Selling Rights To Photographs

[ShopLady]

...to both help market my site offline and get my work (photography) noticed.

Lately I've been playing with the idea of selling the rights to pictures that I've taken over the past couple of years, and just recently opened a blog (http://silenstemplumphotography.blogspot.com/) to present them. I can e-mail the image file without the watermark and even send a print of the image after the purchase is made. Can anyone tell me where I'd have a bit of luck with this?

[orion_joel]

try Stock Photography: Search Royalty Free Images & Photos (http://www.istockphoto.com) they have the ability for photographers to add their photo's and then users can purchase from the site. It takes a lot of the e commerce and sending files out of your hands and makes it easy for anyone that wants to buy them to get them 24 hours a day.

[ShopLady]

Thanks, I am checking them out right now! :)

[vangogh]

If you're main interest is in marketing and getting your work noticed you may also want to look into giving some of your images away. I know it's a touchy subject for most photographers, but you could upload your images to sites like Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

People will be able to find your work on Flickr and because of the license someone like me can come along and use your images on my site. You can choose a license that requires a mention of you as the photographer. If you look at my blog (link is in my signature below) most of the images I'm using in posts are found through Flickr. You can see that below each image is the Flickr username of the photographer and a link back to their Flickr profile.

The images are reduced to 72ppi since they're online. No one is going to be able to print them with any quality, but they can be used online. As long as you're willing to let go of some images it can be a great way to get your name out there.

Flickr was just an example of one place to upload your images. You could take a few dozen and give them away to several sites. Hard to let go of the images I know, but it can be a great way to market yourself as a photographer

[cbscreative]

Like Joel said, there are stock photography sites that will meet your need for that. One that comes to mind is Dreamstime (www.dreamstime.com) because I know they invite photographers to submit their work. You may want to pay close attention to TOS because I would imagine some of these sites may require you to submit only exclusive work that is not submitted to other sites.

[ShopLady]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone :)

It will be hard to let go of these images, especially right now because I could really use the money although if someone could put them to good use I'd like to see that too. I am going to go ahead and check out Dreamstime and Flickr.

[vangogh]

Letting go of images is hard, but if you give some away and get known you have a better chance of selling more later. I have a hard time believing you can make much money selling your photos to a stock photo site. I would think they take most of the profits. Doesn't mean you can't make money, but I'm guessing it's not something you build a business around.

[cbscreative]

I doubt you make much money either, but it can provide exposure. With Dreamstime, they allow a "profile" which could be beneficial.

[KristineS]

Try IstockPhoto.com (http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php). We buy a lot of our photos for our company collateral material from them, and so do a lot of other people. I'm not sure exactly what their pay scale is for photographers, but it might be worth a look.

[vangogh]

Kristine can you remember the name of any of the photographers?

I'm not saying you shouldn't try some of the stock photo sites, but if the goal is to get yourself known then you should think exposure more than a few dollars.

[ShopLady]

Alrighty, looked into the websites and here is what I found: Dreamstime requires a waiting period for photo submissions to be accepted to their website (127 hours is my wait time), iStockPhoto requires a copy of gov't issued identification (but they seem really legit) and Flickr seems really neat, so I started uploading another set of photos there.

[vangogh]

Now you'll have to keep us updated about how each does as far as bringing in some money and helping market your images and you.

With Flickr don't forget to take advantage of some of the social aspects of the site. Connect with some of the other people who's images you like.

[thx4yrtym]

Perhaps you've seen this but if not it's worth checking out. My daughter is a graphics designer / illustrator and has sold at least one picture that I know of on this site and got a really nice check in the mail. deviantART: where ART meets application! (http://www.deviantart.com/)

maybe a few more options that some of the others I don't know.

Best of luck with your search.

Regards,

Gregg

[vangogh]

Oh yeah I forgot about Deviant Art. Very popular site with lots of submitted images. Some free and some pay I believe.

[ShopLady]

I'll definitely keep everyone updated. :) And yes DeviantArt is amazing, I still have an account with them but never sold anything, although I did post up some free stock for others to use and had over 1,000 combined downloads for it. Fun stuff there. :)

[Marcomguy]

Two other sites similar to istockphoto are Royalty Free Stock Photos at Fotolia.com (http://www.fotolia.com) and STOCKXPERT - Royalty free stock photography community (http://www.stockxpert.com). I've used both. On a couple of occasions, I found the same images on all 3 sites.

stockxpert.com is the paid counterpart of the free image site stock.xchng - the leading free stock photography site (http://www.sxc.hu).

[KristineS]

Vangogh you're right, Istockphoto isn't really about getting noticed as a photographer. I don't remember any of the names of the people who took the photos we use. I probably didn't even notice them. I was more interested in the pictures.

I do know that people do make money selling on that site though.

[vangogh]

Well if they're making money on the site it's certainly worthwhile. I had thought of trying some to pick up some extra money, but never explored it. I'm always taking pictures and usually looking for things I think would look good online or in print.

[seolman]

It's very tough to make money as a photographer. We work with several and it's a hand to mouth existence for most. But some other creative ways to think about promoting your work and making a little extra income might be:


have a site that promotes your photos and push people to the site(s) they can download your images - that way you have a little more control over the marketing side than hoping someone finds you on iStock
Offer some cool eCards on line, and possibly some printed post cards in local shops in your area - your name on the cards acts as advertising for you as a photographer
offer as much free photo work as you can to local charities - your credits displayed on their sites and brochures carries a lot of weight and it's satisfying work too
enter as many photo contests as possible (win or lose) - photography just like any art is subjective - someone is going to like your work and will want some of your photos for their project

[ShopLady]

Seolman, never would have thought about offering services to charities, thanks a bunch, as well as to all those who have given me suggestions. I'm going to check out some places in town and see if they need any work done, thanks again!