3 Ways to Make Money on Your

Photos
The legendary photographer Ansel Adams once remarked that
“there are no rules for good photographs, there are only good
photographs.”

If youʼre sitting on a hard drive full of good photographs, why not try
to capitalize on them? Selling your photography isnʼt an easy path to
riches (letʼs not oversell it) but the internet has definitely lowered
the barriers for entry for aspiring professionals to turn a few bucks
on their images. Of course, lowered barriers for you mean lowered
barriers for everyone with similar ambitions, but as they say: nothing
ventured, nothing gained.

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 Here are three ways you can profit from the images youʼve already
taken.

1. Enter Them into Contests

The web is teeming with photography contests. Most are centered

around themes (seasons, events, or photographic styles) and photo
brands and even websites.

Photography contests wonʼt make you rich — the cash prize is

usually minimal and sometimes youʼll just win photographic gear.
But they do provide something else — publicity and a feather in
your professional cap.

2. Sell Them to a Stock Agency

The proliferating assortment of blogs and websites has ushered in

unprecedented demand for stock images. Most of the stock photo
agencies have a fairly easy submissions process, allowing you join,
upload your work and hope an interested party downloads it. Stock
agencies wonʼt simply accept your images site unseen, some will
have a panel of judges examine a few samples to make sure theyʼre
up to snuff. After youʼve been accepted, you can typically submit
images at will.

As with any third party, stock agencies will take a cut of any
photograph they sell — a very large cut, in fact. The popular service
Alamy says the average photo fetches $90 if itʼs sold and Alamy
gives sellers a 20 percent cut. Gettyʼs iStockPhoto, another popular
services, gives photographers a 15 percent cut of any image sold
although this can be boosted as high as 45 percent for
photographers who qualify for their “exclusive” tier.

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 3. Sell Them Yourself

If you donʼt want a stock agency taking their pound of your flesh
and think you can generate exposure on your own, you can sell your
images directly from your own website.

There are a few ways to go about this. You could buy web hosting, a
URL and build a site on your own that will enable visitors to securely
purchase/download your photography. WordPress-based e-
commerce websites like Photocrati arenʼt hard to find and, with a
little tinkering, arenʼt terribly difficult to set up.

If youʼd rather outsource this work, third party services like Zenfolio
or SmugMug will host your images in an e-commerce friendly
format. Rather than take a cut of your sales, theyʼll charge a
monthly fee for usage, so this option only makes financial sense if
youʼre reasonably confident youʼll do enough volume to recoup your
costs. On the plus side, these services often allow you to sell photo
merchandise in partnerships with photo labs, so youʼll have
additional revenue opportunities beyond just photo downloads to
profit from.

Have you tried to sell your photos? Any good (or bad) experiences
you want to share about stock services? Sound off in the
comments.

(Image: Wiki Commons)

Last updated 11. April 2014

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