So, you’ve taken some brilliant photos of your travels and shared them with your friends and family.
Someone said these are good enough to be in a magazine and then you thought so too.
Now the question is, how do you do that? And where do you start? Well, I have compiled a list of seven different and simple ways to start selling your photos, below:
1. Tourist Boards
Almost every travel destination has a tourist board or regional tour office. They are constantly refreshing their websites, brochures, and leaflets with new photos. Go to their websites and then ask if you could send your photos for their consideration.
2. Greeting Card Companies
Online and print greeting card companies are always on the lookout for new images. Some of them have online forms, where you can upload your photos for them to consider.
They are mostly looking for holiday-themed photos, so if you have a great Christmas image, or perhaps a romantic photo they can use for Valentine’s Day, send it.
3. Travel Magazines and Newspapers
Although it can be difficult to break into travel magazines and newspapers, you have a double shot at it: they need images for both their print magazines and their websites. But you need to do your homework before you approach them.
First, look through back issues and their website to see if their photos are a similar style to yours. Also, when looking at the back issues, check to see if they have recently had a feature about the destination you want to send photos of.
If it’s a monthly magazine and they have published an article from the same destination less than a year before, chances are they won’t accept your photos.
Search for a link on their website for information about article and photo submissions.
Read it thoroughly so you know what types of photos they are looking for and check it again every few months for changes. Sometimes editors will post on the publication’s Twitter account if they are looking for specific types of photos.
4. Other Types of Magazines
Don’t limit your photo submissions to travel magazines. Try lifestyle, food, sports, hobby, and women’s publications. Perhaps you took a fantastic photo of a soufflé you had in Paris that you can submit to a food publication. Or if you have a photo of sailboats, you can see if a boat magazine would be interested.
5. Write an Article to Accompany Your Photos
In recent years many publications require writers to provide photos with their articles. If you write clearly and concisely, pitch a story and tell them you also have images to go with it. If you do pitch a story, make sure it’s a specific angle that hasn’t been done before, at least for that particular publication. Don’t pitch a story about how you discovered the Colosseum in Rome; instead, pitch a story about the off-the-beaten-path garden you found by accident.
6. Photo Essays for Magazines
This one is a long shot but still worth a try. If you have a set of highly unusual or unique photos, some publications will feature the images with minimal text or will build a story about them.
7. Online Travel and Travel Agent Sites
There are thousands of online travel and travel agent sites that rely on photos to sell the destinations they are promoting. See if you can get your foot in the door by asking them if you could send some of your photos.