Turning Your Photos To Cash – How Can Your Photos Make Money For You
How can I make money from my photographs?
If you’re a semiprofessional at the art of photography, then it is likely that you may be able to make some cash by selling your photographs. This article will list some ways in which you can make some money from your photographs. It does not tell you how to make a living from your photos, but instead will teach you how you can use your photos to gain an additional source of income.
There are lots of different ways of making money from your photos. They vary from being very easy which only requires an Internet connection to more difficult which requires a bit more work to be done. The following are some of the ways you can make money from your photos:
Selling to stock photo web sites
There are many stock photo web sites on the internet which are very active. These sites allow people to both buy and sell photographs. The way they conduct their business may vary, but the idea remains the same. The photographer uploads and displays his photographs to other users. These users decide to buy the photographs if they are interested in them. Some sites allow you to sell your photographs without charging you any money. Other sites will collect a commission for every photo you sell. Still other sites will charge you a membership fee to join the website. Some examples of such sites are: http://photostockplus.com and http://www.mugmug.com
Use your photos to drive traffic and sell ads
These days, there are lots of ways you can make money by using online advertising. A significant amount of smaller sites generate revenue based on the advertisements they display. The key to generating revenue this way is to get a lot of site traffic. If you setup a photo web site which can attract a large number of visitors, then you can use this traffic to generate additional revenue by placing advertisements on your site. Get the word out about your site to family and friends. Post on some message boards and chat forums and try to get a steady stream of traffic flowing to your site. Once you have this, you can place some advertisements on your site. There are lots of sites you can use to publish your photographs. Some of them are http://www.blogger.com and http://www.typepad.com. If you’re looking at revenue generating advertisement sites, then look at http://www.google.com/adsense or http://publisher.yahoo.com
Sell the photos yourself
If you’ve created your own site, then this is one way you can sell your photographs directly from your site. You can have compressed, low resolution versions of your photographs published on your site and if visitors want to get print quality ones, then they will need to buy the originals from you. To help you collect money and sell online, you can use tools such as http://www.paypal.com. After your buyer has paid for the photograph, you can mail them the original, high resolution pictures.
Hire out your services
While being more of a traditional approach and requiring more work, why not publish your willingness to do some work? You can publish your advertisement in online and newspaper classifieds. Sites such as http://www.craigslist.com allow you to post classifieds for free. You can provide details of your services, what you can do and how much experience you have in your advertisement. If possible, post some samples of the work you have already done. You could even include a link to your main website where visitors can see more examples of your work. To find out what you could be charging, call up some local photographers in your area and ask them for quotes for some work.
Galleries and Coffee shops
An option which may require more work and investment is to try and sell your photos in coffee shops or galleries. Start off by printing and framing some of your best work. Visit some local galleries and see if you can get them to feature your work. Start off small so that your initial investment will be a lot lower and build up as you go along. You could also visit your local coffee shops or restaurants and ask them if they would like to display your photos on the walls of their establishments. These days, it is fairly common to have such places displaying photographs that are ‘for sale’. Its quite a good option for both yourself and the owners of the shop. They get good quality photos to hang on their walls. You get the free exposure and may only have to pay them a small commission from any photos you manage to sell through their establishment.
Always keep in mind, however, about the local copyright laws. Since these laws can change from state to state or even country, make sure that you are within the law in selling or publishing your photographs in public places. Depending on where you are, certain corporate logos or signs may require that you first get written permission before photographing or even selling. While there are lots more ways you can make some extra money from your photographs, these tips should get you off to a really good start.Have you ever thought about starting your own photography business but worried about setting up and making a profit? You can easily solve this issue by starting a profitable photography business. With emphasis on the word profitable, it’s dedicated to coaching you to start your own business the right way but places a heavy emphasis on profitability issues & guidelines.
You can also gain many photography resources (some free) from photography equipment & resources.
