How To Sell Your Photos Online

Micro stock sites are great: You register (it's free) and then upload a few sample images. After your samples passed an initial review you start making and uploading money.

You know, I had all those photos from a recent trip to Rome, Italy, laying around and I thought it should be possible to make a few bucks off of them. I couldn't think of a way to market or sell those images but then I discovered micro stock sites.

Let's look how this works in detail:

Stock photography

Micro stock sites have stirred up the traditional market for stock photography over the last three years. Rather than charging $100 or more for a photo, on many of those sites you can get high quality images for less than $10, sometimes as low as $1!

Micro stock sites vs. traditional agencies

With a traditional agency our designer likely spent between $500 and $1,000 for half a dozen images of doctors, nurses and stuff like this. That's small change if you are a Fortune 500 company, but what if you are on a budget or doing website design for a friend or a non-profit organization?

With a payout of perhaps 25 to 50 cents per image this is not very attractive for professional photographers but an amateur can make decent money this way and should at least be able to finance her hobby. And remember, this is the Internet we are talking about: Make it up on volume. 25 cents per image downloaded may not sound like much but if you have several hundred or even a thousand decent and usable images, all of them submitted to the big micro stock sites even a paltry 25 cents per download can add up nicely.

Rather than hiring a photographer (sending him on "assignment" as it's called in the business) which can be very expensive the designer decides to use stock photos, i.e. images that are readily available. Usually stock images are much cheaper than "bespoke" photos. Our designer would visit one of the established stock image sites and browse around a little until she finds some nice healthcare related imagery.

What you need

Most micro stock agencies have the same requirements: You'll need at least a four Megapixel camera (more is better, although you'll be fine with between six and eight Megapixels), your images should be free of noise, properly key worded and should picture sought after subjects. Good selling images are business or healthcare related or illustrate an emotion or a concept such as love, relationships, career and the like.

I couldn't think of a way to market or sell those images but then I discovered micro stock sites.

Rather than hiring a photographer (sending him on "assignment" as it's called in the business) which can be very expensive the designer decides to use stock photos, i.e. images that are readily available. Usually stock images are much cheaper than "bespoke" photos. Our designer would visit one of the established stock image sites and browse around a little until she finds some nice healthcare related imagery. 25 cents per image downloaded may not sound like much but if you have several hundred or even a thousand decent and usable images, all of them submitted to the big micro stock sites even a paltry 25 cents per download can add up nicely.

So if you are thinking about selling your pictures online then Click Here!