As a photographer, we’re always looking for ways to generate income and what better way than selling your photos? It sounds easy and who doesn’t want to buy your amazing photos? It sounds easy, but selling your photos is no easy task. There is a lot that goes into it and if you’re not aware of what you’re doing you could be costing yourself more money than you are making it. Here are some tips to help you put a little extra money into your pockets with your photos.
Choosing the Right Photos to Sell
Choosing photos is always the hardest part of any process. As photographers, we sometimes let out preference take the lead when, selling your photos, we have to look at it from a marketing standpoint. By that I mean, an unbiased look at each photo and ask yourself, “Is this something someone would want to buy?”
While you think a selective colored photo or an purposely out of focus photo looks artsy, that doesn’t mean someone wants to hang it in their house or office. Photos that evoke emotion in people are the ones that have a better chance at selling than the ones where people are trying to figure out what you were trying to achieve with the photo.
There is always a market for landscape, black and white, cityscape photos. Abstract and fine art photos sell as well.
Selling photos of people such as celebrities and athletes is complicated. While there is high demand you may not have the rights or permissions to sell them. And if you don’t and you still try to sell them, expect a notice from lawyers telling you to stop. And if you ignore that, well, I hope you can afford a great attorney because you will need one to defend yourself in court. And these celebs and athletes can afford better than you.
What to Sell
Are you going to sell only prints or are you going to run the gamut and try selling everything? When selling your photos, it usually means prints or canvas. Does that mean you can’t sell mugs or t-shirts with your photos on it? Of course not. You can sell photo books, calendars, mouse pads; whatever your pretty little heart desires.
It’s easy trying to sell everything at once. And then you get overwhelmed in trying to fulfill everything and keep track of it all.
I would recommend starting out with you just prints and/or canvas and see how those are performing before you start adding all the novelty items. Yes the end goal is to sell as much as possible but if you’re stuck with an absorbent amount of inventory and nothing is moving, you’re losing money, not making it.
How to Price Your Products
Of course we all want to make an obscene amount of money for our art. Just too bad we didn’t think to tape a banana to a wall earlier. Pricing your photos is just as painful as choosing which photo to sell.
You don’t want to overprice yourself to the point that no one is buying anything. And you don’t want to under value your work where you end up breaking even.
Pricing is marketing, essentially. You have to find your target market and price towards them. I always remember someone saying when it comes to marketing that you go for what people fear. Rich people fear going poor so offer products to make them wealthier. Poor people fear staying poor so sell them things that make them feel wealthy. Just food for thought.
And everyone likes free right? Offer free shipping as an incentive, but add it into the price of the product. People will pay for things if they think they will get something for free. It looks like you’re offering something for free, but in reality the customer is still paying for shipping, but they think they got the better deal.
When you price your products you have to account for the cost of materials, the shipping, the cost of marketing the products etc. into your base price. So if an 8X10 print will cost you, for example, $7.50 to make then you should be selling it for at least $10, $11 dollars. Yes there are people who are selling 8X10 prints for $50, $75 dollars, but when you’re just starting out you have to start some where.
And that is the beauty of pricing; you’re in control of it all. If you notice your demand is spiking, you can raise your prices while keeping the same base cost. Profits never looked so good.
Selling from Your Website
If you have a website that uses WordPress or is hosted on other sites like Photoshelter, Shopify, Zenfolio etc., then you have the ability to sell photos from your website directly. Some of these sites make you pay a monthly fee to host your store, but if you’re selling photos then the cost will be absorbed by your sales.
A lot of these sites also allow API integrations to 3rd party websites/companies that can fulfill your printing needs. So you can just set up which photos to sell and sit back and watch the sales skyrocket while someone else does all the heavy lifting.
If you’re selling directly from your website, you have to make sure the servers you’re on can handle to load of all your customers coming to your website to make purchases. Nothing kills a sale faster than a slow website or one that is repeatedly down for maintenance.
Again, selling is marketing so make sure on all your social media channels you have links back to you website and store. Post about it, tweet about it, create TikTok dances, just as long as people keep going to your site to buy your products.
Etsy, eBay and More
Now when you think about Etsy, you think about people selling their handmade crafts or customized Taylor Swift bracelets, but Etsy is a great place to sell your photos as well. With Etsy you can sell as much as you want. Each listing comes with a minimal fee for listing the product and you can set up your products to offer variations like print size. With millions of people going to Etsy monthly there is a good chance that people can find your photos there. Ensure that you have great keywords and descriptions so when Etsy brings back search results your products can be easily found.
eBay maybe an auction site but you can also sell products there that can be bought without an auction. Again, with millions of people searching for items there is a great chance your work can end up in the search results.
Whether you’re posting your products on Etsy, eBay, 500px or where ever else allows you to, you have to make sure that you’re being descriptive with the product name and description. Having a title called ,”Boats,” isn’t going to garner you a lot of traffic. Be specific. “Sailboats on the Charles River in Boston, MA.” So instead of just boats, people who are looking for specifically sailboats or the Charles River or Boston will have your product show up in the listing.
The more specific and detailed your listings are the better chances you have at making a sale.
Stock Sites
There was a time having your photos on stock site such as iStock, Adobe Stock, Shutterstock etc. was profitable. Not anymore. The market is so saturated that your would have to be niche specific with your photos to make any type of money. Does that mean there isn’t an opportunity to make any money? Of course not.
With stock sites, they’re very strict in what can and cannot be submitted. Anything with recognizable logos, brands or buildings etc. won’t be usable. If you’re sending in photos of people make sure you send in photo releases for each person in the photo as well, otherwise those photos won’t be accepted. If you’re sports photographer, unless you’re on assignment with Getty or AP, you will not be able to submit your photos. The leagues, teams etc. has specific legal jargon on the back of each credential specifying that you cannot sell photos without their consent.
And every stock site has their own time table when they approve or deny submissions. Same is true for what content they’ll accept. I’ve had Shutterstock accept photos that Adobe Stock denied. They all operate in their own bubble. With that, it doesn’t hurt to submit everything you have and let the chips fall where there may.
There are also smaller stock sites like Wirestock or even Unsplash where you can submit your photos.
Selling your Photos isn’t Easy
Selling your photos is no walk in the park. Some people have instant success and others won’t. That doesn’t mean your photos aren’t good enough to sell. You can’t compare your sales with others otherwise that impostor syndrome feeling will begin to creep in. Continue to market your photos on whatever platform you have them on and don’t forget to continue to shoot!