Posted under Making Money in Photography & Posts w/Podcasts
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (7.3MB)
How to sell your photos
By Tammy Gray-Searles
www.searlesmedia.com
Click the link for a podcast of this blog How To Sell Your Photos
Portraits
How and where you will search for those customers depends on what type of photos you hope to sell. There are five general markets for photographs not taken on assignment. These include stock, art, travel, news and magazines.
One great resource for selling any type of photography
Here are some basic guidelines for selling your photography
Stock Photos
Selling stock photos, which are generally used in advertisements and graphics, can be very profitable in the long run. One reason for this is that stock photos provide a residual income, since the same image can be sold over and over again without much effort on your part.
There are numerous companies that deal in stock images, so do a little research and make sure the companies you choose to work with offers fair pay. Two of the top stock photo companies are Getty Images and Corbis. You really need to be at the top of your game to work with these companies, but if you are, they offer some of the most competitive pay and will sell plenty of your work. If you are just starting out however, you’ll need to start with some of the “smaller” companies. You can find many of these online. In many cases, you simply upload your photos for review and upon approval they are listed for sale on the site. Each time a customer downloads your image you receive a royalty payment.
Before attempting to sell stock images, make sure you know exactly what a stock photo is and how they are used. This will greatly increase your chances of selling photos and help you avoid wasting time on images that are unlikely to sell.
Fine Art Photography
While it is probably one of the most enjoyable forms of work for many photographers, fine art photography can be one of the most difficult to sell. The competition is fierce and the market saturated. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done or that you shouldn’t try. There are a number of online sites where you can sell your fine art photography at a very low cost, or you can create and market your own website. A better way to break into the fine art market is to sell at art fairs. Many buyers love the idea of meeting the artist and chatting about the photographs. This is also a great way to start building name recognition. Consignment galleries can be another good way to get started. Contact galleries in your area and find out their policies for showing and selling your work.
Travel
How many photos do you have in files or on hard drives that could be used in travel publications? In many cases, photographers have a huge number of shots that would be perfect for travel-related publications. Print publications are always looking for good photographers to provide photos of specific areas. Use the Photographer’s Market mentioned earlier to let publications know that you have photographs available, but don’t stop there. There are thousands of online travel sites, and many of them pay for good photographs of places they recommend to travelers. Simply look for travel sites that correspond to the pictures you have, and contact them to see if they’re interested in purchasing pictures. You’ll probably be surprised at the positive response.
News
Even though news outlets have their own paid photographers, they can’t be everywhere at once, especially smaller publications that have a limited number of staff members. Newsworthy images aren’t always dramatic or shocking. You don’t have to get breaking news shots to sell your work to news outlets. If you have captured something unusual, funny, cute or dangerous — basically anything that others would be interested in seeing — you probably have an image to sell to a news outlet. Shots of community events are also highly salable to newspapers. The trick here is to establish some sort of agreement with the paper or news outlet for purchasing your work. You are most likely to get a flat fee informal arrangement, in which if you present them with an image they want to use, they’ll pay a flat fee for it. One thing to remember with news outlets is to submit your work right away. News outlets typically can’t use pictures of an event that happened weeks ago. On the other hand though, sometimes they will seek out pictures of annual events from the year before in order to promote the event the next year. Let them know if you have these type of shots.
Magazines/Books
Finally, don’t overlook one of the largest markets for selling your photography. While many large magazines have their own photography departments, most of the smaller ones rely on freelance photographers to fill their pages. There are thousands of small circulation and specialty magazines who are always seeking great photos. Pick up a copy of Photographer’s Market to find out what they are looking for and how to submit your work to them. The amount of photos bought by magazines each year is staggering and it’s well worth your time to try and sell your photos to publishers of books and magazines.
Editor’s Note: Tammy mentions stock photos , did you know digitalgranny.com has a sister site called kachoozie.com that is a stock photo site? Well now you do, so check it out!
