Where to Start with Selling Photos?

[manda88]

Basically I'm wanting to see if I can get anywhere with selling my pics, it'd be nice to think that people have my photos hanging on their walls! How do I create a website? Do I have to register myself as a 'business'? How do I copyright my photos? Any help is greatly appreciated, as I know a lot of you guys really know your stuff when it comes to photography!! :thumbs:

[carpgeezer]

Hi Manda, there are things called image banks!
The only reason i know is because my dad has been a keen photographer for years & taken some truly amazing pics.
He thought the same as you & wanted to make some money out of it.
Image banks are places to go that take your images & hold them on their books, customers (anyone that wants pics for anything) go there & browse their stock. If the customer finds a pic they want they pay the agreed price & the image bank take one hell of an almighty cut of the profits!
My dad had pics there for ages, only sold a few & got very little return....
Maybe someone else on here will know a bit more & if so, i would be interested to find out to help my dad! P.S - i hope Diglett is well!

[Darren1978]

Manda,

There is a website called clikpic.com which enables you to set-up your own website (which they host) and sell your photos (you need to have a paypal account to do this).

There is a cost involved depending on how many photos you want to upload to your site and how many years you want ot have the site run for. The cheapest price is £35 and that is based on 100 photos and having the site for a year.

I'm sure there are other sites out there that do exactly the same, but clikpic is one of the most popular, so they must be doing something right!

Check it out, have a look and decide if its right for you.

With regards to image banks, getting sales and making money from them is extremely tough and probably not worth the hassle imo.

Glad you've started a thread like this because my girlfriend (well, my fiance now :)) suggested that I should try and sell some of my photos to help contribute towards the wedding costs! She seems to think my photos are 'sellable' based on the fact that I've got a load of prints on the walls in our house and all her friends really like them (well, they're not going to say they are garbage in front of me are they?!)

[walker]

clikpic's is one of the cheapest way's of having a photography website, very good value for money.

I used Livebooks for a couple of years also very good but more expensive...

How you then go about actually selling you images, thats the million dollar question!

Stock photo's have been mentioned but you're not going to make any money out of it - take a look at someone lile alamy, easy to setup.

One other thing, you want to set your self up a domain name with email addresses, use someone like 1 and 1 internet, again nice and cheap.

[manda88]

Hi Manda, there are things called image banks!
The only reason i know is because my dad has been a keen photographer for years & taken some truly amazing pics.
He thought the same as you & wanted to make some money out of it.
Image banks are places to go that take your images & hold them on their books, customers (anyone that wants pics for anything) go there & browse their stock. If the customer finds a pic they want they pay the agreed price & the image bank take one hell of an almighty cut of the profits!
My dad had pics there for ages, only sold a few & got very little return....
Maybe someone else on here will know a bit more & if so, i would be interested to find out to help my dad! P.S - i hope Diglett is well!

I had added a bunch of my pics to a site where you can buy canvasses of prints and they cost anything from £20 to over £150, and if your photo sells, you only get a fiver of the total cost! My photos are still 'pending approval' though so I'm just going to delete them. Diglett is very well thank you! He's gotten huge, looks nothing like he used to.

Manda,

There is a website called clikpic.com which enables you to set-up your own website (which they host) and sell your photos (you need to have a paypal account to do this).

There is a cost involved depending on how many photos you want to upload to your site and how many years you want ot have the site run for. The cheapest price is £35 and that is based on 100 photos and having the site for a year.

I'm sure there are other sites out there that do exactly the same, but clikpic is one of the most popular, so they must be doing something right!

Check it out, have a look and decide if its right for you.

With regards to image banks, getting sales and making money from them is extremely tough and probably not worth the hassle imo.

Glad you've started a thread like this because my girlfriend (well, my fiance now :)) suggested that I should try and sell some of my photos to help contribute towards the wedding costs! She seems to think my photos are 'sellable' based on the fact that I've got a load of prints on the walls in our house and all her friends really like them (well, they're not going to say they are garbage in front of me are they?!)

I actually set up a website last night on webs.com, it's just a bog standard free one and I have no idea what to do with it, and I'm not sure whether I should put a huge copyright stamp across the pics too so people can't steal them! Congrats on the engagement by the way! :)

clikpic's is one of the cheapest way's of having a photography website, very good value for money.

I used Livebooks for a couple of years also very good but more expensive...

How you then go about actually selling you images, thats the million dollar question!

Stock photo's have been mentioned but you're not going to make any money out of it - take a look at someone lile alamy, easy to setup.

One other thing, you want to set your self up a domain name with email addresses, use someone like 1 and 1 internet, again nice and cheap.

I'm not too clever when it comes to things like domain names and stuff, I don't even know what it means!! :bonk:

[rperry]

Hi Amanda,

I no web site pro but if you visit my very 'young' and crude site you can either sell some pictures through here (I would get 5 or so uploaded to the site) and they would click through to your site or I will happily post link. Every little helps!

[apples]

Fine for a bit of pocket money, hard way to make a living.

I do a fair bit of motorsports and noticed none of the pro's had upgraded their camera bodies from 1D2n's a fair while after the 1D3 had been released. Got chatting to one and asked why. "None of us can afford it".....

As Carpgeezer said, photostock sites will be hard work for little return.

Your own site.. can you get the traffic?

As for copyrighting them, personally I think a shot looks **** with a copyright splashed over it.
You took the shot, you own it. Trouble is finding out if its been ripped off....


Thought about getting some printed and taking them to a local gallery?

[manda88]

Hi Amanda,

I no web site pro but if you visit my very 'young' and crude site you can either sell some pictures through here (I would get 5 or so uploaded to the site) and they would click through to your site or I will happily post link. Every little helps!

It does indeed! Need to get the site finished though, it's not really a site as such, it's literally just like a page, a bit like myspace.

Fine for a bit of pocket money, hard way to make a living.

I do a fair bit of motorsports and noticed none of the pro's had upgraded their camera bodies from 1D2n's a fair while after the 1D3 had been released. Got chatting to one and asked why. "None of us can afford it".....

As Carpgeezer said, photostock sites will be hard work for little return.

Your own site.. can you get the traffic?

As for copyrighting them, personally I think a shot looks **** with a copyright splashed over it.
You took the shot, you own it. Trouble is finding out if its been ripped off....


Thought about getting some printed and taking them to a local gallery?

This is just something I'm doing on the side of working full time, just to see if I could make a little extra money to help cover the bills and whatnot, plus I really enjoy it! You're right about the copyright over the pics, I was just worried that people might nick them and fob them off as their own, but I've been told by someone at my work that if people try to save them or print them then you can do something that makes them come out really tiny or really pixelated! I'll prob just leave it, I'll know that they're my pictures!
There are only really art galleries round here, like paintings and stuff, would they take prints?

[Darren1978]

Craft fairs maybe an option to consider as well

[apples]

been told by someone at my work that if people try to save them or print them then you can do something that makes them come out really tiny or really pixelated!

There are only really art galleries round here, like paintings and stuff, would they take prints?

Host them on your site as small, low res pictures and they will be useless for anything other than small low res prints...
There are ways of protecting images on sites.. but dont ask me how :)


Take the pictures with you on a laptop to show them whats on offer, and ask, and if they say no, ask if they know anywhere that will take them....


One last thing.. and as I dont know you, or your work, dont take it as a slight..
Dont price yourself out of sales. Some of the motorsport sites Ive seen by 'amtogs' have been shy photos at stupid prices...

Good luck with it :)

[winkler]

Here:

http://www.zenfolio.com/

or Smugmug:

http://www.smugmug.com/

Selling is very difficult, but Zenfolio helps. How good are your images? There's a mass of really good competition but don't be put off, give it a go, just don't give up your day job ;-)

Can you post a couple of shots here?

If you want to try and get a bit back out of shooting then there are many weekly comps, or even have a go at some bigger annual comps,

http://www.photoradar.com/news/story/enter-the-best-photography-competitions-in-2010

http://www.photocompetitions.com/

Above all, enjoy the process, and have fun!
W/.