Here's where you can get all the information you need to sell your stock photo images online today...
Stock Photography:
GOING DIGITAL
Dear Photographer,
The number of visitors coming to this site since it first went went up in 2003 shows me that thousands of photographers would like to sell their work online and want to know how to do it.
But if you check Amazon, there probably hasn't been a printed book done on the subject since Ron Engh's sellphotos.com, which was written a few years ago and was pretty much outdated, even then.
There is just too much of a time lag between writing a long, physical book and getting a printed copy into the hands of the reader. Far too much, with the way things have been changing in the world of stock photography. And frequent revisions of a limited interest print title are just too costly.
While it still offers some good marketing strategy, sellphotos.com was at best only half-way there, with the Internet viewed as a marketing tool but not as a viable delivery system for stock images.
I've been photo freelancing since 1969--I began in college--and there is almost no resemblence to what a freelancer did to sell his work then to what is being done today.
At one end there was an 8X10 black and white glossy, processed in a darkroom, sandwiched between cardboard, and sent to an editor through the mail. At the other, there is a TIFF from a digital camera, processed in Photoshop, and FTP'd as a JPEG to his Internet server at the push of a button.
Yes, things have really changed as far as taking an selling stock photos goes, and I love it.
The Internet and digital technology have opened whole new vistas for the stock photographer in...
How stock images can be taken
How stock images can be processed
How stock images can be delivered
How a stock image business can be conducted
The use of 'image' or 'images' for photo or photographs and 'imaging' for photography are all reflections of some major changes in the industry, and from my 35+ year perspective on shooting and selling stock photos, it all looks extremely good.
Consider that applying today's digital technology:
Beats developing film
Beats turning out 8x10 glossies
Beats breathing chemical fumes in a darkroom
Beats the increasingly long wait for those precious Kodachromes to come back, sometimes scratched and dirty, from the last remaining Kodachrome processing lab at Fair Lawn, New Jersey
Beats souping your own Ektachrome for the sake of speed and safety, while knowing the chemicals are pollutants
Beats costly FedExing of overnight packages
Beats putting original transparencies at risk
Beats having to produce costly promotional materials
Beats the time-consuming pocess of preparig these for mailing
Beats the added expense of mailing them
Yes, life has gotten so much easier for the stock photographer, especially the stock photographer who markets his work himself.
But working with agencies has become easier, too.
And new photo agencies that no longer want physical prints or transparencies but solicit and sell digital image files, excllsively, have come online, giving stock photographers new outlets for their work while their prints and transparencies, if they have any, remain safely in their own possession.
If you're new to stock photography, you're at a perfect starting point. Much of the transitional confusion is clearing away and some of the tentative solutions of the past few years appear to be taking hold, including the increasing use and acceptance of work form digital cameras that can meet some required standards.
If you're an old hand at stock photography, there are things you may need to relearn, and Stock Photography: GOING DIGITAL will show you what you need to do to sell your digital--or digitized--images online, today.
Stock Photography: GOING DIGITAL will show you
How To Get Started - What you need to do to begin--or continue--in stock photography, today.
Choosing Your Markets - Where and how to find photo buyers the easy way. How to let them know about your stock photography services. How to get them to take a look at your work. How to cultivate their continued interest in what you do.
How To Market Your Stock Images - The marketing process. Benefits in marketing your own work as well as why you might choose not to do it yourself and work through an agency, instead.
Working With Agencies - What they expect. How they operate in a digital world. How you can work with them online. Information about the agencies I've used to market my work.
Your Stock Photography Website - Why you need one. What your site should and should not be. How to use your website in your marketing. Where and how you can get your own "agency" webspace if you don't want to create and maintain a website of your own.
Digital Cameras - Why you may want to semi-retire your film camera and concentrate on shooting with a digital camera, instead. The criteria your next digital camera should meet for your work to be better accepted among photo buyers.
Scans & Scanning - Why you need a film scanner if you have stock images on transparency film. How to clean up and improve your scans. Interpolation, file types, file sizes... how your scanned images should be handled to meet the needs of most markets.
And much more...
This is not a fluff-filled tome that you'll lay aside in boredom, but a fact-filled practical guide that will quickly lay out the subject of how you can be part of expanding market for digital stock photography, today.
As I see it, if you're interested in stock photography and the direction it is taking there are three things you can do:
You can scour the search engines and find little or nothing of worthwhile use on the subject.
You can waste countless hours in forums and discussion groups hoping to catch an occasional tidbit from someone.
You can buy my guide, save your time, and get started tomorrow.
I think you know what the smart money would do!
So click on the order button and you can be reading the information you need within a few minutes.
Take it from someone who's doing it, you won't find information as current or valuable in any book on stock photography that I'm aware of. Print books just haven't been able to keep up with the changes.
Plus you'll get updates free!
You can be reading this Windows
format guide in just a few minutes!
