How to Sell Stock Photos Online | Introduction

21 September 2012 Selling Stock Photography Stock Photo Websites

If you have decided to visit our website you are probably looking for an advice on how to sell your photos online. It is possible that you already have some experience and would like to learn more about stock photography or you are a beginner or hobbyist photographer and need some basic or general information to start with.

No matter whether you are an amateur, semi or pro, at some stage most photographers get an idea of selling their work. In order to be successful and receive any financial benefit you need to learn how to do it properly and be aware of some very important issues, rules and details necessary to help you in selling your photos.

You probably have thousands of pictures sitting on your computer and doing nothing else but taking up all that precious disk space. Especially today, when all new cameras (whether professional DSLR or point-and-shot ones) have millions of pixels packed in their sensors, one image can take up from several up to a couple of hundred megabytes. So why not try to upload these images to one or more stock photography agencies where your images would probably earn some extra money for you? Let's say one dollar per each image submitted during a year? Now multiply it per 2-3 hundreds (or even thousands) of photos you might have? Don't you think it is worth trying? This may seem to be a very general rule but it should give you a rough idea of what it is about taking into consideration that some of your images can become stock photos, sell more than once and for much more than $1.

Before you begin your stock photography journey

Before you start, you need to learn how this business works, what stock photography agencies are out there, what expectations they have, what technical requirements you must meet in terms of image size, dimensions, rules for uploading and review process. You need to know what images sell best, what subjects you should avoid and what kinds of pictures are sought for. You should analyze many stock photos to see what quality and aesthetic level you will be required to meet to become stock photo contributor. Visit stock photography websites, check their categories to see which ones would suit your photographic style and see photos of other contributors, especially of those who succeeded in stock photography business.

At this stage you most likely have an idea of what you want to achieve but if not, I am sure the following pages should highlight the most important issues of what to do and what to avoid and how to start selling your photos to the biggest stock photography agencies.

Stock Photo Adviser provides comprehensive information on our recommended stock photo websites that you should check, but keep in mind that one agency may offer reasonable compensation to one stock photographer, while it might not be the best place for another. It will depend on your style and favourite subjects, number of images you have in your portfolio to upload initially, number of stock photos you can produce on regular basis, as well as quality of your photographic work.

Visit our stock photo agencies list with details, reviews and links to their websites. There are many stock photography sites and marketplaces out there, but most of the showcased here are the ones we have some experience with. We do our best to keep our website and all comparisons up-to-date and on regular basis we publish new reviews and articles once we confirm that a given stock photo site is worth to be featured and recommended to potential photographers or photo buyers. Information we provide should be taken as a guideline only to give you an idea on what stock photography players are out there and what you can expect from them. Then, you can make a choice yourself and probably after a while you will know exactly in which direction you want to go and what agency is best for you.

By reading our stock photography guides, articles and stock photo agency reviews you should learn about: