Frank Kern - Six Ways to Sell Photos

Six Ways to Sell Photos

By John Hawkins

*****

Make Money from Home

Disclaimer

The author and publisher of this eBook and the accompanying materials have used their best efforts in preparing this eBook. The author and publisher make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents of this eBook. The information contained in this eBook is strictly for educational purposes. Therefore, if you wish to apply ideas contained in this eBook, you are taking full responsibility for your actions. The author and publisher disclaim any warranties (express or implied), merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. The author and publisher shall in no event be held liable to any party for any direct, indirect, punitive, special, incidental or other consequential damages arising directly or indirectly from any use of this material, which is provided as is, and without warranties. As always, the advice of a competent legal, tax, accounting or other professional should be sought. The author and publisher do not warrant the performance, effectiveness or applicability of any sites listed or linked to in this eBook. All links are for information purposes only and are not warranted for content, accuracy or any other implied or explicit purpose.

Table of Contents

Part 1- Micro-Stock

Part 2 - Actual Stock Photography

Part 1 - Cold Submissions

Part 2 - Personal Promotions

Part 1 Prints

Part 2 Products

Introduction

Anyone can be a photographer. Anyone can sell their photos and make money from their photos. This is not to say that everyone will have equal talent at photography, nor will everyone have equal success at making money from photography, if this is the goal. Anyone can be a hobbyist photographer. But thats another eBook. ;)

In this eBook, we will skip right to the available income-generating options assuming that you are looking for places to sell photos you have already taken or photo you plan to take in the future.

Im going to discuss three different methods for selling your photographs and each of these three areas have two-parts, so technically there are SIX ways to sell detailed in this ebook.

Method #1. Stock Photography

Overview: What is stock Photography?

Stock Photos are images that are not taken for a specific product, company, or service, but is a generic or stock model that can be used for a variety of purposes and a lot of times more than one purpose.

For example: Whereas a large hamburger chain like McDonalds might set up their own (typically medium to large scale) photo shoots for their specific products, on the other hand a local diner or bar/grill might purchase some stock photos of hamburgers to use on their menu and promotional items.

Ever notice how a lot of the images on take-out menus look the same??

The main benefit to using stock photos rather than setting up a photo shoot is cost. Some businesses do not have the budget pay for hiring a photographer and setting up photo shoot, which could entail additional expenses for hiring models, make-up artists and hair stylists, renting a studio, and also potential post-production costs.

Stock photography is usually performed by professional photographers and most of the stock agencies (well get to that shortly) have quality requirements and creative criteria. So you know you can get good to excellent photographs to use without spending as much as you might though there ARE stock photographs which do cost a pretty penny due to licensing rights (another topic well touch upon).

There is also no shortage of photographs or photographers out there, so for most of the common items someone might need stock images for - pets, plants, household items, landscape scenes, etc. - there is a plethora to choose from.

But at the other end of the scale you have larger usage needs (such as a national magazine or news site) photos which include recognizable people/celebrities, buildings and privately-owned places, brands, exclusive events, etc. where one would need permission to use the photos thats where we pay the piper, err photographer, photographed subject(s), property-owner, or photo-owner.

Lets go more into these two types of stock photography.

Part 1- Micro-Stock

Micro-stock is the type of stock photography aforementioned where typically the budget is less and the need for one-of-a-kind imagery is probably NOT as much of a priority.

Theres a big potential to make money selling your photos on micro-stock sites and there are a number of benefits.

The Advantages of Selling Your Photos on Micro-stock Sites:

1. You dont need much experience to sell on micro-stock sites.

2. You can sell photos on micro-stock sites from home.

3. You can select and sell nearly any subject matter of photos that youd like.

4. Once your photos are accepted and up for sale, theyre for sale for good! Great long- term passive income (e.g. income you dont have to constantly work for they sell on their own!)

The Disadvantages of Selling Your Photos on Micro-stock Sites:

1. Its hard to get photos accepted.

2. Commissions are relatively small.

3. Competition is very great.

4. Payment takes PATIENCE.

Anyone who fulfills the requirements for any particular micro-stock site can start selling stock photos immediately.

Getting accepted, however, can often prove the trying and sometimes discouraging part.

In additional to technical requirements, most micro-stock photo agencies have creative criteria as well.

Firstly, you may have to go through a training tutorial and/or test in order to be approved as a stock photographer. This application may include a review of some sample images. If your images are not up to par, you will be rejected. Each micro-stock agency has its own standards for acceptance and I would encourage you to read their individual guides and requirements prior to submitting in order to save you some time in the long-run.

Secondly, after being accepted then each image you upload into your online stock photo portfolio will have to be approved before going live for sale.

Your photos will be inspected for technical quality on both digital file aspects as well as photographic expertise.

Some of the Technical Requirements May Include:

File size: The larger (in MB) your photo files are the better. Even better, shoot RAW.

Resolution: Again, bigger is better. Keep your original files as uncompressed as possible, always shoot at the highest quality your camera can muster.

Pixilation: Blurry is bad. (with the exception of aesthetic intent) Sharpness is good. View your image at 100% actual size and if you can see any pixels thats bad.

Retouching: Your images will be personally inspected by a human who will zoom in to see if any obvious sizes of (bad) retouching are apparent. This is not to say, dont retouch your photos. You definitely should retouch your photos. But retouch well.

Lighting: The micro-stock inspection human will also look for your lighting quality of your photo. Most photos with hot spots or over-exposed areas will be rejected, as will any photos which are too dark. Any photos with big shiny spots on someones forehead or obvious glares from flash photography will surely be rejected. Lighting is a skill which takes some experience and study this is an area that could separate the professionals from the amateurs.

White Balance: Another thing to watch is the white balance of any submitted photo. I wont go into the technical details of this, since thats for another guide, but the gist of this is you want the white in your photos to be white (color hex code #FFFFFF), the blacks to be black (#000000), and the grays to look gray (#).