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Last Updated on October 2, 2020 by PixelPluck
How to sell your photos online?
When it comes to selling your photography online (or offline for that matter) it can seem like a daunting task, and if you’re not sure where to start, we’ve put together a basic guide which offers a few avenues that you can take, from where you to post your photography, to how to make sure your work gets noticed.
The first step, obviously, is deciding where to sell your photography, which is determined by your style.
One of the most common places for photographers to sell their images today is through microstock agencies. When choosing a microstock site, make sure to read all the fine print, and understand exactly what your rights are, what their commission is, as well as reading the guidelines to make sure you adhere to their rules.
There are countless microstock agencies, but when getting started, it’s best to go with one of the better known and established agencies such as Fotolia, iStockPhoto, Shutterstock, and Dreamstime. There’s no harm in placing the same images on each side, to see where your work does best. Also, keep adding new work to keep your portfolio up to date.
If your work is more of an artistic type then prefer websites like SmugMug, Fine Art America, 500px and Flickr, etc.
Now the most important part is getting noticed. Here are some tips to get you started.
Top Tips To Get Your Photographs Noticed – And Sold!
More and more people are finding out about how you can make money by selling photographs online – which means that you could face a lot of competition to get your photos noticed … and sold!
So, what can you do to help YOUR photo rather than someone else’s photo get spotted and downloaded?
Here are a few tips and tricks of the trade to help put your head and shoulders above some of the other contributors to stock photography websites:
- If you have your own website, blog, Facebook page, Tumblr, Twitter, etc, then use those channels to promote your stock photography portfolio.
- Use good keywords to tag your photos and make sure they get found in searches.
- Check what your images look like at 100% before submitting them.
- Learn from failed submissions. Most websites give reasons why a particular photo was not accepted to their database. Take note and work on improving future photos.
- Touch up your photos with editing software – but not too much!
- Use any blogs or communities on the sites to interact and promote your photos.
- Read the onsite blogs of photographers who are selling well on a particular site.
- Don’t submit dozens of substantially similar photographs.
- Use Photoshop or similar software to remove backgrounds from some images.
- Join the stock photography website forums and make useful contributions.
- Go exclusive if you are happy to work with just one stock photography site.
- Add a few photos for free download just to get buyers into your portfolio.
- Reinvest your earnings in a better camera to increase your acceptance rate.
Great information.
The best way to sell images is to setup a store along with the portfolio website. This way, people can view your best works on the website and purchase directly the ones they like. I’ve built my website with a online service and they allow users to integrate e-commerce store within the website. People can purchase digital or physical print on the best images I upload. A little work on the website’s SEO and you start making real income from your images.