Sell Photos Online
In an era of constant technological advance, online jobs are becoming more and more important in our everyday lives. The advancement of these fields sort of differ from country to country because some countries struggle will general, offline employment. In places where the economy is not as advanced as it should be, online jobs are certainly a lesser area of human interest.
As a photographer, or someone who has a passion for photography, there are three popular ways to make money online:
Working from the comfort of your own home sounds pretty neat and easy. The work hours are more flexible and you are not under constant supervision by your boss. However, it´s not as easy as you might think. Your competition for a job is the entire world or at least everyone who is able to see the job you are applying for.
This does not apply to online jobs exclusively. Additionally, if you are trying to sell your work online, you must be able to provide high-quality content to make your customers recognize it immediately and make them interested into purchasing it.
A beautiful hobby such as photography can easily become an additional source of your income if you do it right. If you started taking beautiful photos simply because you liked the idea of it and if you have loved it ever since you took your first photo, then it´s okay to plan on making some money off it.
On the other hand, if you just heard that photographers are well-paid and you felt like you can make some easy money with it, your only motivation will be money and you won´t be able to excel at it.
Why Should You Sell Photos Online?
First of all, there is nothing bad about earning money on something you like to do in your free time. There has always been a need for professional photographers and that need is certain to keep around for a long time. They are mostly need on the website Photography Jobs where they are offered a fair payment system along with many different useful features and options.
If you are a professional and if you feel like there is something special you have to offer to the market, give this a try and see how it works out. If you already own the equipment necessary, you probably won´t have any extra costs related to selling your photos online. All you need is professional content and a willingness to persist and supply a lot of content in a short time in order to make money.
Most of your initial clients will consist of websites and companies in need of visual content for their page, magazines, brochures, etc. People are more attracted to brands which offer a simple, good-looking logo, and an eye-catching design.
That is why websites generally feel the need to look for high-quality photographers who will be able to satisfy their every demand and make their website more famous and more liked by the general audience.
How to Get Started
Let´s imagine you have recently developed interest for professional photography and you need to know the basics of getting started with it. Buying your first camera will certainly be among the toughest choices in your life. There are a lot of different brands and models to choose which can confuse even the most professional customer.
The most important aspect you need to consider is whether the certain camera is suitable for your level of expertise in photography. If you happen to buy a camera that is not that suitable for beginners, you might end up frustrated and not knowing how to operate its basic functionality.
It all comes down to the reason why you chose photography in the first place. If you are planning of doing it as a hobby and as something that will relax after a long week of work, then it’s not advisable to spend large amounts of money for equipment. After all, you are the artist and you create your art, not your equipment.
Some people are not able to take a high-quality picture even with the proper equipment, while you are able to do it with a smart phone.
The second choice you will have to make is whether to go for a point and shoot camera or for a mirrorless camera or DSLR. An advice for beginners: buy a DSLR or a mirrorless camera because they are easier to use and they are not as expensive as others on the market.
You also need to choose a camera you will love to use frequently since you will need to develop a bond between you and your camera. You will have to use it often and you will have to know every single part of it like the back of your palm. Other improvements such as different lenses and filters will come with time.
After you begin making some money, you will be able to use the money you earn from photography to buy some additional equipment which will improve your experience.
Know Your Market
You have to be aware of the fact that there are some photos on topics that are generally not that popular with the general audience. In order to be aware of what photos are going to sell well, you need to inform yourself thoroughly. There are many ways to accomplish that and of them is reading the following tips.
You need to be aware of your environment. Take a look around you and see what kind of images you see most often. Most images you see every day in different brochures, advertisements and websites have been taken by a professional photographer and later uploaded on one of the stock photo selling sites where that company or an individual purchased it for his needs.
In order to be more precise, images that go well with the general audience usually represent an emotion, a location or the daily life. Human emotions are very important in the world of online advertising and Internet content.
Some companies and websites will use a bad emotion to describe their competition but they will use a smiling man or a woman to talk about their product. This is an application of human psychology where a lot of people discuss what will make your audience buy your product.
Different locations are also highly demanded in the world of online entertainment because most people haven’t been to many different countries throughout their life. Everyone wants to see that a real person went to that place specifically with the purpose of bringing that experience for you to feel.
If you travel a lot for a living or if you have enough time and resources to do it, bring your digital camera with you and try to take photos no one before you has ever taken. Originality is still one of the most important factors of your success.
The daily life is also a popular topic, even though it does not offer anything you didn’t see before. However, people like to get a different perspective on their everyday life by being the observer watching someone else do his or her everyday chores.
Finding the Perfect Website
After you have already produced some professional content, you will surely be interested in finding a way to make some money off it. The best way for you to do it is to find a third-party website which is able to do all the work for you.
The basic principle goes as follows: you sign up to the website and you start posting your content. The main rule is that it needs to be original and not downloaded from the Internet or stolen from another photographer.
Once people recognize your work and start downloading it, you will get a certain predetermined percentage from each sale. A good thing is that you can sell your photo a million times without the need to invest anything which is certainly not the case when selling your photos in real life.
Additionally, a single photo can generate more revenue than your entire collection if it is executed perfectly and at a right time. After one of your photos becomes famous and when people start visiting your profile on a regular basis, you might expect some serious money. The main issue is about choosing the best website for selling your photos online.
The most famous site are usually not the best choice for a beginner since there are even millions professional photographers working hard for their place in a client’s wish list. It’s hard to get noticed in crowded websites because they are generally optimized for long-time, veteran users.
As you probably know, there are some fees and percentages that the host website takes for them. There are many ways how they do it. Some websites will let you put up your own price and simply take their percentage from that amount. You can put any amount you want, but remember that people do not look into buying expensive photos when they are okay with cheaper ones.
Other websites utilize a principle where they set the price for your photo by measuring its dimensions. In other words, you get paid for your photo after it’s sold for a fixed price.
The percentage that most websites take is usually much higher than it should be. It can range anywhere from 20% to 80% which means a lot of people needs to buy your content in order for you to earn any significant money. Becoming a professional photographer is not cheap and you really need to find a way to make you equipment purchases balanced with your earnings.
In order to accomplish that, try visiting and registering at Photography Jobs where you will be able to make more money than anywhere else.
Starting Your Own Website
If you don’t like sharing the profit from your photography with a third-party website, you might want to consider making your own websites which can pay out better than other sites.
You generally need to pay for the domain once a year which is certainly not that big of an investment and you somehow need to develop your site which means you will probably have to hire someone skilled at jobs like that. If you are a web developer yourself, you will save even more money but it will be much more difficult than it would be on a third-party website.
You need to start from scratch and make your site appealing to the general public. You are probably already familiar with the sort of websites which nowadays generally show that they have been developed by a professional team of developers. Additionally, another difficult aspect is developing the algorithm you will use to get paid for everyone who decides to buy your work.
People need to be able to enter your website and be able to make a purchase easily and without a lot of hassle. If you make the purchase process difficult, they might simply lose patience and try some other options.
Making Yourself Famous
Either way, if you register at a third-party website or if your star your own, you will need to find a way to attract more people for your work. No matter how good your services are, you will have to work hard to make a name out of yourself because we live in an era where you have competition for any field you want to be part of.
Everyone deserves a chance and everyone certainly gets one because the people on top of the pyramid were not born there.
They started from the bottom, just like you, and they worked their way up with hard work, talent, luck and of course a lot of persuading people to buy their products. There are many different ways to accomplish this.
The first one includes social media advertising. As a professional photographer, you will need to make an official account on each one of the most popular social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Hire your friends to advertise your profile by inviting their friends and spreading the circle.
Another way of advertising can be paying for small pop up ads on specific websites. These ads are paid for but they can help you get your name out there by literally spamming people with your content.
Specializing for a Specific Area of Photography
A photographer needs to focus on a single area and aspect of photography and try to be the best in that field. For example, you can focus on traveling and taking photos of different locations and different people of all nationalities. That can be your “thing” and people will recognize you as a high-quality travel photographer.
On the other hand you can focus on nature and beautiful sceneries and landscapes. Either way, trying to be the best in every area of photography is simply impossible.
The most important thing you need to remember is to be creative and to keep an eye on the market to see what type of digital photography is widely accepted and needed. Do not specialize for an area of photography only because you think you will be able to make some easy money from it.
Taking photos of things you generally do not like or things you are not interested in will be boring for you and you simply won’t find any inner inspiration to make each photo special.
It’s rather easy to switch to another type of photography but you will have to practice every day and you might never be as good as you were before you switched.
For instance, if a travel photographer gets bored from traveling and decides to stay home and simply take photos of weddings, he might not perform as well as he used to, even though he probably was more experience than any other wedding photographer.
Conclusion
Selling your photos online does not require a difficult process of registering and verifying your profile. However, getting your name out there will be much more difficult since your competition is the entire world.
Real life photos selling might be easier, but online selling is fast and cheap. After you already snap that perfect photo, the selling part will not require you to even move a finger.
You will have to make some important decisions, starting from your choice of equipment, choice of website and the type of photos you going to focus on. There is nothing bad in experimenting with different styles and websites until you find the perfect combination which is the one that gives you the most please along with a solid profit.
A certain website should definitely be given a chance since it offers good opportunities for struggling photographers along with a fair payment system. This website is called Photography Jobs.
Do not wait up and get your photography equipment out of your basement and find a good motive to focus your session about. There are many different opportunities and adventures where your photos might end up. Do not get all surprised if a bus passes by you and you see your work printed out.
