Selling Photos Online

As Posted on http://www.dphotojournal.com/sell-photos-online/

It's now easier than ever to earn extra money from your images by selling them online via specialist websites. It goes without saying that to be successful you shots need to be well composed, in sharp focus, accurately exposed, digital noise free, and available in high resolution format. But presuming that all this is in order, how do you maximize sale ability?

First, you need to find out whether a website will be worth your while by logging on and having a look around. Views the types of images stocked, and determine whether yours are on par with their quality and style, but be wary if there are a lot of images similar to your own. Most websites offer data detailing how many images are online, how many visitors and searchers there are per week and the number of times each image has been downloaded. Use this information to answer the question: How likely is it that I will actually sell my images through this website?
Once upload, your next challenge will be to make it as easy as possible for potential buyers to locate your images. This involves master the website's search facilities works and decide how you're going to categorizing and keywords your images.

Categorizing
Sellers can usually place images in more than one category - exploit this by placing yours in as many as possible. The importance of this is that while visitor and site members browse websites, photo buyers shop by category. Getting your photos listed within the right categories ensures they appear in front of the right audience.

Keywords
Keywords are there to give your photos a further away of being found by searches, and websites will give you a certain amount of characters to play with, which you should exhaust. Keep your keywords simply and accurate.

FAQs
Can you post the same photo on multiple stock photography websites?
Yes, you can..unless if you choose for being exclusive with iStockphoto or any other agencies that offer exclusivity. Then, you MUST only submit your photos to that agency.
What type of photography seems to be the most profitable?
Shoot what you like.. While some photographers say that people photos always sell really good, my best sellers have always been landscape/travel photographs.
Are you selling the same photos at multiple agencies?
Yes, I am.. as I'm not being exclusive to any agency and I'm selling all my photos as Royalty Free.

Below are some stock agencies where I submit my photos to..
DREAMSTIME - http://www.dreamstime.com/res25157
Dreamstime has been online since 2000 as a Royalty-Free stock photography website, selling CD imagery. The concept has been redesigned, upgraded and adapted to the market's need, evolving into a powerful and active community in March 2004
Your commission is .50 for each photo downloaded, but I believe your commision would increase as more people donwload your photos. Please visit their site to check the detail of their royalty figure.

FOTOLIA - http://www.fotolia.com/partner/3606
Fotolia is the newest micro-stock photo agency and really has a lot of earning potential.For each photograph sold, the photographer receives a commission based on the type of license sold to the customer. Fotolia currently has a local presence in 5 major countries: USA, France, Spain, Germany, and UK. Biy mid 2006 they plan to be in all English speaking countries and all major European countries.
For more info about their commision structure, please visit http://www.fotolia.com

SHUTTERSTOCK - http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=63814
Shutterstock is different than other stock models. Buyers subscribe on a monthly basis and can download up to 750 images over the course of 30 days. You'll get 25 cents every time one of your images is downloade. Uploading photos is easy, they have 3 uploading system; (FTP, HTML, and activeX). The community forum is also a great place to hangout with bunch of friendly people.

BIGSTOCKPHOTO - http://www.bigstockphoto.com/?refid=mcNXtDhrB7
Since launching the site last May 2005, BigStockPhoto has grown to over 110,000 images, with 6,000 added weekly. With 11,000 buyers and 3,100 photographers, it's one of the fastest growing stock photo sites. The site has a sophisticated search engine, multiple light boxes that can be shared with friends and colleagues, how-to articles and tutorials, forums, and an easy-to-use features for uploading and downloading photos.
Whenever a person downloads one of your photos, your account balance increases by 50 cents, you can also make $2.00 per large poster sized photo print sold.

CANSTOCKPHOTO - http://www.canstockphoto.com/?r=192
CanStokPhoto pays a 50% commission for guest & member purchases, and a flat $0.20 for subscription sales. Photographers are free to submit as many photos as they like, and will never be charged a cent. You always retain ownership of your images, and are free to edit and remove them whenever you want. Once you earn $100, you can request a cash-out in the form of cheque or PayPal.
On early January 2006 CanStockPhoto has done an impressive make-over to their website. Using built-in dyamic uploader, which is compatible for both Firefox and IE, you can drag and drop files from your desktop right to their servers.

ISTOCKPHOTO - http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php?refnum=Ximagination
Some say it's the first and the biggest microstock agency online today. No wonder if istock has more skillful photographers than other agencies. Which means, more competition for you photographers. Your photos have to be really stand out to be able to sell well in this agency.
On January 2006 Istock had a major upgrade to their website, they also increased their selling price (means more money for photographers).

ALAMY - http://www.alamy.com
Alamy has millions of images from thousands of photographers, picture agencies and national collections. Their customers include newspapers, magazines, and book publishers to advertising agencies and corporate marketing departments. They are a non-exclusive library and you retain all copyright on the images supplied to us. The aspect of Alamy that our contributors most enjoy is our favourable commission schemes, where contributors receive between 65% and 75% of each sale.
To be able to sell your images on Alamy you have to pass the first 10 out of 10 images in their Quality Control test. Your images must be taken with a Digital Camera with at least 6 Megapixel sensor, then you must Interpolate (upsize) the file to at least 48MB using a specialist, professional software package.

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