Today I am going just little bit away from my theme. Because after couple of months I just logged on to my Istockphotowebsite to download some images for one of my project. What I found was amazing I had submitted 50images to istockphoto in the last year with the Digital Canon SLR which my wife presented to me at my last years birthday, it has generated revenue of $600 till today. Wow a good residual income online. I also check other website which I had submitted my photographs like fotolia, dreamtime, bigstockphoto and shutterstock all these sites has generated some good amount of revenue ranging from 200-300 dollars. The total income from all the sites generated was around $2014.50.
It has been a while I have taken stock photos to sell but still I take photos while I am traveling. Saying said that making money online is not just through blogging or affiliate marketing there are several ways to make money online. All you need is to come up with a strategy to create income online and be an expert in that field. Even if you are not an expert in certain field but if you have interested sure you will succeed because today there are several was you can educate yourself in certain subject either online or offline and be an expert to some extent.
My interested to take photos started while I was very young and gradually It developed into a hobby. Here are some tips and techniques you can use if you think you want to make some money online by taking and selling stock photos.
1) A decent digital camera with a minimum of 5 Mega Pixel. Don’t Start with expensive cameras first. You can get a good digital camera for between 200-300 dollars. You can upgrade to more expensive ones later with the money you start making money from selling photos which you have taken from this camera.
2) Create a list of Stock photo sites they are several of them just pick the top ten. If you submit to other sites which has less traffic it take long time to sell one.
3) Browse through these top stock photo websites and see which ones are downloaded more. Try to get an idea from those images and takes pictures which sells more. Usually pictures of nature won’t get sell more. Istockphoto and some other stock image sites have list of themes which are in demand.
4) To start selling you need to apply as a photographer with these stock sites first for that you need to send them some of your best pictures taken so far. Some sites are very strict in picking the photographers so you should be careful and send one of the best images with good lighting and composition.
5) Don’t give up in the beginning stages you photos might be reject due to poor quality. So don’t worries try to improve your creativity and style of photography.
6) You need to add some SEO into stock photos as well. You need to give better keywords related to the images to show up when people browsing the photos. A stock photo with a large volume of related keywords would sell more than with fewer keywords. Also don’t try to use non-related keywords it might get you in trouble and may be even remove you images because of malpractices.
The bottom line is take nice pictures with a creative eye which will sell and make you money online with stock photos.
Dear Thom,
Thankyou for your tips and comments; they have been most helpful.
I too began photography as a child(age 4) and it’s been a passion of mine all my life. I would really like to learn all I can about marketing my photos online. It seems there would be many other venues available including stock photos. If you have any further insights or tips based on your experience thus far I would be so appreciative.
Looking forward to hearing from you. 🙂
Thank you in advance,
Ingrid Allen