Are you an amateur photographer and want to earn money by selling photos? Becoming a full-time paid photographer is not easy, but theres a huge demand for stock photos all over the world. This opens up for opportunities:
- A quicker way for amateur photographers or semi-pro photographers selling pictures online in an automated manner.
- Stock photo sales sites, earning money on selling your photos. They have the customer network and the sales platform – all they need is your photos.
Pros and cons
- Earn money without taking the long road to become a full-time pro
- Upload-and-go. Selling photos online means minimum work and the possibility of a repeating sale cycle.
- Learn the media business
- Minimum earnings. You wont get rich by selling one picture to only one customer. Good earnings require lots of photos and a reputable stock sales site.
- Stock photo buyers are picky, and so are the stock photo sales sites. Sunsets and pets may not be welcome, no matter what level of quality you produce. Learn to take meaningless pictures of USB sticks and smiling businessmen in fancy suits.
- Being jumped at by other photographers. You are contributing to the shift of the business itself, and long time pros will call you a "not so serious sell-out, destroying the business". This may cause mile long discussions on other forums and blogs, sometimes quite angry flamewars. This phenomena is nothing new in the music business, where modern technology have changed the industry no matter who's the winner of piracy lawsuits etc. Theres a big difference though in the fact that the music business is not that much about art today, and the less you know about the artform the more you earn (…earned. Sorry – you need to invent something like spotify today. Starting up a new record label and get mafia connections wont do it. Well, if you skip the record label part maybe..).
This post will be continued with links to resources, and the tips that will get you going on by yourself..