AVOID AT ALL
COSTS the photolibraries that sell pictures for under a dollar a
time - you will NEVER make serious money from these. Just don't even
CONSIDER it. These people trade on the inexperience of amateurs.
After they take their commission they'll give you about 20 cents!
They mostly make their money by selling advertising on their site -
mainly AdSense. You're just a cheap content provider for them!
ROYALTY FREE
companies can be a useful source of income though and they often
sell pictures for MORE than a stock photo fee. It's worth
investigating - use royalty free photo in a search on Google to find
those companies. Getty in particular owns a very large royalty free
company and it's responsible for a large portion of their turnover.
Corbis and Alamy also sell RF pictures.
One thing you
should consider about royalty Free pictures is that the CD's are
among the most heavily PIRATED CD's in the world - you can buy RF
CD's outside any Moscow Metro station for $1.50 or in any street
market in Vietnam for a Dollar !!! Do you really want your pictures
on those?
If and when you
become SERIOUS about selling stock photography then you should take
out a subscription to VISUELL (a magazine devoted to stock
photography and has LOTS of adverts for agencies worth following up)
You might like to consider having your own website to display your
work - then instead of sending CD's all around the world you can
just email potential agents and customers with your website address.
You will also
need a web hosting company to park your website. Websites take an
awful lot of looking after though. But on the positive side a
website with samples is a great promotional tool. DO (NOT E-MAIL
photos though.... remember I already covered that!)
An EXCELLENT
company with lovely professional website templates is Allwebco.
They are a very helpful company and the help pages take you through
the setup set by step. Prices are very reasonable and they will
also host your website at a good rate too. Their address is
http://www.AllWebCo.com.
Here are a few
useful Contacts:
A.S.M.P. The
American Stock Photolibrary body
http://www.asmp.org/
B.A.P.L.A. The
British Photo Library Association http://www.bapla.org.uk/
C.E.P.I.C. The
European Photolibrary Association http://www.cepic.org/
Photographers
Direct
http://www.photographersdirect.com/
Photo District
News - theMajor USA Photo Industry website
Photonet Travel
http://www.photo.net/travel/
Photoshop
Tutorials
http://div.dyndns.org/EK/tutorial/
You'll find lots
more contacts and suppliers on
http://www.stockphoto.net
There are
685000 results in the stock photolibrary search on Google ... so you
can see it's a BIG business! I will not suggest any individual
photolibraries since the
photolibrary
business changes rapidly and what may be a great photolibrary one
day may not even exist the next! Here are a few hints to choosing a
photolibrary. Avoid ANY photolibrary that charges a membership fee.
(Although it's OK for a photolibrary to charge for picture storage
if their commission is low enough!) Avoid ANY photolibrary that
promises to make sales - no one can do this. Do NOT sign up all your
work exclusively to any photolibrary. But supply individual pictures
exclusively to single agents.
If you're in the
same country try to see their office and size up the people for
yourself (An agency is only as good as it's staff). Look for credits
to that photolibrary on Alavista.com - no credits to pictures means
no sales! Read
http://www.stockphoto.net for latest stock photo news (but some
of the correspondents can be a bit egocentric and you should read
their other postings before making up your mind). This actually goes
for any Site that permits people to put up postings - there will
always be a few oddballs!
Look at
www.ephotozine.com and read the articles on selling photos. You
can also put your photos in the Gallery for free! Consider joining
Photographers Direct - their subscription is a bit expensive ( but
they offer a commission based alternative). Remember - you'll only
sell pictures if you send them to people!
Good luck with
your Digital Photo Sales - let me know if you get a big one!
Keith
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