Should I Sell My Stills As Stock Photography
Thinking it time you started selling your photos as stock photography? Stock photography is big these days and everybody appears to be doing it, unfortunately though, most people are going about it the wrong way.
The very first thing you need to do is choose where you would like to end up ...
Do you want a full time business? Do you dream about throwing in the day job and becoming a full time photographer? Or do you simply need some more cash from your photography? Perhaps you'd be content to buy a new lens every now and then from your profits?
If you would like the former, you're looking at joining a competitive business and that's going to take significant time, effort and you're going to have to invest real money to make it happen.
For stock photography you want to consider all aspects of your photography the standard of your work, the commercial potential of the subjects you shoot, how many photos you have on file and how often you add to them. Quality, Content & Volume to achieve success in stock photography you need to have each of those aspects well and truly covered.
If you should happen to feel you might be lacking in any of those areas, I'd advise you take a while to work on them first. Take a short course to enhance your photography skills, buy some stock photography books to find more marketable subjects, and then shoot like crazy to build up your catalogue.
Stock is competitive and guaranteed to suck the joy right from your photography if you attempt to start selling your photos before you are at a level where you can make it work.
If you are not out for a major life-change though, you actually have a few more options.
Plenty of amateur photographers place their images with the cheap royalty free libraries and hope to make a bit of extra change every year but I really believe this is about the worst of your options.
A few of these stock photo sites are selling pictures for a buck or less each, royalty free, so the photographers gets a few cents for the sale, and the buyer gets free use of the image, forever. This does not worry plenty of beginners, but it has a big impact on the industry. If that doesn't concern you, it probably should.
If circumstances change and you decide one day to sell your pictures seriously, each $1 sale you make is going to make it that much tougher for you to make a living. And to rub salt into the wound, you won't be able to sell and of those pictures to top-end buyers, because you'll have no idea where they've been printed before or where they'd turn up next.
Sometimes you will find a better option for the hobbyist is to use your imagesimages as content instead of product, and publish them on your own simple photography sites promoting affiliate products. For most photographers this will lead directly to better returns without giving your images away for peanuts, and if you one day opt to get serious about selling your photos, they're still totally yours to sell.
The very first thing you need to do is choose where you would like to end up ...
Do you want a full time business? Do you dream about throwing in the day job and becoming a full time photographer? Or do you simply need some more cash from your photography? Perhaps you'd be content to buy a new lens every now and then from your profits?
If you would like the former, you're looking at joining a competitive business and that's going to take significant time, effort and you're going to have to invest real money to make it happen.
For stock photography you want to consider all aspects of your photography the standard of your work, the commercial potential of the subjects you shoot, how many photos you have on file and how often you add to them. Quality, Content & Volume to achieve success in stock photography you need to have each of those aspects well and truly covered.
If you should happen to feel you might be lacking in any of those areas, I'd advise you take a while to work on them first. Take a short course to enhance your photography skills, buy some stock photography books to find more marketable subjects, and then shoot like crazy to build up your catalogue.
Stock is competitive and guaranteed to suck the joy right from your photography if you attempt to start selling your photos before you are at a level where you can make it work.
If you are not out for a major life-change though, you actually have a few more options.
Plenty of amateur photographers place their images with the cheap royalty free libraries and hope to make a bit of extra change every year but I really believe this is about the worst of your options.
A few of these stock photo sites are selling pictures for a buck or less each, royalty free, so the photographers gets a few cents for the sale, and the buyer gets free use of the image, forever. This does not worry plenty of beginners, but it has a big impact on the industry. If that doesn't concern you, it probably should.
If circumstances change and you decide one day to sell your pictures seriously, each $1 sale you make is going to make it that much tougher for you to make a living. And to rub salt into the wound, you won't be able to sell and of those pictures to top-end buyers, because you'll have no idea where they've been printed before or where they'd turn up next.
Sometimes you will find a better option for the hobbyist is to use your imagesimages as content instead of product, and publish them on your own simple photography sites promoting affiliate products. For most photographers this will lead directly to better returns without giving your images away for peanuts, and if you one day opt to get serious about selling your photos, they're still totally yours to sell.
About the Author:
Brad Stephens contributes digital stock photographyto the GlobalEye library and publishes instant affiliatephotograph web sites in his spare time
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