Make Money Selling Stock Photos

Labels: microstock agency, selling stock photography

Labels: making money with stock photos, microstock agency, microstock photography

After you have grouped your photographs into themed-related collections, it’s time to describe each group in detail. This process is much like putting together a list of keywords for an image that you plan to upload. The difference with describing a collection as opposed to describing a single photograph is that you need to take the group as a whole into consideration when choosing keywords.

Use descriptive keywords, but also include keywords with a broader interpretation that may appeal to specific types of buyers. An example of this is my collection of Southwest images. I live in New Mexico, which is known as “The Land of Enchantment” and a scenic travel destination. And so I emphasized keywords that might appeal to someone in the tourist trade.

Here are my keywords for the collection entitled "View of the Southwest":
adobe, architecture, atmosphere, beautiful, brush, building, charactor, chile, chili, desert, desolate, destination, enchantment, food, gate, home, isolated, land, landscapes, newmexico, old, peppers, plants, prairie, quaint, rugged, sage, santa, santafe, scenic, scrub, serene, sky, southwest, southwestern, stark, style, tourism, tourist, town, travel, views, visit, vistas, warm, warmth, west, western, wild

To see my “View of the Southwest” collection, visit:
http://www.dreamstime.com/view-of-the-southwest-by-laroach-rcollection6069-resi265856

After you have assembled your keywords and entered them with your collection of images (assuming you are using a microstock agency that allows you to create collections, such as Dreamstime), you are now ready to begin the next step of finding your niche market and specific buyers for your photography.

To be continued in Part 4

Part 1
Part 2

microstock photography

Labels: micro stock, microstock agency, microstock photography, selling stock photography

It’s time to get the word out! You can sit back and wait for buyers to stumble across your stock photos listed among the millions of images at your micro stock agency. Or you can find your own buyers and send them directly to your photographs.

So the question is: how do you connect with people who want and need to buy your photos? This is the very core philosophy behind marketing stock photos – in order to sell your images you must first identify your “niche market”. They are the people who want the specific type of images you create.

But finding your niche is only the first step. Buyers from your niche market must also NEED your images. Whether it’s for a business ad, local newspaper or personal blog, they must have an urgency and a reason for purchasing a stock image.

When you put these two elements together, you will have automatic sales. If you can make contact with the right person in your niche market, at the time that they have a need to purchase a photograph, your stock images will sell like hotcakes.

Here is a basic breakdown of how to connect with niche buyers:
1. group your images into collections
2. describe each collection
3. make a list of possible markets who would be interested in purchasing images from each collection
4. research each market to identify specific “leads”
5. create a spreadsheet or database and enter your lead info
6. contact your lead using social media, email or snail mail
7. systematically work down your list of leads, contacting each one

During the next seven blog posts, we’ll discuss in detail each step of this process.

Don’t miss out on this valuable information. It could earn you a ton of microstock sales! Bookmark this blog or subscribe to our RSS feed to receive every post in this mini-series: “Selling to Your Niche”.

microstock photography

Labels: microstock agency, microstock photography, niche market

Got a boring image with a cluttered background? It's time to dig into your stash of sunsets, cloud-filled skies and blue horizons. What - you don't have a cache of sky shots? You know - all of those pretty orange sunsets and fluffy white clouds you've been accumulating but don't know what to do with.

If you're like me, you can't resist snapping a gorgeous sky. But here's the problem, most microstock agencies are inundated with sunsets and skies. Unless it's an amazing image, it will probably be rejected as agencies have more than enough sky images in their directory.

So here's a great idea to make use of your extra sky shots. Place your sky photos in a folder on your hard drive and use them as "background" when you need to inject a little excitement into a photograph. I've included one of my favorite examples for you to see how this works.

Obviously the best way to achieve this little trick is to use Photoshop and a Wacom tablet. Here's how to drop a new sky into your photo:

- In your original image, select the part you want to keep by using your Wacom stylus to create a path around the object, horizon, etc.

-Make the path into a selection.

- Reverse the selected area so the background is now selected.

- Delete the background.

- Move your sky photo into the image as a new layer, making sure its order is positioned below the original layer so that it neatly fills the background space and your object is in the foreground.

See what a difference it makes to drop in an interesting sky. Even a big diesel truck looks special when all of the clutter has been removed and a beautiful sunset glows behind it.

So keep all of those sky grab shots you've been taking and use them to add a spark to drab images.

microstock photography

Labels: microstock agency, microstock photography, sky photos

Labels: Dreamstime, microstock agency, microstock photography, photo assignment

Labels: drawing, graphics, illustration, microstock agency

One of the best ways to advance your microstock offerings is to find a specialty - such as a theme or object that you enjoy photographing. Once you discover this interest, it's time to build a portfolio or collection of images using your speciality as the central focal point.

Six Reasons Why You Should Have a Specialty
1. By uploading 15 or more images in one particular category, you appear to be an expert on that subject matter.
2. By consistently having your name appear when a search for your speciality is performed, "brands" you with that type of image.
3. If a buyer purchases one of your speciality images, there is a higher likelihood that they will come back and purchase more images from you in order to stay with the same theme and/or style.
4. Having more images than other photographers in a particular niche raises your odds of being purchased over others who only have one or two photos in that category.
5. Creating a portfolio of images based on a single theme, allows you to explore and build upon variations of this theme. This deepens your perspective and awareness of your speciality, creating a depth to the theme.
6. At some microstock agencies, such as Dreamstime, you can build a "collection" of images for designers to browse. Although Dreamstime collections must include work by several photographers, you can certainly put together a collection based on your speciality portfolio and drop in just a few photos by others to round out the collection. This is another interesting way for web designers and graphic artists to discover your photography.

As you can probably guess from the image above, my specialty happens to be semi-trucks. There's a very good reason for this. I work for a manufacturer who ships products throughout the country via long-haul trucks . Many times I am asked to photograph shipments for insurance reasons. It occurred to me one day this was a great opportunity to create a speciality.

While I was waiting around for the shipments to be loaded, I took a few photos of the trucks themselves. Many were actually beautiful in a big, brawny kind of way! With their bright paint jobs and flashy chrome, the semi's had a real presence about them. Each truck had its own personality, something I found to be an exciting challenge to photograph. Plus my job presented a unique opportunity to photograph a variety of trucks while they were stationary, allowing for optimal vantage points that would be impossible with a moving vehicle. And thus - my lucrative speciality was born!

To see the collection I built at Dreamstime called "Big Rigs" stop by: http://www.dreamstime.com/big-rigs-rcollection5392-resi265856

Labels: micro stock, microstock agency, microstock photography

Labels: microstock agency, microstock photography, stock photos

Labels: fine art photography, inspiration, microstock agency

Labels: exclusivity, microstock agency, stock photo submission

Should you select one agency or several to represent your images? The answer is really up to you and how much time you have to spend uploading work.

If you stick with just one agency, you only need to upload once. Plus if the agency offers an exclusivity option for each image, you'll make more money with each download. Exclusivity means that you promise to upload that specific image only to one agency and no other. (See chart on Dreamstime: http://www.dreamstime.com/sellimages). Some agencies also offer the photographer more money if they sign-on as an exclusive photographer for that agency, meaning you upload images ONLY to that one agency and no other. So you can have an exclusive image, as well as be an exclusive photographer. Dreamstime offers this type of tier structure. So by picking just one agency you save time and have the opportunity to make extra money per photo.

But here's the downside - not all buyers shop around to different agencies looking for just the right image. Most buyers have one or two favorite agencies they like to work with and they never look any further. So if your photos are listed with only one agency, you may be missing those buyers who shop with a different agency and the opportunity to sell to a wider audience.

Here's my take on it: do what's best for you. I did all of the work to get into two different agencies, only to find that I sell well at one and not so well on the other. And because some of my images are listed on both agency directories, I loose the ability to make a larger commission by using the "exclusive option".

The mailbox photo above is a good example. At Dreamstime it's a consistent seller, but at my other agency it has yet to sell even once! If I had uploaded just to Dreamstime and opted for exclusivity, I would have been making a higher commission each time the image sells.

The other factor is time. I have a full-time job (as most microstock photographers do) and not much extra time for photography. Rather than spending all my evenings and weekends uploading images to various agencies, I have come to the conclusion that working with one agency and having more time to enjoy my photography is best for me. If I did microstock full-time, I would most likely choose to upload to 4 or 5 agencies.

Consider your own situation and whether you have the time and ambition to deal with multiple agencies. If you decide to stick to one agency, you can always add another in the future when you're ready to branch out.

Labels: micro stock, microstock agency

With thousands (and even millions!) of photos in an agency's directory, you may be asking yourself, "How in the world will anyone ever find my pics?"

The answer to this question is crucial to your success. Here's the trick - it's in the keywords you use to describe your photograph. Let me say it again - the key to your success in selling stock photos online lies in the ability of others to find your images when you use the right keywords to depict your submissions. Why are words so important? Shouldn't images speak for themselves?

Of course you need to start with great photos, but the entire dynamic of search is based on words - not images. It works just like a search in Google. If you use a string of four very specific words to describe what you are searching for, you have a much better chance of finding what you want rather than typing in a one-word general description. Here's an example: rather than search through millions of entries for "dog", you type in "brown cocker spaniel puppy". You have not only narrowed your search by whole lot, you have a much higher chance of getting exactly what you are looking for.

Search works the same way when using a microstock agency. Before I started selling my photos online, I often purchased photos for use in my business. So I experienced first-hand just how hard it can be to find the right photos using keywords.

Here's the problem - many photographers find it a chore to research keywords, so they settle for filling in the minimum number of keywords required, using the first descriptive terms that come to them. Another problem is not thinking outside the box. You'd be surprised at how unimaginative a photographer can be when he or she needs to use words rather than images to get across a concept.

Here's my 3-point strategy for keywords descriptions:
1. Use as many keywords as you possibly can think of to describe each submission.
2. Try to use the maximum allowance for keywords offered by the microstock agency for each image.
3. Get creative, crazy and conceptual with your keyword choices.

Labels: microstock agency, photography keywords, selling stock photography, submission to stock agency

Rejection! Nobody wants to receive a "no thanks" email from their stock agency. But it happens to everyone. And it's quite common during the first submission process.

The best thing to do is view rejection as a learning experience. Many times the person critiquing your submission will offer suggestions on how to improve your photograph in the rejection email. Depending on the agency, you may get a standard, "stock" reply. Other agencies actually respond with a personal note.

Your first submission is an opportunity to grasp the style, quality and details that an agency is looking for when they accept photography. And always remember - the process is totally subjective! There's a real person looking at your pics, trying to make a decision based on the agency's pre-set standards AND on their own personal judgement whether or not the image is sellable. Unless your photo breaks a basic rule (like no model release for a recognizable face) and is automatically tossed, it's really up to the person judging your image if it makes it through to the directory.

An example of how subjective the submission process really is can be seen by submitting the same photo to two different agencies. (You can do this if you don't sign exclusive rights over to one agency). The concept image seen above, called "Three Bulbs and a Fluorescent." It was submitted to both of my stock agencies. It was accepted by Dreamstime and rejected by BigStockPhoto. So far, it has been a steady seller on Dreamstime.

Rejection is all part of the process. Don't get discouraged. And don't let it become an ego thing - you can always learn something new and exciting from another person's perspective.

microstock photos

Labels: micro stock, microstock agency, photography, stock photos

selling photography online

Labels: making money with stock photos, micro stock, microstock agency, stock photos