A Quick Guide on Where To Sell Photographs Online

[fretbuzz]

I am looking for software that will allow me to sell images on my own site. I was using Zenfolio but the cost was to prohibitive, it worked very well, but was an external site.

[capturedbybrooke]

Originally Posted by fretbuzz

I am looking for software that will allow me to sell images on my own site. I was using Zenfolio but the cost was to prohibitive, it worked very well, but was an external site.

I'm looking for the same. Even something I can have a link to from my site where clients can have a password protected album and order pics from there. I just signed up for the free trial from Zenfolio. I am wondering if that would work for that purpose or if the price would not be worth it if I am not hosting my entire site thru them?

Imagekind is free to use, but no one wants to order prints from there because it's so expensive for each print. And the odd sizes turn ppl off. I need something that offers packages of pics at a decent price where I can still make somewhat of a profit too.

[YouAreTrulyLoved]

There's a number of options available:

Maximizing Profit per Image

Post your photos online through a photoblog or facebook and get people viewing your images. Mention that prints are available for sale directly through you. When someone contacts you about placing an order, have them pay via Paypal and either print and mail directly or have a third party print and ship your prints. I prefer the latter option with EZ Prints.

Maximizing Control and Presentation

Purchase an account with a company like Smugmug or Zenfolio. These companies will allow you to create custom websites, attractive looking designs, and custom prices for your images. The images will be hosted on their machines. You can sell both digital and print copies of your images, watermark them for protection, and have all your sales, printing, and shipping needs taken care of for you.
Read a full review of the Smugmug Pro Account.
Get a free trial and save $5 off a Smugmug account with the coupon code: hDBXAc8lccGdQ

Focusing on Passive Income

Sign up with various microstock agencies. Here you can upload your images and have customers start purchasing your images immediately. You typically make less than a dollar per image, so the name of the game is to crank out lots of high quality and well captioned images. Some sites are better than others in terms of payout, number of buyers coming in, ease of use as a photographer, how many hoops you have to jump through when it comes to uploading, categorizing, tagging, and processing images in a batch.

Shutterstock - The best option. Lots of traffic, easy uploading and tagging, and my highest paying site.
Dreamstime - My second highest paying site and still relatively easy to use.
BigStockPhoto
Fotolia
123RF

I'd also recommend using a program like Adobe Lightroom to caption and keyword tag your images before uploading via FTP to the various sites. Not all sites use the same EXIF fields when reading data to autofill the tags and captions, but this will save you some repetitive leg work when you get to the sites to start keywording and captioning your images.

Make Money Referring Others

Finally take advantage of the various affiliate programs that the companies offer. Each of the sites I mentioned above (with the exception of EZ Prints) offers an affiliate program. For example, with Smugmug and Zenfolio, you get paid when someone signs up for an account. With Zenfolio, you get paid even when someone signs up for a trial account!

All of the microstock agencies I listed above offer affiliate programs where you get paid when the photographers you refer sell photos on the sites. In several of them you also get paid when buyers hop on and purchase photos from the various MS sites.

[fretbuzz]

I tried Zenfolio, and it was the best, from my experience. Of all the clients I had go through my zenfolio site, I only made $7 in one year. All other purchases where through me directly. I deemed it not worth the $100 yearly cost.
It is a great service, and if I could afford it I would stay with it.

I was looking for something I could run on my OWN site that is similar to these services. I guess I will just have to code the thing myself.

[Match Makers]

There are many:

Fotolia, iStock, Dreamstime, Shutterstock, 123RF, Bigstock, USPhotostock, Stockxpert etc etc .

I would suggest going to a stock specific forum and get informed there. Most people have portfolios over several sites to spread sales and get a wider audience.

[fretbuzz]

I am not interested in selling downloads... I only sell prints, not sure how all the "stock" this and that plays a part in selling prints.

[amitseo]

You can visit here for nice photography.

[clickclick1970]

Originally Posted by SinnedCBU

Hi, any of you guys any idea which kinds of photos sell most on which website?
Like I have access to beaches near where I live,most of my shots are beach shots.do you have any recommendation which website i can try my luck in? or should i just post everything to all those websites mentioned on this thread. Thanks in advance.

Hi,

You can setup and sell free of charge no commission at 3,000 hits per month at DigitalMoods Photo printing on canvas set your own price and they will even link to you own site no catches. Friend of my Bev is on there :-)

Henry.

[GeStatusProductions]

Anyone ever try fototime.com?

[Nevervoid]

Has anybody made that buck at all?

If so, please give us a few tips!
Appreciated, thanks.