How to Sell Amateur Photography Pictures

Several options exist for selling your amateur photographs. If you are a photography enthusiast and have thousands upon thousands of pictures, you may be able to turn all that time and energy into a small profit.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Photographs to sell

Sell Your Amateur Pictures as Stock Photography

1. Log in to iStockPhoto (see Resources below) and create an account. You are required to provide your name and address as well as a government issued picture ID, like a passport or driver's license.

2. Read the criteria for submitting your amateur pictures. iStockPhoto has an online manual detailing all the criteria with in-depth explanations. Focus, lighting and cropping are just a few criteria.

3. Follow the instructions laid out for file format and image size. You do not want your best picture to be declined because you did not size it properly.

4. Browse the list of photographs that iStockPhoto needs, as well as the list of photographs they do not need. Don't waste time uploading photographs that no one wants.

5. Skim through the request forum and target specific photography requests. You may have exactly what someone needs.

6. Choose a range of keywords that accurately represent your photograph. These keywords are used to locate your photograph during a search. Irrelevant keywords will be removed by iStockPhoto administrators.

7. Read through the contract information with iStockPhoto before agreeing to it. Once you submit a photograph you are unable to use that photo elsewhere, so make sure you understand all the implications of being a stock photographer.

Sell Your Amateur Pictures From Your Online Gallery

1. Log in to SmugMug (see Resources below) and create a professional account. The membership fee is based on yearly dues and is relatively inexpensive when considering all the features you get.

2. Upload all the pictures you would like to sell. Professional accounts have unlimited space.

3. Arrange your gallery in whatever manner you wish. Apply colorful themes by using SmugMug's templates or by creating your own.

4. Protect your photo property by applying watermarks and preventing right-click saving. You can also deny access to viewing larger-sized photographs.

5. Set the price of each photograph you want to sell. You can sell an actual print copy or sell the digital download. SmugMug takes care of any payment processing and uses a carefully chosen print shop for photo processing.

6. Enjoy your profits as you sell photo after photo. SmugMug takes 15 percent from your sales to cover payment and photo processing, but the rest is yours to enjoy.

Tips & Warnings

• Always include your contact information when selling your pictures. You never know who may be interested in your full body of work based on a few examples of your photography.

• Be aware of copyright infringement. If you take a picture with a trademark clearly displayed, you need to understand the legal risks of selling that picture as your own property.

Resources

• Sell your stock photographs at iStockPhoto.com
• Sell from an online gallery like SmugMug.com