The 3 Best Markets To Sell Your Photos… And How To Break Into Them
Because photos of places and things that have sentimental value are usually the best photos to sell, local landmarks that mean something to the people who live near you will often sell the best.
That means if you’d like to sell photos locally, anything from the coffee shop around the corner to town square could sell better than world icons like the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal or the Roman Coliseum.
Travel photos that illustrate a story and stock photos of trending and classic ideas are a close second and third.
Photo opportunities are everywhere—on the roadside… at work… out with friends… in your backyard… on vacation…at a nearby zoo… you name it.
In this guide, I’ll take you through the three biggest markets where you can sell photos like these and talk about what it takes to get into (and how much you can expect to make from) each.
Feature image: ©Kadmy/iStock
A fine art photograph is a photo that someone buys to use for decorative purposes. To hang on a wall in their home or office… to display in the dentist’s waiting room… anywhere it can be viewed as art.
Typically, people buy fine art photos that mean something to them on a personal level.
Flowers and patterns sell well as fine art but they’re a dime a dozen. You can buy a photo or painting of these things at your local Ikea or bed and bath store.
Instead, enter this market with photos of local places and landmarks where you live.
People tend to pay the most for photos of the Eiffel Tower when they’re standing beside it in Paris. And this is true of all major landmark photos sold as fine art.
Occasionally, someone will buy a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge when they’re half way across the country in your hometown because they spent some time in New York and/or they like bridges and travel images. But for the most part, you’ll get the most money and see the most demand for photos when the images mean something to the largest population of people near you—your neighbors.
Local baseball fields, high schools, libraries, bakeries and bagel shops are good subjects to hit with your lens… as are your city’s Town Hall and main shopping street… local landmarks and that lighthouse everyone recognizes along the coastline.
You can also sell photos like these to (and on the walls of) local businesses, coffee shops, furniture stores, and at craft fairs.
The beauty of taking and selling local photos is that it’s cost effective. You don’t have to buy an expensive airline ticket or take time off work. Once you have a portfolio of at least 30 good images, it is time to have prints made.
Print them as large as you can. 12 x 18 is a nice size for a portfolio book to show to the establishments with rotating art exhibits.
Neighborhood coffee shops, restaurants, the library, City Hall, art galleries, and banks are all great places in which you could display your work. Make an appointment to speak with the manager and show off your portfolio.
Spend some time researching matting and framing options. Write up an artist’s statement, a short bio, and a price list to hang with your work.
Displaying your photographs at outdoor art shows, local farmers’ markets, holiday fairs, or a nearby college student union are also great options to explore.
Pay in the fine art market typically ranges from $35 for a matted but unframed photograph smaller than 8 x 10 to $1,600 or more for matted and framed (or canvas, acrylic or metal) photograph 24 x 30 or larger.
Photos of your city skyline—day or night—could sell as fine art to the people who live there, or as stock. Think of looking at your city from unique places. Cities reflected in bodies of water are always popular. Use a tripod to avoid blur at night.
Fun signs, signs scrawled in chalk (such as ones you’d find at a farmers market), signs in foreign languages and signs that you can alter in Photoshop or other photo editing programs are fun and can sell as fine art or as stock.
Photos of people meditating or praying, hands holding the Bible, monks, places of worship, the cross and other religious symbols could sell as fine art.
If you have a landmark that makes you think of your town, it could make a fine art or stock shot.
This is a great place to go for colorful pictures of fresh produce, textures, patterns, movement, people doing things, culture, etc. You could sell photos of textures or nice, bright fruits for stock or fine art.
You can do creative things with candy for fine art or photograph it alone. You could take bright, colorful hard candies and make color-specific or multicolored stock shots.
Farm animals—especially cows—isolated on a white background or against a blue sky sell well.
Feature image: ©ExFlow/iStock
If the fine art marketplace consists of photos that people buy for decoration, the editorial marketplace is made up of photos that are used to educate, provide meaning, or tell a story.
Whether you’re trying to pitch your photographs with a story that explains your most recent trip overseas or you just want to sell your photos as a photo essay, it’s a good idea to (again) start locally.
When you do, you’ll find that editors come back to you more often as you become their go-to person for local photographs.
One editor who brings you multiple assignments is more valuable than multiple editors who bring you just one. Establishing those relationships by delivering good, fun photographs is key.
Do they feature a lot of people photographs? Horizontal photos? Verticals?
Are they attracted to cityscapes? Landscapes? Detail shots? Food photographs? Or all of the above?
Check out their website and search for their “Photographers Guidelines.” Print them out and follow them to the letter.
These guidelines will provide you with information on what they are looking for, how they wish to be contacted, and how to prepare your files for submission.
If you like taking travel photographs, you might also focus on travel guides or connect with your local tourism bureau. Getting your photos published in local “things to do” or “places to stay” guides can lay the groundwork for bigger, regional guidebooks or summer travel guides.
The trick to shooting great editorial images is to give your editor lots of options—usually three times the number of photos they’re looking to purchase.
Think first about an establishing shot—a photograph that sums up a place or an idea in a single image. Then, include a few tighter shots of different scenes that describe the place. After that, move in even closer and focus on the details.
With editorial photography, it’s all about telling a story with your images. Individual photos should be able to stand on their own, but also come together to make a comprehensive story.
Pay ranges from $50 per photo to $1,700 for cover images. Some of these rates are negotiable. Others are not. Always check the guidelines to be sure and make note of the “rights” they’re buying with their purchase. Never submit images to an editor without reading their Writer or Photographer Guidelines.
Unlimited-use rights are common and pretty self-explanatory. They mean the publication is buying the rights to use your image in any way they see fit, as many times as they’d like. They can put your story and photos in their print publication, on the website, and push it out through their social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
First North American rights are also popular. This means they buy the power to be the first to publish your photo in North America. If you’ve sold your photo elsewhere, you may not qualify to sell it under these rights. It’s up to the editor to decide if she still wants to purchase your images if they’ve already been used elsewhere.
When you’re approaching an editor with your photographs, stick with the simple information that you are a freelancer offering photos or a photo/article package and state the location or theme.
Kyle Wagner, the Travel Editor at The Denver Post, sums it up this way: “You have about three seconds to convey the most crucial initial information in the email subject line or on the front of the envelope before the travel editor decides whether to open it and investigate further or send out the standard format rejection letter.
Brevity is key. If you’re submitting an article with your photographs, it’s critically important that you follow the Writer’s or Photographer’s Guidelines to the letter. But if you’re just submitting photographs by themselves, most editors recommend that you create a website and post your photos there so an editor can peruse them and get in touch with you to make a purchase. If an editor requests that you send sample photos to review, be sure you send low-resolution versions. You don’t want to clog up his email inbox with huge photo files.
Select your best photos that fit the story and send them off. You want to send enough photos for the editor to see a range of choices and your ability, but be careful not to send too many. A good rule of thumb is to send four to eight photos for each published shot. If it’s a short story with a single photo, a half dozen or so photos is enough to give them an idea of your portfolio. If it’s a six-page spread, you’ll want to send more for them to see.
Feature image: ©Stefan Tomic/iStock
Online stock photo agencies are a great place to start earning passive income from your photos, too.
They’re not as lucrative as fine art photos. Or even editorial images you sell to magazines and newspapers.
But when you upload your images to one of these sites, they do all the marketing and selling for you. Your images sell around the clock to buyers all over the world while you’re out doing other things like traveling and taking more photos.
Microstock agencies are generally happy to work with amateurs, so long as the photos are composed well with good lighting and in focus.
Businesses large and small, along with art directors, ad agencies, and school districts—just to name a few—are all potential buyers. Stock agencies don’t charge you to upload your pictures, and buyers can download photos ranging anywhere between $1 and $20 (or more) depending on the size and image they want.
In exchange, you’re paid a royalty for each image sold. Percentages vary from agency to agency and photographers with more uploads and higher ratings get larger percentages. But typical royalties range anywhere between 20% and 40% of the photo sale.
20%-40% of $1 to $20 is not a lot of money on its own. But what you lose in the initial sale is made up for in volume if you can fill your portfolio with a thousand or more good images.
Microstock photographers often average $1 per month per image in their portfolios. Uploading 10 images can yield roughly $10 per month. But if you upload 1,000 saleable images, all of a sudden your monthly royalties are paying your electric bill and providing you with some extra spending cash. Upload another thousand and your royalties could cover the lion’s share of your expenses or help sock away a nice retirement fund.
Start with a quick online search for “microstock agencies” and look around at different sites. Use the tool bar and see what sells on each site.
You’ll probably be happily surprised at what you find. You may already have some of these kinds of pictures on your computer. Or you can easily take them this year.
Pictures of… Family get-togethers… Hikes and camping trips… Your pets… Things on your kitchen table… Even your travels.
Once you find what’s saleable on different stock sites, find their “contributors” area and read the terms of agreement. It’s usually hiding in a link that says something like “sell photos” at the bottom of the page.
Some agencies require that you take a brief test and submit a few images for approval before you are accepted as a seller. Make sure you read the guidelines very closely before sending in your photos, to make sure they meet the technical and style requirements.
Once you’re in, you’re good to start selling!
If you go this route, keep in mind that the hardest part is getting your first acceptance. Nearly all photographers are rejected the first time. So don’t get discouraged if it happens to you. It takes time to figure out what each agency wants and upload the photos accordingly.
Your photos also need to be technically correct and problem-free as they’ll be purchased by buyers around the globe who can’t contact you to get something fixed.
The good news is that each of these agencies usually tells you why they rejected an image.
If you’re already a good photographer and you know what makes for good composition, exposure and focus, it’s a good idea to start with these online agencies. If you’re not, it might be best to learn a few things first and approach them later when you’re got a few other sales under your belt.
If you’re serious about making money with stock photography, you’ll eventually want to start selling your images in the agencies that make the most for photographers. Today, those are Shutterstock.com and iStock.com.
However, in the beginning, it can be harder to get into iStock and Shutterstock. Most of our professional photographers got rejected on their first, even second and third tries. Which is why we recommend starting with the first three agencies in our list below, first. You’ll find they’re slightly easier to get into. Once you get the hang of how they work, what it’s like to submit images and start selling them online… then turn your attention to iStock and Shutterstock, where you’re likely to make more sales.
Feature image: ©Skynesher/iStock