# I'm in need of some cash. How do I sell my pictures? (Read description.) Thank You!



## CamCracker (Dec 5, 2009)

I have tried stock photography sites. I prefer a site where I could have my own store and have only my pictures on the site. I just want a website that I can upload my pictures, and people can pay for them, and then download them. I don't want to print them and then ship them

Another important thing is that it has to be all free. I don't want to pay to have the service. I don't mind if they take a small percentage out of the money I would earn for the photo. But I don't have any way of paying for a service.

I know you may be thinking I should try a stock photography site, but I don't like them. I would like to have my own store with my own pictures.

I'm sorry for being so demanding. Thanks for any help.


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## Josh66 (Dec 5, 2009)

Good luck.

If you find someone that will give you a free website that everyone will magically know about to sell your wares without having to do anything except sit back and collect the money, be sure to tell us.  I'm sure every single person on this forum would love to have just that.


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## farmerj (Dec 5, 2009)

try Etsy :: Your place to buy and sell all things handmade


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## jbylake (Dec 5, 2009)

I pay $18.00 a month for 2 servers to run my web business.  If you want free hosting, be prepared for your prospective customers to get bombarded with ad's, and tire of your site quickly.

My website, not photography related, means no ad's, it doesn't take money to build a website, and you can place an order form and bill by Paypal.  

The servers can handle either MS, or Linux.  They have an uptime of approx. 99.9%.

A little time developing a business model, understanding "other" associated costs, a business plan, some SEO, and you're set.  The SEO part is the toughy, you are probably not going to get bombarded with visits to your site anytime soon.  You have to put in some work for that.

Either way, there is not "hands-off" way to sell on your own site without investing a little time and money.  A little research into the different aspects of the aforementioned will help.  There is all kinds of websites dedicated to helping others build, maintain and start an E-business.

Good Luck
J:mrgreen:


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## cfaulds (Dec 5, 2009)

Your best solution will be to use a website like freewebs.com where you make your own website using their sitebuilder tool. If you spend £6 or $10 then you can have your own domain name like www.yourdomain.com instead of yourdomain.freewebs.com.

I use UK2.net. I get a simple hosting package that comes to about £50 a year. I then use Joomla - check it out - it has amazing photo galleries to put on your website to show off your photos. People can then pay you via paypal. 

However this can be tricky for someone very new to it all.


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## KmH (Dec 5, 2009)

farmerj said:


> try Etsy :: Your place to buy and sell all things handmade


 

Nope, won't work for the OP:



> I don't want to print them and then ship them


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## KmH (Dec 5, 2009)

CamCracker said:


> I have tried stock photography sites. I prefer a site where I could have my own store and have only my pictures on the site. I just want a website that I can upload my pictures, and people can pay for them, and then download them. I don't want to print them and then ship them
> 
> Another important thing is that it has to be all free. I don't want to pay to have the service. I don't mind if they take a small percentage out of the money I would earn for the photo. But I don't have any way of paying for a service.
> 
> ...


Great! Go for it! You already have a web site. You just need to monitize it.

What type of licensing do you plan on doing? RM or RF?

Are you going after the Commercial, Editorial, or Retail market?

Once you get the web site set up you don't just sit back and rake in the money though. To actually make any money you have to promote your web site every day, to as many Internet users as you can reach. We're talking several thousand hits a day, not a few hundred.


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## bstockphoto (Dec 5, 2009)

say you are in need of some cash, then a job is what you need, not an attempt to make a start in stock photography. It takes a long time to make inroads in stock, short term look at the job vacancies for some money.

bit of a tall order I can think of a couple of sites that almost match - I daren't mention them here I had my last account banned for just mentioning a 3rd party service in a thread similar to this one. none of there are completely free if you want to have your own url for 'your own site' the ones that dont charge for hosting always take a cut, 12% in one case of the sale, which i think for dealing with all the payment processing and hosting is quite fair.

you say you dont like stock sites, why? im guessing your work in that case is more art orientated???


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## jbylake (Dec 5, 2009)

Oh, the reality of it all....Hard Work + Investment cap + product marketability + demand = Maybe a profit.....Sorry, not trying to be a smart a$$, but your goals, as stated, seem a little lofty.  Good luck!

J.:mrgreen:


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## Shockey (Dec 6, 2009)

In order to make any money selling photos on the internet you have to have great photos, the competition on the net is fierce, the best photographers in the world are in that marketplace.
I looked at your site and the quality is not there, just keeping it real. 
I used to think the same thing..if I put my photos on the net people will find me and buy my pictures...just doesn't happen.
If you are serious about making money with your photography maybe take a look at taking people pictures, not that it is easy but, easier than trying to sell the types of photos that are on your site on the internet.
Good luck.


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## KmH (Dec 6, 2009)

Shockey said:


> In order to make any money selling photos on the internet you have to have great photos, the competition on the net is fierce, the best photographers in the world are in that marketplace.
> I looked at your site and the quality is not there, just keeping it real.
> I used to think the same thing..if I put my photos on the net people will find me and buy my pictures...just doesn't happen.
> If you are serious about making money with your photography maybe take a look at taking people pictures, not that it is easy but, easier than trying to sell the types of photos that are on your site on the internet.
> Good luck.


Shocky raises a good point here.

85% of all the images sold on the Internet are images that have people in them.

Wildlife and nature images make up about 1% of sales and most of those sales are for editorial use which pays a mere fraction of commercial usage.

Professional editorial stock photographers will typically have in excess of 12,000 images online and turn those images over (replace them) at the rate of 1000 a month.


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## jbylake (Dec 6, 2009)

Shockey said:


> In order to make any money selling photos on the internet you have to have great photos, the competition on the net is fierce, the best photographers in the world are in that marketplace.
> I looked at your site and the quality is not there, just keeping it real.
> I used to think the same thing..if I put my photos on the net people will find me and buy my pictures...just doesn't happen.
> If you are serious about making money with your photography maybe take a look at taking people pictures, not that it is easy but, easier than trying to sell the types of photos that are on your site on the internet.
> Good luck.


Shockey's advice can be applied to just about any E-Business. Just the names, occupations, quality of product, recognition as a good place to do business, and demand..have been changed.

J.:mrgreen:


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