Photography has become highly accessible today, which is excellent as it helps more people to discover their creative gifts. However, this also means the market is saturated. As a photographer, you need to find as many ways of creating income as you can. There are many ways to make a living as a photographer today. The following keys can help you to become more profitable.
- Sell physical prints
Profitably selling photography prints on a platform like Etsy is possible as long as you put in the effort to find out as much as you can about how the platform works. You can’t just upload a few images and expect them to sell. That being said, it is easy to get started, and you can set up a store and tap into a large audience. Etsy takes only 5% of the transaction price, which includes the shipping costs. Working with a print-on-demand vendor means you don’t have to fork out for a whole lot of prints that won’t necessarily sell. You can integrate your ordering system with your Etsy shop, and as soon as a customer places the order, the print is made.
When it comes to selling your photography, a valuable tip is to leverage the power of printing on demand services where you can easily turn your stunning photographs into high-quality prints, enabling you to offer your customers beautiful, customized artwork.
- Shoot photos for stock websites
One of the quickest ways to make money as a photographer is to shoot photos for stock websites. Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, Alamy, Getty Images, and iStockPhoto are just some stock photo websites you can join. The only disadvantages of selling on stock websites are that you don’t set your own prices, and the pay is commission-based. These sites are also very competitive.
- Sell photos on your own website.
If you want to retain control of your image and your brand, you can sell your photographs on your own website and get all the profit. Using WordPress and various plugins makes it easy to set up a website, create a gallery and sell your photos without having any coding experience. Creating a gallery is a great way to show visitors how your art prints can beautify their homes. You can set your own competitive prices and have full control over how to display your work.
- Use social media platforms to promote sales.
Social media platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest give you the opportunity to share your images with your target audience. Share what you do with an audience, and once you build up followers, you can direct them to your shop with a link. You can sell your art prints in many ways, such as per image or in photo bundles. If you don’t have clients yet, this is a great way to find them.
- Learn how to use the right keywords
If you want to sell a photo of a daisy, hundreds of results are likely to pop up in the search engines when people type in the word ‘daisy.’ If a content creator types in ‘photo of a daisy on a dress,’ less results will come up. If you use this as your key phrase, your photo is more likely to come up. You need to start thinking of keywords and phrases that will make it more likely for your photos to rank higher in the search results so you can get more organic traffic to your shop.
- Look into niches that interest you.
Look into niches that interest you, such as shooting various types of cuisines or photos of people working. See what photographers are already creating in the niche and whether you can create original work that fills a gap. Don’t be tempted to replicate what you see but try to push creative boundaries and come up with something new. For example, if you find an interesting way to shoot a photo of money, it could beat out other images of money.
- Decide on the type of license.
When selling stock images, the type of license will influence whether you make small sums of money for many sales or a large sum of money for one sale. It all depends on how a client plans to use an image. Most images are licensed as royalty-free, and as more than one person can buy and use an image, you have the potential to make less money with one sale but more over time.
markmunroe
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