by Brad Mauer

Created on: April 20, 2009

Selling Your Photographs

There are a few approaches you can take to begin selling your photographs. You have the photography stock market, you can make specialty art prints and sell over the Internet, and you have self promotion. No matter the route you take there is a lot of work involved to make it work. Depending on which avenue you choose, or choose them all, you will have to put in more work in different areas depending on what you choose.

With stock photography you have three choices here to work with. Creating your own website, advertising it, and figuring out all the fee's are the different jobs you have to fill if selling your own stock. You have micro stock, which is the new rave in the market. When it started out many photographers were against it, some may still be, but with time some have seen the benefits that this market may have. With micro stock you are selling photographs for a cheaper price, and this has made it affordable to more markets. If you do a search for stock photography you will find a plethora of sites to research. I have signed an exclusive agreement with fotolia.com and they have treated me quite well. You have shutterstock.com, istock.com, to name just a couple in this area. The final is traditional stock agency's, with these it is usually harder to get accepted. You have to submit a group of photographs in a category that you are top notch in. Once they go through your photographs and decided that your work is up to par, then you can begin to submit different photographic markets.

There are some websites you can sign up for and create cards, posters, and prints to put up for sale. The one site I have found and signed up for was cafepress.com, with this page you can create a web store to create and sell your art. Once you set up your account they have templates for the different products they offer to size your photographs correctly. You collect a cut on all of your stores purchases, and the purchases that some one clicked on your link and bought something elsewhere on site.

If you are wanting to freelance there is a book you have to purchase, it is an invaluble tool. The book is the Photographers Market
and is printed annually. It is a good idea to keep the titles from previous years because some of the companies do not advertise every year. With this book purchased read through the whole thing, this book can teach you all sorts of little tips for the market. Go through the book and find companies that are in the market for your interest and jot down the contact information. Send letters to the different contacts to find out there submission guide lines. When just starting out you have to build a name for yourself, begin by submitting to smaller name companies they usually will give a chance to up and coming photographers for a smaller to nothing pay. I have an article about freelance photography you can look at for more information.

Learn more about this author, Brad Mauer.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.