Passive income selling your photos online
Let me tell you a little bit about myself
I am Catherine and have been taking photographs for a while now. Actually, I have been fortunate enough to travelled a fair bit and live in several countries - mostly because of work. And made sure I always take photos of different subjects - cover as many as I can.
So how do you make money from your photographs?
Let's start simple - go through your photos and select the best 30 photos you believe a good friend would like to purchase. Then thin it down further to the best 15 photos covering a range of subjects. I cover subject like animals, architecture, food, landmarks, backgrounds and editorial (famous icon, person or event). The sky is literally the limit.
Most (if not all) digital photos needs to be edited with software (from Picasa to professional software like Adobe Lightroom), doing the basics like removing spots marks on the image. Make sure it is not over expose and keep at least 80% of the original image the same. Remember - you can't make a bad image perfect.
After editing your photos, upload them to sites (more later). Keep a record of which site you have uploaded the image to and record the basics (accepted, if sold, for how much, how many times). I even keep a record of the reference number assigned to the image (for example the filename or site number given).
And how do I get started selling my images?
There are many places you can use to sell your images, from micro stock / image libraries, to photography websites, even your own site, and if you believe you are really gifted, why not approach a local gallery.
What is a micro stock / image library? Well, here are some of the sites I have been using for over 5 years. Sometimes I even buy images here for my own website.
Sites accepting only exceptional (quality and subject) images:
Site accepting high quality images:
- Depositphotos
- GL Stock Images (FAIR-TRADE)
- Bigstock
- 123RF
- Pond5
- 500PX
- Canstockphotos
Lastly, sites accepting most decent quality images (good for beginners):
All these sites require you to join and open an account with no need to pay anything - only if you want to buy. But there is always a catch (or option) - a non exclusive contributor allows you to distribute your images to more sites, but at lower costs. Each site is designed differently, targeting a different audience - only experience will show which one fits your style the best.
How much can I expect to start earning?
You will typically get between 30% to 40% of the sales price while the site will take the rest managing the images, sales and clients. You get payed a royalty that is often paid out into a Paypal or bank account.
There are others more profitable sites that I have joined that pay out more than the library sites, so in the comment please leave me a message if interested. So get involve, dust off those old beautiful travel photographs and make some money from them. I promise that eventually the cash will start to trickle in if you persevere at it and improve your photographic skills and style.
Looking forward to your responses and comments below. Or check out my Vividrange photography site.
Don't forget to up vote my post so more people can learn and get involve by learning from our experiences.
thank you very much for your insights and suggestions. I have to admit that you really peaked my curiosity as you seem rather involved in the domain selling photography. I was curious to know where you'd suggest me to post such photos or the article I prepared for STEEMIT.com:
https://steemit.com/jasper/@eric-boucher/toward-jasper-national-park-a-never-to-be-forgotten-monumental-journey-part-2-2
Looking forward to your enlighten advise. Namaste :)
Hi Eric, thanks for your response and I'm glad if I could encourage you.
I had a look at your post and I think you have some excellent photos - love it. So it depends where you want to upload it too.
For the library sites I suggest you minimize the saturation (the greens and blue are over saturated). Look at slides 6,7,17,33. It is important for them that your photos be realistic and in focus (a given).
Sites like 500px tend to go for the dramatic, where you can push boundaries. Think of it like this: "Would you like to buy this picture and hang it on your wall?"
Hope it helps.
Vividrange, it is a pleasure to hear your comments and I am very grateful for the suggestions. Have a wonderful day, thanks a bunch for mentioning my blog site to the person who asked you a question right after me. Have a wonderful day, keep your smile and namaste :)
Very cool post, thanks for the links!
Do you recommend any watermarking or protection software for the really good stuff?
Hi pixellated,
If you sell your photos through the suggested library sites, then you must not use any watermarks, borders or special effects. These site will place their own watermark and will be removed when the image is sold to a client.
As mentioned to "eric-boucher", if you look at 500px and private websites it is up to you to decide:
What I suggest is finding a suitable solution for different occasions if you don't watermark - there are probably more trick to try, but just of the top of my head:
a. Make the image smaller - e.g. smaller x-by-y pixels, or lower quality
b. Put a smaller signature on the bottom - see what I sometimes do at Vividrange
c. Use more expensive "watermark" software to hide the signature (something I haven't done)
But more important is - what is your target audience. Market for them and make money.
Again, hope my little advice gets you going...
Very cool, thanks for all the tips!
What kind of earnings are you seeing from this? Any guides or generalizations there?
Hi Jacobt,
Thanks for your comment and for reading my blog and sorry for taking so long to respond on your comment.
It does depend on your quality and style of your photos and which subject you have mainly focused on - I don't have any people in my images and if you have the right's and their permission to sell their photo's online ( you will need a signed releases form per site) - this will increase your sales.
People, pets, concepts and travel photo's are very popular and it always helps to have a photo or idea that no one has thought of.
Vectors, special effects and videos can have a larger sale price than photos.
I have been doing this for roughly 5 years and I can make around $150 - $240 per month, every site will increase and decrease in sales. (This week I made $15 for one image and the most I have ever made on one sale was around 150 Euro's for a use of one image).
You will need to pay tax on your income and it depends on which country you are based in and each site has a request payout around $30 - $100. Which country are you based in?
This a passive income and is not set in stone as it may take a few weeks or even months to even make a sale - the major reason is the online exposure and making new contacts.
Send me a link of your portoflio and I can try and give you more direction, if you like.
I have found that in the past that I thought one my images will really sell and it hardly sells and then another is a lot more popular and is sold weekly.
You can always sell your photos @ Picfair and Pond5 and you can request your own price per image, my link's of my photos - picfair.com/users/Vividrange
- pond5.com/artist/vividrange#1/35968
Hope I helped and good luck with your journey with photography and have a great week.
Catherine
What do you think of the blockchain-based attribution systems being developed?
Hi samtoland,
I have wondered myself when this will eventually become a reality - a blockchain to record proof of ownership, sales / royalties and usage. This would encourage less sales friction and probably bring down costs (by excluding the middleman / financial institutions), much like Steemit / Open Bazaar does it.
I have not yet seen any such implementation, so if you do I would like to know more.
I would really like this, it's a great idea. Could you please implement it? Thanks very much, @vividrange :)
I'm a Shutterstock contributor. It's a tough slog but there is real money to be made. On the other side of things, imagine being able to search for and insert Shutterstock images on the fly when writing posts here on Steemit! That would be a cool feature IMO.
Hi Conda
What is your Shutterstock name and how long have you been a contributor?
Have you join all the site on my list and thanks for your comment and have an awesome week with lots of sales.
Catherine
My portfolio name on Shutterstock is different to my current company name. If you can use a classic or simplified name from the beginning as Shutterstock is one of the sites you can't change your portfolio name at a later stage but the rest of the site's you can change your portfolio details.
Thanks for the tips. I'm going to give this a try and see how it goes.