I remember suggesting to someone only last week to sell their photographs online and make some extra cash quickly. You can do the same. All you need to do is exploit your photography skills. Internet is the most popular market place in today’s world. Everything is a click away. You can buy and sell almost anything and everything online. The internet has millions of websites that require graphics to make the content more appealing to their readers. I bet you never pondered how these websites obtain graphics without blowing off their budget. It is people like you who help websites build a great graphic quality. By selling pictures to these websites, you sell them the rights to sell those photographs. You can sell all kinds of photographs of nature, people, objects, etc. They need to be in digital format so they can be sold online. Photography could be your hobby or you may just take it up as a part-time job. Both ways, it is a great source of income.
Make Money with Photography Online
Generally, websites buy photographs from microstock agencies that acquire them from their photographers on a payment which is based on per download, called royalty. This means you will keep earning money on your uploaded photographs for each click, over a period of time! Making money with photography online is a thriving business. Microstock generated approximately $3,340 in the month of August (2011) alone. It is a growing business that has been experiencing an annual increase in revenue generation since the last 5 years. There are several websites that offer microstocking services like:
- fotolia.com
- dreamstime.com
- shutterstock.com
- gettyimages.com
- bigstockphoto.com
- istockphoto.com
- photodune.net
Have a look at all these websites. This will give you an idea of the diversity and similarity of these websites. Also, you will be able to understand the quality of photographs expected. Every website has its own terms and conditions. They expect you to meet certain requirements like pixel size, format type and resolution of the photographs before you enter into a contract with them. You are required to submit your images to the website for approval. By entering into the agreement with a microstock agency, you sell them limited rights to use your photographs. In most cases, the photographer retains the copyrights to the photographs. Your agreement also mentions whether you can exclusively sell the photographs only to your agency or if you can sell them to others too. They pay you a little more in case you are not allowed to sell the rights of usage over the same photographs to other microstock websites.
How Does it Work?
Once, you start the program as a photographer for the website, your own account is created wherein you can submit your photographs. Your page acts like your online portfolio on the website. You need to attach certain keywords to each photograph that best describe the image. Now, this step is very crucial because your photographs will be ranked in the search results based on the keywords you tag it with. These are the keywords that a client will use to search for pictures on the microstock’s website. Also, categorize your photographs online wisely. Your pictures must be shot in good lighting, they should be clear and have no digital noise. For photographs that require the use of a model, you can enlist the help of your friends and family or hire someone for the job if you like. The model you use must also meet the specifications, if listed, by your microstock agency. However, what you need is to be able to increase the saleability of your photographs online. Adding more photographs to your portfolio will help increase your visibility on the site, thus, attracting traffic of buyers. You will notice a trend in the sale of photographs. A category of photographs would be more in demand than others. You can capitalize on this by submitting such photographs frequently. If the website doesn’t use a watermark on its photographs, you should use your own on every photograph to avoid theft. Apart from microstock agencies, you can also approach websites that are in search of an online photographer. Or you could sell the copyrights to your photographs. They will fetch you anywhere starting from $2 to $3 and this cost can run up to hundreds of dollars depending on the image popularity and ranking.
A lot of people are fond of photography. Make sure you are a pro at it because the photographs should have a high-resolution so that they may be used by websites, else you are not going to have many clients for them. Use a good quality professional digital camera. You can also experiment with the same shots by using a free photo editing software available online. Your pictures should not be copyrighted by a third-party. When you make money by selling photographs online, you are not just securing a source of payment for yourself right now, but you will keep earning money on it in future even when you are not working.
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