How To SELL Your Photos Online: 7 Ways to Make Money With Photography

Key Takeaways

if you're looking for a way to fund that next camera lens and extra gear then you should be selling your photos online it's a realistic way to fund your passion with very little effort hey i'm your host and creative strategist michelle bally as a photographer you already know that the competition out there is tough so i'll let you in on the secret to selling your photos online successfully first it takes skill and a unique aesthetic but it doesn't stop there the second factor is that you need to know how to market yourself as a photographer you could have the most stunning photos but if you don't know how to run the business side your sales will suffer so in today's video i'm going to teach you how to sell your photos online and start getting paid for your passion sell your photography via direct stock direct stock is a term that refers to selling your photography on your own website you can create a site on shopify with templates that are actually for photography and you can go with a plan for as inexpensive as 29 us dollars a month shopify also offers apps that are specifically made for photographers so photo lock for example is an anti-theft image protection app and creative hub is an app that specializes in printing fine art pieces for photographers that are meticulous about print quality on your own website consider selling licenses to your photos so if you specialize in travel landscape photography for example you could sell photo licenses to travel magazines and vacation companies for more information on how to sell photo licenses check out the link in the description box it goes in depth about what types of licenses are available and how to negotiate those you can also sell physical goods on your site this would include selling prints and putting your photos onto merge to do this you can easily download a shopify app called printful and in just a few clicks you can sell your photography on virtually everything from mugs to books and t-shirts for a whole detailed video on how you can start selling merch using print on demand check out this video right over here to sell photos directly to a buyer you're gonna need to spend some time marketing your business i would recommend that you post the photos that you're selling on social media and direct people to your website from there you can use hashtags to get accounts with larger audiences to repost your images or you can have your friends and family post your photos on their own instagram and that's going to help expand your reach if you're at a phase where you're ready to start putting paid dollars behind your business consider running facebook ads facebook ads are a powerful tool that can help grow your business exponentially but it's a pretty deep topic and luckily we do have a video that's going to show you everything you need to know to fuel your business through facebook ads sell your photography as prints in addition to having your own website you can be a merchant on popular print-on-demand sites print-on-demand sites take care of all the details you don't have to worry about production shipping or selling all you do is upload your work and get paid print-on-demand sites are double-edged sword though because those kinds of sites have tons of traffic but they also have tons of competition amongst merchants one thing that i will say though is that it's a good way to introduce yourself to customers that would have never heard of your business otherwise and it's a good way to get creative with your merch with society6 for example you can put your artwork on virtually anything you can make your photos available on duvets shower curtains face masks and even tapestries society6 can be competitive though so also try fine art america to find success if you have pretty artsy photos this would be a good platform for you they have canvas prints frame prints and even acrylic prints and the nice thing about fine art america is that they let you determine the cost on top of their base cost so if the base price for a frame print is fifty dollars and you choose to price it at seventy five dollars fine art america takes home fifty dollars and you get the twenty five don't just stop at those two though the more print on demand sites your photography is available on the better chance you have of selling microstocks will likely be the route that gets you the most money so what's a microsoft company a microstock photography company is a company that sources their images online and they do so from a wider range of photographers this is nice because traditional agencies will only work with select artists but microstocks have a willingness to accept images from amateurs and hobbyists another thing to note about microstock sites is that they are selling their images at a very low cost this could be anywhere from 20 cents to ten dollars for royalty free images so which micro stock sites are the best here's my list shutter stock 500 pixels deposit photos photo dune and adobe stock those will be linked in the description box below and alami is another great platform since it has one of the highest commission rates for each photo sold at fifty percent they'll determine the price of your photo once you upload it and they're not exclusive which means you don't have to give them exclusive rights to your photos with stock sites you have to strategize and play with a search algorithm what i mean by that is if you're able to get your photo on the first page for a specific search term like paris you're going to see sales for that photo rise to get found for specific search terms make sure you're tagging your photos with relevant terms that not only describe what's in the picture but also get inside of the head of the person that's searching so if i'm selling a photo of niagara falls and i'm targeting travel agencies i might include words like vacation travel or canadian tourism as image tags in addition to the more descriptive tags like niagara or waterfall it will be harder and more competitive to rank for common subject matter you might be up against 10 000 other images for the eiffel tower for example so think about unique photos companies may have trouble finding to do this try some test searches of your own to determine what's lacking on stock photography sites and plan a shoot to fill that gap ask yourself if there are underrepresented niches emerging trends or upcoming events that people will want photos of so instead of just shooting the eiffel tower you might want to shoot a local parade in france sell your photos for free on stock sites free stock sites make photos available for free to anyone who's looking whether it's for personal or commercial purpose anyone can download these however they do encourage people to make donations that said this is not going to be a massive money earner but if you do have photos that aren't selling well on other sites upload those here though you can only expect to make a couple hundred bucks using this method it's at least better than having those photos sit on a hard drive somewhere and not making any money at all check out pixels unsplash and pixabay those sites will be listed in the description box below sell your photos on apps some apps have competitions for a specific type of photo where the winner that is selected gets a cash prize competitions are a ton of fun and you get these design challenges that push you in new directions and there's excitement that builds up but this is definitely more of an entertainment exercise rather than a way to make consistent money in addition to competitions some apps also have the option to sell your photos as stock directly on the app just how i mentioned before so check out snapwire and shutterstock for these alright so here are some tips to see real growth when you're selling your photos online the more consistent you are with posting your photos to different sites and on social media the more revenue you'll generate the nice thing is that once you upload a photo for sale it has the potential of making money for even years after you've posted it passive income is really the name of the game here business images like meetings handshakes and suits and ties are highly searched so they do have the potential to bring in quite a bit of dough there are tons of images in this sector so to stand out you're going to want to make sure that your images are looking authentic many of the people that are searching for business stock images are using these images on their marketing materials to represent their own business so you'll want to make sure that these images are as natural as possible guys just as you always get a contract when you're shooting make sure that you're diligent in reading the terms and conditions before starting with any stock sites apps and print-on-demand services pay attention to what percentage you get to take home payment terms and who owns the content also don't forget to get signed model and location releases because this can protect you from future hassles later on so that about covers it if there's a method here that i'm missing that's worked for you make sure that you're dropping it in the comments below for all of us to learn i'm gonna challenge you to start today upload at least one image to a print-on-demand site like society6 or shopify app like printify right after you're done watching this video but make sure that you're leaving this window open so that once you're done you can drop a link to your photos so that we can all check out your work learn with shopify is a channel for small business owners with big plans every week we release a new video on how to start and grow your online business so make sure that you're hitting that subscribe button i'm your host michelle thank you so much for watching and i'll see you in the next one [Music]