College Money

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If you are a photographer, or are interested in photography, and have a decent camera to take pictures with, then you might consider selling your work as a way to earn some extra money. With the accessibility of the internet and social media, it’s much easier now to find avenues where you can make profit off something that you are good at.

There are several ways on how you can make money selling photographs:

1. Offering your services to other businesses. There are a lot of businesses out there who are in need of a photographer but don’t know where to find one. Your skill can be greatly appreciated by store owners who need to have photos of their products so they can sell them better.
   • eBay – Try scouting around eBay for sellers or stores that are quite successful but whose photos of products need a bit of work. You can contact them directly and introduce yourself, then offer to take photos of their products for free.
   • Craigslist – You can post an ad selling your services. A great of getting potential clients is to find a niche, like concentrate on offering photography for those who are selling their used cars, or houses, etc.
2. Market yourself online. There are many ways of connecting with a lot of people online. Create an effective online presence so that people will get to know you and what you have to offer.
3. Sell stock photography. Take photos of objects, portraits of people, situations in different subjects, or even come up with a theme and photograph objects related to that. For example, birthday theme: you would have to take individual photos of a cake, candles, balloons, paper hats, etc. Then you can sell these individually to stock photography websites. There are a lot of websites and company out there who use stock photography in their everyday activities, especially if they need photos for documents, blogs, online articles. Even CNN and popular magazines make use of stock photography. You just have to make sure that you take photos of subjects that are quite common and popular. Here are some places where you can make money selling your photographs:
   • iStockphoto – You would need to sign up for an account first, then submit 3 original samples of your work. After you are accepted as a contributor, then you are now ready to sell your stock. Files are licensed two ways: pay-as-you-go, where you earn your royalty based on the net value of the credits used to download your image, and by subscriptions, where iStockphoto pays you based on how much of the subscriber’s daily limit was used to download your file. The price also depends on what size your image is available in (bigger resolution, bigger pay). You can earn royalty from $0.30-$7.50 per image.
   • Dreamstime – You will need to sign up for an account, upload samples, and wait to be approved. You will start at the first level. The more your photos get downloaded, the higher your level is going to be. Each level increase also amounts to your photo being sold at a higher price. Dreamstime boasts of being the company to award the highest royalty to photographers in the industry, so you might want to check this site out. You can earn at a range of $0.38-$10.63 per image. If you provide more formats for the photo, the royalty for the largest size available will be doubled, and if you provide it in TIFF format they will give you 150%.
   • Shutterstock – You can earn $0.25 per image download of your photo. If you can refer stock buyers, you will get 20% of their subscription price. If you can refer other photographers to submit their work, you can earn $.03 per image download of their photo.
   • 123 Royalty Free – You will earn 50% of the price of the photo downloaded. (For example, an image in ultra high resolution is priced around $3.) If the person who downloaded your image has a standing subscription, you will earn $0.36 per download.
   • Imagekind – Imagekind buys and sells high-end framed artwork. So you can sell not only your photography but your art as well. If you sign up for a free account you get to have 3 galleries where you can showcase your work. You are going to be the one to set the price to how much you want to sell your work, and Imagekind gets 5% framing commission.
   • Bigstock – You earn $0.50-$3.00 per download of your image. If you sign up for their special licensing program you can increase your profits to a range of $2.50-$60 per download.
   • Photostock Plus – You can set your own prices, and you will earn 85% commission on all sales minus a 3.25% processing fee.
   • Can Stock Photo – You get 50% commission for guest & member purchases (price range of photos sold is $2-$10), and $0.25 for subscription sales. Also, if you refer another photographer, you have a chance of earning $5 for every 50 photos he/she sells.
   • Cluster Shot – You decide how much to price your photos. Any sale you make, the money is yours. However, at the end of the month, Cluster Shot will bill you 12% of all your sales.
   • Crestock – You will be paid a commission every time your image is sold, however, they didn’t mention for how much. Once you make 100 sales, you automatically get 30% commission.

If you plan on being a full-time stock photographer, this may be a profitable gig for you. One stock photographer, Yuri Arcus, makes as much as $300/day selling his images alone! Just remember that you not only need good equipment, but talent as well. You need to take good photos and have a great concept for each shot. Browse different websites and see what kind of images sell, and what topics are hot in discussions and need lots of images of.

Good luck!

Where Can I Make Money Selling My Photographs5.051