Thursday, November 10, 2011

How Can I Sell My Photos Online?

Technology has evolved immensely since a decade or two ago, mainly because of the development of the Internet. Back then, the only way to earn an honest salary was having a job. Even though this mentality stuck with us as the years went by, the opportunities to make money without having to work on a schedule or for a boss are now endless. I will now discuss my personal favorite, which is responsible for more than 80% of my monthly income: selling photos online.

I manage to live a very comfortable lifestyle by selling the photos I take, and so can you. And the best part about this is that your earnings reflect the amount of work you choose to spend taking photos. I know people who make around $1000 a month from this, only taking photos for a couple of hours during weekends. I myself chose to turn this into a full time job (about 3-4 hour a day, actually) and the reward is extremely fulfilling.

But enough babbling, let's talk a little about how this whole thing works. Why would anyone pay for photos taken by regular people?

The answer is quite simple actually: photography buyers usually have better things to do than wasting their time taking photos. Such people include website designers, bloggers, business owners and freelancers. It is a lot easier to pay someone a few dollars for a photo you like than going outside and trying to take that photo yourself.

But where can you find such people? Thankfully, there are various ways to get people to buy your photos. The most popular and profitable method (for me) is selling your work through websites specialized in stock photos. A simple Google search will reveal quite a few of these sites.

This method is quite straight-forward. All you have to do is upload your photos to their servers, set your prices and wait for people to buy. You can either sell a photo to only one person (which will earn you more money per sale) or to more people, in which case the buyers do not have the certitude that their photo is unique on the Internet. This will also lower the price of your photos, but the possibility to sell a photo more than once can be more profitable in the long run. I cannot say which method is better, since it depends on a series of factors, but I make about $2.5 per photo.

Another way to find buyers is advertising your work yourself, either by joining forums or other communities, or by contacting bloggers or website owners yourself. Even though this requires some more work on your part, finding a good and constant buyer can be like striking gold.

By doing a little math, you can calculate the average salary you can earn during a month of selling photos online. Let's say you can only spend 2 hours a week taking photos. How many photos can you take during this time? They don't have to be artistic photos, just regular ones. Let's say you take 100 photos every week, which brings us to a total of 400 photos per month. At an average of $2.5 per photo, your monthly profit will be $1000. Pretty nice, right?

And the best part about this is that you don't have to be a professional photographer or have an expensive camera to start. I was completely clueless when I first started and now I make a living from this.

When it comes to complete beginners trying to make money selling photos online, I can mention my friend Jessica and her quest to making $3000 per month. She started a few months ago and already managed to make a little more than $2000 a month, so her journey is coming to an end. At How to How to Sell Your Photos, you can find a report of her progress and learn a lot from her experience. Make sure you check it out!

Gilbert Robinson is a professional photographer making a living out of his passion.

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