How to get started selling images?

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I've been a photo hobbyist on and off my entire life, and more intensely over the past year, and it has begun to occur to me that I ought to try selling some images. I don't mean prints--I have had a small gallery show, and have another coming up in the summer--but rather for stock, advertising, or what have you.

In the literary world, which is my professional field, one generally gets a literary agent first, who submits the work to publishers. Is there something analagous in the photography world (again, not for art photography--I'm not seeking any kind of gallery representation)? Or does the photographer just start submitting stuff to photo agencies?

If there's a good book on how to get started, or a web tutorial, that you guys could point me toward, I'd be grateful. I figure, as long as I'm walking around shooting all the time, I might as well try to do something with the result other than gaze at it on my computer.

 

[bmattock]

I know this sounds silly...but it has worked for me...the passive approach.

I started putting photos on Flickr some time ago. I have a 'pro' account there ($25 USD a year, I think), and I put a lot of photos online. I add a lot of metadata, in the form of Flickr tags, GPS mapping, and so on. I've got it pretty much automated now, so I don't actually have to do much work.

I have been contacted now many times about permission to use this or that photo in this or that magazine, flier, textbook, web page, and so on. It took about two years after I started to put my images online before I began to get requests, but now they come in fairly frequently. Not enough to quit my day job by a long shot - just pin money, but it's appreciated. It accumulated to enough to allow me to purchase a long-wanted Sigma SD14, anyway.

I think the main thing, like writing, is to be seen (read). Get your photos out there, where people can easily find them, and let Google, etc, do the work for you.

My stats tell me where the hits are coming from. 1,267 hits yesterday, 319,034 since I started. Biggest hit-maker is Flickr's search engine itself, followed by Yahoo Image Search and Google Image Search, then various smaller search engines and referrers and so on. It tells me I have just over 6,700 images marked public.

I did not set out to sell images from my Flickr posts, and it came as a pleasant surprise to me when I started getting requests, but it is fun.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Well, I've been on flickr a year and no requests yet. But I don't do tags generally. I think I should go through there over the holidays and tag everything.

Nice to know that actually happens!

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Does anyone here sell stuff to istockphoto? Is it worth giving that a try?

 

[bmattock]

You can find out where each view of an image links from on the detailed stats for that photo, but if someone hits "refresh" on your front page or on a photo, each time will record as another hit / view.

Well, I didn't know that, but I don't know how many people sit on a photo and hit 'refresh' over and over. And it does not count my own views, only those of others.

I find the information pretty useful, not to mention entertaining, but no, I suppose it is not 'enterprise level' data. But then, if one was an enterprise, one would probably not put their work product on Flickr.

 

[bmattock]

Well, I've been on flickr a year and no requests yet. But I don't do tags generally. I think I should go through there over the holidays and tag everything.

Nice to know that actually happens!

Many of my images were found by search, according to the stats. Common searches:

'vintage tractors'
'stereo system'
'ballroom dance'
'Christmas shopping'
'michigan wildlife'
'Charles Dickens'

And so on. I have noticed that sometimes my photos get indexed by Google right away, like within a few hours. So tags can really be helpful, I think.

 

[tritiated]

I'm intrigued, how does one get to your Flickr page? n_n

 

[Al Kaplan]

I have a lot of images posted in various places on the web including my blog thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com which also lists my email address. I always try to post the photos along with a story or caption that has lots of "key words" which makes it Google friendly. Sometimes I discover that somebody has lifted an image off the web without permission but that's rare.

A few months ago I was contacted by a woman who works for a publisher. They needed some pictures of Seminole Indians at that time when they were making the transition of traditional life living in the Everglades to living in modern houses. Googling brought her to some of my photos on line I ended up selling several images, more than I had posted on line, and had a check a few weeks later. I've also sold pictures of people in the political realm as well as singers, musicians, and actors, plus getting new clients that way.

The big picture agencies like Magnum no longer have a lock on the stock picture market but do represent photographers for finding them asignments.

 

[bmattock]

I'm intrigued, how does one get to your Flickr page? n_n

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigwam/sets/

A lot of boring photos, to be sure. I post many of them just as a 'thank you' to the various groups and events I photograph, so that they can share them with family and friends, so perhaps only interesting to them.

However...sometimes I get one of these.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigwam/2889229937/

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

OK, you know what? I just read up on stock photo agencies that pay in micropayments, and I'm going to go for it. Or at least try to. It's very much like the iTunes model for selling music--I'm a nobody, I don't even do shows, but my recorded music is on iTunes and sometimes, inexplicably, people buy it. This sounds like the same thing--a business model only the internet could have created. Subscribers download your photo, you get a quarter. Fine by me.

 

[bmattock]

OK, you know what? I just read up on stock photo agencies that pay in micropayments, and I'm going to go for it. Or at least try to. It's very much like the iTunes model for selling music--I'm a nobody, I don't even do shows, but my recorded music is on iTunes and sometimes, inexplicably, people buy it. This sounds like the same thing--a business model only the internet could have created. Subscribers download your photo, you get a quarter. Fine by me.

I just downloaded some 'free' Christmas music from some website that only lists free Christmas music. All from bands that have recorded Christmas songs but also have other music out there. No strings attached, just click and download. One of them blew me away, by a band called "Sixpence None The Wiser." I believe I will be having to look for their CD's now. I don't know if that is a 'business model', but they hooked me by giving me a free Christmas mp3.

I don't know if photos would sell that way or not. But I thought it was interesting.

 

[Al Kaplan]

Another way to make money nickle by nickle, dime by dime, is to put Google ads on your web site or blog site. Every time somebody clicks on one of the ads to check it out Google's computers add some money to your account. It's usually not much but once in awhile you'll get a few clicks that are worth a few bucks each! Once you get over $100 in your account they mail you a check about a month later. I just got one for $109.

Google's computers are constantly going over your blog looking for key words and choosing ads that might appeal to people reading that posting. Just don't expect to get rich from it. Consider it free money for something that you were doing anyway.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Another way to make money nickle by nickle, dime by dime, is to put Google ads on your web site or blog site. Every time somebody clicks on one of the ads to check it out Google's computers add some money to your account. It's usually not much but once in awhile you'll get a few clicks that are worth a few bucks each! Once you get over $100 in your account they mail you a check about a month later. I just got one for $109.

Google's computers are constantly going over your blog looking for key words and choosing ads that might appeal to people reading that posting. Just don't expect to get rich from it. Consider it free money for something that you were doing anyway.

I have mixed feelings about google ads...I have a literary blog I share with my wife, which gets pretty heavy traffic; and a personal web site as well. And though I know there's a small revenue stream there, I just can't bear to do it. I think such ads cheapen a blog...I like the idea of my sites being pure of heart, selling only themselves, and not products and services that have nothing to do with me, and which I might not approve of.

I totally respect people who put these ads on their sites, and it doesn't bother me when I see them on other people's pages. But I'd rather make money by selling the products of my own efforts, and retain complete control over what appears on my pages.

Of course, often that means not making any money at all. 🙁 And selling pictures to stock agencies presents a similar moral hazard--what if somebody uses my bucolic landscape to sell tasers to rogue cops?

Ah, the impossibility of purity...

 

[bmattock]

And selling pictures to stock agencies presents a similar moral hazard--what if somebody uses my bucolic landscape to sell tasers to rogue cops?

One of my photos to be used in a textbook on sociology is of a small 'company town' in Poca, West Virginia, which is right under the coal power plant where everyone works:



I did not take the photo as some kind of political statement about coal plants, ecology, company towns, or whatever. I just took it. The fact that the author of this textbook wanted to use it as some sort of sociological thing gave me pause for a moment, but in the end, it's a photo. If I didn't let her use mine, she'd use someone else's. I'm not making a statement, it's just a photo. Or maybe I was just happy to have a photo considered worthy of publication in a textbook. You know.

 

[Al Kaplan]

Right this minute there are three ads on my blog. The ads have these titles: Silver will get to 30$ oz, The All New BMW X6, South Beach Photographer

So far today no clicks, no money...

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

It is interesting, if nothing else, to see what meanings people and institutions take from photographs that we basically took without thinking.

 

[tedwin]

There are sites that offer free stock images, which I know are used by publishers. Otherwise you have the usual accounts, adbuilder, getty etc.

I think that to make money from stock, starting out fresh, is a huge effort. I have regularly heard that you need thousands of well tagged, quality photographs. Not only do you have to sort and tag them all (assuming you have them) but you then have to upload them all.

Considering what selling the occasional print can fetch, it would seem that for someone skilled with a camera, and a dark room, prints would be the way to go for some 'fun' income.

 

[kipkeston]

Hmm, it'd be nice to sell photos through magnum. I wonder how that's done.

 

[Bike Tourist]

I have made between $100 - $400 per month on internet stock and microstock sites for the last three years. To give you an idea of how excited I am about stock, I just sold my digital SLR equipment (don't bother scanning film for stock — they won't accept many images showing grain). When I started on one site they had a million images. Now, they have 5 million and growing. I can't keep up. My sales will diminish.

In the old days of stock using transparencies, you could usually get not only money but tear sheets of your work from the agency. These days, my images sell hundreds of times a month and I have no idea where or how they are being used.

I wouldn't recommend stock as a business with a future.