decent 50%. Selling phone pics through their Stockimo program (iStore only) provides you a 20% reduction.

Other Websites to Check Out:

Picfair comes with a twist: you decide to what extent your images sell for. Picfair then add 20% 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 site but, if you want to earn more than’enjoys’, you can also pimp your images through the marketplace. 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’ll be able to upload pics via the net or phone.
Foap is built around phone photographers, with everything handled through the program (Android, iTunes, free). Foap sells photos for $10 each and splits it 50/50, so you’ll make $5 a pic. They also run monthly Missions, where you are able to submit photos on a theme to be in with a chance of winning extra cash and perks.

Big Name Websites

Dreamstime provide up to 60 percent for exclusives. How much your photograph sells for also goes up the longer it is downloaded: newbie images start at between $0.34 and $2.38 (USD). If you are shooting a phone, begin with the free Dreamstime program (Android, iPhone).

IStock hands over 15 percent of an image’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 purchases determines how your slice is calculated.

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

Playing the Stock (photo) Market

Making money with stock photographs can involve a substantial cash-in, but there are a couple of things worth bearing in mind…

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

Promoting Your Prints

There’s loads of liberty in selling prints (i.e., printed copies of your photos). 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 income earner.

Now, before you leg it down to Boots to batch print your holiday snaps, there’s a little more to it. While you can run off pictures on your home printer or at a high-street laboratory, better quality means higher profits! Sell Photos Online

That means using a proper printing laboratory (one which specialises in art or framed prints), opting for expert paper, or perhaps selling restricted or signed editions. Seems like a drag? Not necessarily; there is inspiration below to get you started.

Use a Photo Host

Photographer-friendly website hosts give you a safe place to store your digital pics, a portfolio (which means you can show’em off) and shopping tools (so you can sell prints, downloads and wall art).

They even handle the printing and any stamp every time you make a sale. 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 everybody’s cup of cocoa! If you want to give it a whirl, look out for free 14-day trials until 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 gain!

Getting prints or gifts to market 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’t shift it!) .

Sell on Social Media Platforms

Eventually the social networking giants will wise-up and begin letting us market photos and other content right from our profiles.

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

The best thing about selling on social media is that you don’t even need a website: your feed is the 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 generate 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 can advertise tons of products, none of them really exist until somebody buys’em — so there is no inventory to shop, lose, or fall over. Better still, there are sites out there that do all of the printing, printing and submitting for you, so all you’ve got to do is take the photographs!

Photo books

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

Blurb enables you to create photo books just by importing your Facebook or Insta pictures — and you’ll be able to sell your finished book on Blurb or Amazon.co.uk. You can also advertise books on your website (if you’ve got one), but have Blurb/Amazon manage the payment. Easy! Sell Photos Online

Gifts and Goodies

Turns out you can slap a photograph on pretty much anything, from shower curtains to pet clothes and PJs; and you don’t even need a glue gun to begin!

Most print-on-demand outfits let you upload your photos (or illustrations), choose 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 can opt to have your very own online shop and add a mark-up to the cost (which you get as your royalty) instead. It is free to set up and run a shop, but CafePress take 10% of your royalties monthly, up to a $10 max.
Zazzle enables you to set your own royalty rate between 5 percent and 99% but, while it is tempting to dial it up to full whack, remember that your cut is added to the sales price: go OTT and you might find it harder to make sales.
With Spreadshirt you can add a mark-up of $1 to $20 on items sold through the marketplace, or you can start your own shop and grab 20% commission.
Redbubble begins with a product base cost and allows you to add on a mark-up — the default is 20%, but you can tweak it as much as you’d 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 nice way to generate cash on the side for relatively little effort.

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

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 freelance photographer:

Know your niche. When it’s people, pets, food or something completely left-field, it’s 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 if you don’t know your aperture out of your elbow, but you can not afford to chance it when someone’s paying you for wedding pics!
Workout your rate and make sure it covers your time, your prices and leaves you a little on top for profit. And get insurance to your equipment!
Offer to photo events, portraits or parties for family and friends to develop a portfolio, and ask them to spread the word for you. Or search out your favorite bloggers and pitch them your pic ideas!
Batter your social networking account with your best pics, let folk know you are available, and tell’em how to get in touch. Get cheeky and take alternative promo shots for brands, then label them to get noticed.
Get in contact with picture editors at newspapers, magazines or sites and ask if you can submit photographs or cover local events.
You might have more chance of getting adopted by Madonna than obtaining a press pass, but it is like a golden ticket that can 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’re going to 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 is probably the toughest route you can take.

You’ll need a great deal of patience, perseverance, good shoes and adequate pics — and you may well have to give away pictures for free when you first begin 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 thoughts on this page in the meantime!

Bonus Tips for Aspiring Photographers

Carry your camera everywhere — and not only when you’re doing something or going somewhere special. Loads of businesses and brands are after photos of everyday life and often it’s the simple things that make the best pics — believe roads, food (street food?) , facial expressions, loved ones, pets, sports… anything!
Back-up your best pics (or some you would hate to lose): maintain copies on an external drive or in cloud storage (Dropbox gives 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 could save you cash on your tax bill.
You may not be able to sell photos if they comprise trademarked products, brands or perhaps certain buildings. Check out the terms with your stock library, or contact the company involved and ask if you need permission to hawk your own snaps.
Don’t just do the same-old or what everybody else is doing. Quirky, cute or weird is always in vogue. Amen to that! Sell Photos Online

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