now more than ever photographers might
be asking themselves
how can i sell photos online there are
more options than
ever for selling photos online but
understanding all the different
positives and negatives of each platform
can be tricky instead i want to share
with you a
guide to all the ways that you can sell
your photos online
through your website or other platforms
and get started making money
right away
hey this is scott wyden kivawich the
chief community officer here at
imagery and selling your photography
online can be a great experience
not only is it fun to see others
appreciate your work
earning that extra money can be great to
fund your next photography trip
or lens purchase or whatever it might be
while there are a lot of photographers
selling online these days
they're also more buyers than ever
whatever you
like to photograph there's someone out
there who could use your photos
you just need to find out how to get
your work in front of them
fortunately there's a wide variety of
platforms for sharing and selling your
work
as mentioned each carries some unique
benefits
and different platforms may be better
fit for different types of photography
one thing to remember is that there's no
rule against trying
a few strategies or even all of them
while you may not want to pursue
multiple options that carry a monthly
fee
many of these options are free or
only charge a commission on the sales
you actually make
so remember that some platforms
particularly some of the more exclusive
stock photography sites
require just that exclusivity
meaning you can only sell the images on
that platform
through that platform so it means you
cannot sell it anywhere else
one of the best ways to get started
selling your images online is by
creating your own website
wordpress make this easy for you now it
might sound tricky at first
but there's a ton of useful resources
that make this
really really easy next gen gallery the
plugin that we make here at imagely
combines
all the tools necessary to manage
display
proof and even sell your photographs
like a pro
that means with a single website you can
show off your work to viewers
sell them your images and have them
automatically printed
and shipped to them with built-in print
lab functionality
nextgen gallery offers a number of other
benefits when it comes to selling your
images with its built-in support for
stripe and paypal
you can easily accept cred credit card
payments on your images
and our priceless support makes it easy
to price a wide range of products
all at once and digital download support
means you can sell your digital
downloads in a variety of sizes
helping you capture every potential
customer at each price point
now i know that tax could get a little
tricky and that's why we have built in
support
for tax jar which means that we will
automatically calculate tax
for wherever your product is being sold
when you control your own website you
also
receive a ton of benefits you can set
your own prices for your work
and keep 100 of the profit you can
dictate terms of
any licenses and you don't have to
compete with
other people's photos alongside yours of
course there's other benefits of doing
this on your own website
like search engine right if you are
doing
everything on your website it means
everything that is happening is helping
your ranking
which means that you will be found
better on
search engines like google if you don't
want to go through the effort of doing
everything on your own website there are
other options as we mentioned earlier in
this video or even if you want to
supplement with additional
resources to sell your work you can look
at sites
like adobe stock or istockphoto for
selling your photography
these services contain a huge collection
millions of images
and even videos all served to potential
clients every day
all you have to do is optimize your
image for those platforms with keywords
the titles and all those things that you
need in order to have them show up in
the search results that you want
but keep in mind that these usually sell
for very little
and those sites take a commission so you
might make
30 cents 50 cents on a photo that if you
were selling on your own website you
could be selling for a hundred
maybe 200 or even more but there's a lot
of things in the in the
in the favor of the stock sites namely
integration with other platforms and
just how known they are
globally by so many different businesses
if you are selling on adobe stock it
means that your photography could be
available
to purchase and use in other adobe
software
that alone is pretty big in addition to
the commission and the revenue you might
make
from these stock sites there's something
else you need to keep in mind
your images have to meet the quality
standards of those services
even if your photo is absolutely
stunning beautiful
if it is slightly out of focus you may
not have that photo
accepted by those platforms there's
other factors as well
but each has their own and need to
understand what it is before you submit
there are other options as well for
selling your work
if you have a website and you want to
supplement with a a
selling solution an e-commerce solution
for your photos
that is not on your actual website you
can look at services like smugmug
zenfolio 500px photo shelter
shoe proof and so many others all of
these options
create proofing galleries and and
e-commerce galleries
and things like that in order to sell
your work but
they are a separate service they are not
on your website
many of them allow a subdomain so that
you can actually have
gallery.mydomain.com whatever that might
be
but they are not actually your website
and many times they don't match 100 to
your website
many of these services also take a
commission so any print sales you make
or any digital download sales you might
make
you might have to pay a commission
basically on all those sales in addition
to the
annual fee that you have to pay for
those services last but definitely not
least
are the underestimated options like etsy
and ebay where a lot of people go and
sell their work
etsy in particular is a community of
sellers that really are there selling
their own
you know handmade products so etsy might
be a really good place to go and sell a
that you think that moms and dads would
really appreciate
for different things of course like
everything else there are fees that come
along with this so please keep that in
mind before you go and sell there
fortunately you have a variety of
options when it comes to selling your
photos online whether you want control
over your work
through your website or the ease of
selling through stock photography
you can make money right now right now
with your photography yeah if you are
considering building your own website
make sure to check out our plugin
nextgen gallery it makes it easy
to create a gorgeous feature-rich
photography website
this was a supplement to a full article
we did called how to sell
photos online the ultimate guide for
photographers i'm going to link to that
article in the description down below
please click down head over to it and
read the full article and be sure to
subscribe
to our youtube channel where we share
more
great content about photography
and we'll see in the next video
you