Make Your Pictures Make Money
If you are a very active photographer you may already be able to make some money from your pictures. But assuming you do photography as a hobby and you haven’t thought much of monetizing that hobby yet, then I can offer some quick tips here.
Working from the comfort of your own home, you can upload your best photos to Stock Photography sites - and get paid a royalty each time they are downloaded.
Take the image here for example. I bought publication rights to it from one of those stock photo sites (iStockPhoto.com), and it only cost me about two dollars. Some of that was retained by iStockPhoto, and the rest was given to the photographer as royalty.
OK, you ask, “about a dollar to me each time a picture is downloaded - how is that going to make me any money?”
Answer: look at the numbers! At the time I write this, that picture has been downloaded more than six thousand times!
You do the math…
Before you draw the conclusion that this will make you rich instantly, I need to give you a few tips:
1. Check what type of pictures are in demand.
The first rule of this game is that you have to give the buyers what THEY want. And if your favorite pictures are of little interest to prospective buyers, then you’re out of luck. If you browse a stock photo site like IStockPhoto, you can very quickly get an idea of what type of pictures are “hot”. Often, it is the type of images used by companies for editorial purposes.
2. Submit MANY pictures.
The second rule of the game is that it is also a NUMBERS game. Even if you submit pictures which are likely to appeal to buyers, you can never predict exactly what will sell. Therefore, you need to be very proficient in supplying good images to make any significant money.
OK, there are many stock photography sites and I am not going to name them all. Do a Google search and you will find a bunch right away. When applying to become a contributor, read the rules carefully. You will get rejected if your samples are found to be of poor technical quality, and/or redundant (ie. they already have zillions of sunset pictures!)
