This new year, we took on the task of redesigning and expanding the Photo Lines website. I guess it’s kind of like Boston’s “Big Dig” because we’re doing it beneath the surface without disturbing much of what is already here, though parts of that will be removed as it’s reincorporated into the new design.

While entering by way of photolines.com or fotolines.com will bring you to the new area, allowing you to watch while it is being built, photolines.com/home.html or fotolines.com/home.html will take you to the home of the old site, which includes this weblog.

The new Photo Lines website will have expanded photographic coverage. It will go beyond freelance photography and making money with your camera to include photographic tips and techniques as well as discuss and offer cameras and photographic equipment.

And if you’re looking for photographic equipment of any kind, check the Store Navigation menu at photolines.com for generally unbeatable prices and, by far, the widest selection of digital cameras, film cameras, printers, scanners and accessories you are likely to find anywhere.

Want to know more about digital photography? Visit our new Digital Photography Guide for articles, resources, and more.

This article is by Rohn Engh. Rohn published a book back in 1981 called, “Sell &ReSell your Photos. (Writer’s Digest Books.) It’s now in its fifth printing and has become a bible for photographers just entering the field of stock photography. Rohn also publishes photo needs of national publications in three market letters ranging from a monthly to a daily. He can be reached at Pine Lake Far, PhotoSource International, Osceola WI 54020. (715) 248-3800.

The Right Way to Photo Sales

By Rohn Engh

Want To Improve your Photo Sales? Here Are Seven Marketing Mistakes To Avoid.

“Why Do I See Others Photos Published — Yet Mine Are Better?”

My cousin in Texas told me she wanted to get into stock photography and hoped to start selling to magazine and book publishers. When I visited her a couple of years ago, she brought out an album of her outdoor and travel photography. “People have told me these pictures are as good as the ones they see published in magazines and books. What do you think ?”

“Before I look at the pictures, let me see your marketing methods,” I said.

“My what?”

If you are interested in seeing your credit line in national magazines and books, and you can produce excellent images, the following will be helpful to you.

We all know that trying to sell excellent umbrellas on a dry day is difficult. Even the inferior ones will sell during a downpour.

The engine that drives the selling process for stock photographers is fueled by effective marketing methods.

Over the years, I’ve looked at dozens of collections of superb photos gathering dust in a shoe box. One important element stood between those pictures being published and remaining in the shoe box: skillful marketing techniques.

I’ve noticed that the photographers who succeed at selling to the book and magazine industry are those that have developed a strategy for selling, which today we call, marketing.

We’ve heard of the photographer who hit the jackpot with the sale of one photo for use on a billboard or an advertising campaign. This is rare. Your best bet to break into the stock photo field is the book and magazine industry.

The photography budget for a medium-size publishing house is between $20,000 and $40,000 monthly. For a major publisher, it’s twice that amount. Stock photographers who are consistent at selling their photos have learned to identify certain markets that match their own areas of interest. Once they become a “regular” at the publishing house, they receive a steady stream of photo requests and assignments.

Want to improve your marketing methods? Here are seven marketing mistakes to avoid.

CREATE FIRST THEN FIND A MARKET

Number one is probably the most oft-repeated marketing mistake. Creative people tend to produce their product first and then attempt to find a market for it. This is a recipe for disaster. The Boulevard of Broken Dreams is strewn with bodies of creative people who never learned: “Find the market first, and then create for that market.” Most entry level stock photographers fail because they go after the “photos that sell”, not necessarily the ones they love photographing.

SPECIALIZE

When you try to be all things to all people in the publishing world, the photobuyer’s reaction is: “No one can be that good!” Discover your photographic strength areas, and go for them. Most entry-level stock photographers go have the whole pie rather than the piece of the pie. Become a specialist. don’t photograph everything you see. you’ll burn out. Stay within a “segment” and become an expert in your area(s) of interest. Learn to speak the language of your interest areas. You’ll become a valuable resource to a certain group of photobuyers out there. If wild horses can’t pull you away from your goals, you’ll succeed. You’ll fail or get bored if you aim for only those markets that ‘pay well’.

FOR SOUL NOT FOR SALE

Writer’s rarely publish their poetry and even rarer is getting paid for it. In the stock photography field, don’t expect your ‘artsy’ pictures to sell. Consider them your poetry. Ask yourself next time you’re taking (making) a picture, “Is this for sale or is it for soul?” Spend Sundays to take pictures that feed your soul, take the marketable pictures during the week to feed the family.

PASSING THROUGH

Give the appearance that you are a ‘permanent’ resident. Most creative people have a tendency to change their address once every five or six years. Photobuyers have a tendency to shy away from the vagabond, the wanderers, no matter how talented they might be. Buying photos is a business and they want you to be businesslike in their dealings with you, and that means being ‘reachable’ five days before deadline. Get an e-mail address and stick with it.

LOOKING LIKE A BEGINNER

If you appear to be ‘just starting out’ photobuyers will pass you on by. They don’t have the time to hold your hand or “train” you. They’d rather spend their time with someone who is “hassle-free”. You should give the appearance of looking like a pro. Build a quality website. Correspond on quality stationery, labels, and envelopes. The photobuyer will put you on her/his “white list.” Don’t use the Internet to send a catalog of your pictures to a prospective editor. Instead, ask for permission first.

TECHNICAL FAILINGS

The automatic controls on digital cameras today make it nearly impossible not to get a technically good photo. Photobuyers expect technical excellence from you. No matter how excellent your image may be, if it does not meet the reproduction quality for the publishing industry, you’ll fail.

A 1D meg picture may be resolution enough for magazine and book markets, however, a 50 meg image is often the minimum requirement of many of your markets. Use this as a guideline when buying your next camera.

HOMEWORKLESS

Do your homework. Know what your strengths are, and then begin photographing in the areas that you love best, where you ’speak the language’ of the photobuyer. Do your homework on the web or at the reference library. You’ll find scores of powerful directories awaiting you, plus photobuyers who, at this moment, are searching for your talent and know-how. They will recognize your mini-expertise that matches the special interest of their magazine or publishing house audience.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rohn_Engh

Find discounted digital and film cameras as well as camera accessories at The Photo Lines Store. Easy access. Super deals!

This article is by Rohn Engh. Rohn is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA. Telephone: 1 800 624 0266 Fax: 1 715 248 7394. Web site: http://www.photosource.com

Target Your Markets

By Rohn Engh

Times are tough, and they have been tough economically for a while. Many photographers are experiencing a drop in stock sales, and many publishers of magazines and books are trying to cut corners.

Some photographers are cutting corners, too.

But a word of caution. Cutting corners can be a necessary business practice when times are tough financially, but of course the key to doing this right and not hurting your business instead of helping it, is to know what to cut and what to leave alone.
Generally speaking, you naturally want to avoid cutting anything that directly generates income for you, providing the profits outweigh the expenses. This includes things like image production, marketing, information services, and advertising. You may have to cut down in some of these areas, but don’t cut them entirely.

GET ON THE SCREEN

As you know by now, getting on the radar screens of photobuyers and staying there is the single most important thing for your business. Cutting your advertising and marketing activities is a surefire way of falling off that radar screen. Yes, you may have sold your first stock photo to Jane Doe, a photobuyer, last month. But remember the old adage, “You are past history to a photobuyer after your first sale. Continual promotion will keep you on that radar screen.” The current dip in image usage is only temporary, and when things get back to normal, you’ll want to make certain that you are on the minds of all the photobuyers that are important to you.

Good, professional marketing is the key to success for any business, but this becomes even more important when times are rough. In fact many successful businesses will increase, rather than decrease, marketing during rough times. In the case of the stock photo business, when fewer images are being licensed, there are fewer opportunities for your work to be selected over the work of a competitor. Even though the number of customers may still be the same, the number of sale-opportunities have shrunk, and it’s more important than ever to keep your name in front of your buyers.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rohn_Engh

This article is by Rohn Engh. Rohn is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA. 1 800 624 0266; Fax: 1 715 248 7394. http://www.photosource.com

Your Photos Should Have a Theme
By Rohn Engh

Stick To Your Theme

“I think I’ll choose a Pepsi,” the lady says in front of the vending machine.

Out comes the soft drink can of her choice.

She makes a choice based on preference (or need) and makes payment for it. Vertical marketing works much in the same way. If you were to open the interior of the machine, you would find that the soft drink cans are all lined up in a vertical row. All soft drinks of one selection are slotted into one vertical column, ready for dispensing.

There’s no crossover. The cans must be lined up in the same dispensing vertical row, or they will deliver a wrong selection to the customer.

If you were the serviceman and haphazardly placed the cans in the machine in random positions, the results would be chaotic and unsatisfactory to customers.

NO CENTRAL THEME

Most beginning stock photographers make the mistake of building a stock file in random fashion, with no focussed marketing themes. Their picture-taking choices are “all across the board.”

Because any one photobuyer’s publication appeals to a vertical market (gardeners, pilots, medical technicians, teachers, etc.) photobuyers turn to vendors who can supply them pictures within those specialty areas. They can’t afford to waste time on a vendor who does not offer an extensive selection of the product in the vertical market they need.

NO TEARS MARKETING

If the customer at the vending machine is served up a soft drink that doesn’t fit their choice, they become irritated and pound on the machine and demand a return of their money. “This is not what I wanted!”

The soft drink they received may be of excellent taste and quality, but it doesn’t match their needs. This realization may help to assuage your disappointment when a photobuyer rejects your submission of excellent pictures. The pictures may be of high quality, but you are vending them to the wrong buyer.

Stay within the vertical markets that you enjoy photographing in, and match with markets who need photos in those subject areas. At this moment, buyers are searching for you. Don’t waste film or time on picture-taking that doesn’t fit into your vertical market areas.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rohn_Engh

This article is by Rohn Engh. Rohn is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes, Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA. 1 800 624 0266; Fax: 1 715 248 7394. http://www.photosource.com.

Photo Stealing on the Internet
By Rohn Engh

Should you worry about photo thievery on the Internet?

There’s an element of human nature involved here: Trust.

Back when we first got here to the farm, the nearest grocery store was (still is) the Horse Creek Store. Fred Nelson would stand behind the counter and retrieve the products you wanted from the shelves. It’s not that he didn’t trust his customers. He was giving them service. It had always been done that way. A few years later when supermarkets were introduced, I asked Fred if he thought customers would walk out of supermarkets with products in their pockets without paying.

Fred’s response, “Well, there might be some of that.”

As we all know now, yes, a few people, it turns out, will do that. Maybe 2% - maybe 5% - of the population. Nevertheless, at the Horse Creek Store you now gather your own items from the shelves. And the supermarket service model, used everywhere from huge groceries to hardware stores, has benefited both customers and owners. Customers retrieve the products themselves, and thereby a greater volume of customers can be taken care of per day. Businesses have learned to factor the minor loss through thievery into the cost of the products, and volume sales.

Back to the Basics

This model assumes an element of trust on the part of the store owner. The owner’s position is that, “I trust you (most of you) enough that you won’t walk out of my store without paying.” The owner absorbs the cost of the rare instance of thievery.

The Internet will also eventually settle into a comfortable balance built on sensible commerce. (You pays for what you gits.) Why not put energy toward serving the 95% of customers who are going to be trustworthy, rather than put undue time and attention on the 5% who won’t be?

You might say, “Well, photos are different. They are easy to steal. No one is watching.”

Perhaps, but small items ranging from chewing gum to shampoo would be easy to steal. But most people, including teenagers, are basically honest. They don’t steal. Besides, stealing, along with being immoral, has disadvantages that outweigh the benefits.

A FOREIGN LAND

When we hear of instances of Internet theft, you’ll find that most of the perpetrators fall into the “immature hot shot” category. Another small percentage of guilty parties are people ignorant of Copyright Law. The final percentage consists of people who do live life trying to get away with getting something for nothing. But is it worth your time to track them down with PicScout or other expensive software, just to shake a finger at them? (That’s about the only reward you would realize.) And remember, too, that in our corner of the stock photography industry that we are not dealing with advertising clients or graphic artists who might be able to benefit from such theft. We deal with photobuyers and researchers at publishing houses. It’s almost a different country. It’s rare that you ever hear of a staff member of a publishing house or magazine risking their job by stealing a photo. In more than a decade of on-line experience I have never heard of a case of photobuyer thievery at a reputable publishing house – at least not at any of the 8,500 in our database.

If it’s a question for you of whether to post your images online or not, I would advise to go about your business and post them without agitation, knowing that human nature is on your side. The majority of people who are going to visit your website are not going to steal, either because they are moral – or because it is too inconvenient!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rohn_Engh

How do you price your freelance work?

That depends on your market, its interests, what you can do, and what it costs you.

Today, the Internet can be a great tool for doing price research, but prices can vary widely so how much should you charge?

Using portraits as an example, I’ve addressed the “hometown” photo pricing dilemma on the Insider page of the members area, including how you can do a google price search and set up a portrait price list using a sitting fee plus print charge example.

Do you like photography, really like it a lot?

Do you do it well enough to think you could make money at it?

Does photography excite you? Is it something you think about or do in your off hours? Does it occupy your mind and your time on weekends or when you come home from work?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then maybe you can be a freelance photographer.

What is a freelance photographer?

To my way of thinking, its a photographer who is not employed by a company or studio. In other words, a freelance is a photographer who is not on someone’s payroll. He also does not own a studio, at least not what’s usually considered a studio, a business enterprise that does portraits or commercial work.

A freelance photographer is one who’s out there on assignment, an assignment of his own choosing or his own making, whether it’s for a publication, a corporation, an individual, or his own stock file.

But what does it take to be a freelance photographer?

More than anything else, desire. Since it’s something you do on your own, it’s something you have to want to do. It’s not a job, it’s more of a lifestyle.

It also takes photographic skills — knowledge and artistry — that make your work good within its realm.

Finally, freelance photography takes marketing know-how, the ability to find or create clients for your work.

Desire is something you either have or don’t have.

Skills can be learned.

Marketing ideas and know-how are something you can get right here.

As you browse this site, notice what gets your attention or draws your interest. These would be the best places to start. But remember, the more ideas and opportunities about which you read, the more ‘luck’ you’ll have in developing those special freelance areas of your own.

Freelance photography is a vocation — or avocation — that can be combined with a variety other interests. If you’re ‘into’ photography, there’s never any reason to be bored.

The new Members Only Area is up and ready to go. And with just 7 months ’till Christmas (very private joke).

An annual subscription, currently $97, will give you immediate, online access to all the photo freelance information we currently sell, and some that now only comes as part of a larger package.

Members also have immediate access to any updates, upgrades or new guides, additional articles as they are written, and insider news and information that I would normally keep to myself.

I haven’t written a sales page, yet, but take a look at everything we sell here (our own products, of course) to see some of what you’ll get–all with no downloading and 100% online availability.

You’ll find this membership especially useful if you own a Mac that can’t read Windows format material, are afraid of download viruses, can’t remember where to find the stuff you do download when you want it, or can’t make up your mind about what to get first and want to save some money over the cost of buying the individual guides separately… and get some additional value, besides. Click here to get in now.