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Online Photos

May 6, 2008

One picture is worth a thousand words, so the saying goes. Substituting the word photo for picture and dollars for words what we get is: one photo is worth a thousand dollars. There are of course photos worth such obscene amounts of money but other than that photos are really worth a few dollars provided you can find the right place and the right clientele to sell them to.

As a photographer, over the years, a fair amount of photos should have accumulated. Some may be good, some may be bad; but they are there and are a potential source of income. There are photos sometimes worth a few thousand dollars, but most of them are worth at least a few dollars. Provided one can find the right person to sell them to and the right medium to sell them through. A little time and effort one your part could put in a few dollars into your purse.

Just about anyone with a collection of photos can successfully market them online. Your background does not matter, neither does your age or age or physical prowess. Professionalism is not required. No one starts at the top. Dedication and toil gets them up there.

Broadly speaking there are about three ways of selling photographs: “Stock Photos”, “Products” and “Services”.

In a nutshell “Products” requires to make prints, postcards etc. of your photos and sell them at galleries, gift shops and online. But this is not strictly selling photos online. So also are “Services”. Here instead of selling actual photos, your expertise as a photographer is on sale. The person acts as a consultant.

The distinction is that the photos are converted into “Products” like post cards, prints etc. and put up for sale on online and offline galleries, gift shops etc., whereas, in ‘Services” one acts as a Specialist offering expert advice. As mentioned earlier, “Stock Photos” is the best way to put up your photos for sale. The photos are in your charge, that is to say, they are there in stock ready to be sold. Now these photos can be sold online by two distinct methods. One is to make the buyer come and get them by displaying them online or by sending them to potential purchasers. Both of them are equally good with the exception that the second approach requires more involvement than the first.

By involving yourself more into the business on hand and going to potential companies that publish cards etc., the photos may be sold directly, all online of course. Your active participation is mandatory here. The clientele has to be searched and found and the best quality photos sent to them for approval. The more number of contacts that your photos reach, the more is the probability that a sale could come through.

That’s about it. Sounds simple. Upload photos to a stock or microstock agency, sit back and wait for the money to trickle in or jump right into the fray and sell them directly. The second approach is for a dynamic and aggressive person. You can, of course, try both methods to see which works out better. Sell photos online, nothing attempted nothing gained. One of the photos might turn out to be a bonanza!

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