Selling Digital Stock Photos Part 4Writen by Keith Jones
It's very possible to sell your stock photos from your own website.
As a professional image maker ,you'll also need a professional-looking email address. John Doe@hotmail.com isn't quite the image that customers will expect.
You will first need a web hosting company to give you the actual space to put your photos onto (called uploading!)
You can either put medium resolution pictures on as samples or thumbnail pictures with a link to a high resolution picture.
A web hosting company will cost anything from $ 100 a year upwards depending onwhat they offer. Beware of the amount of downloads you can do from your website as this can get very expensive in additional fees.
You'll next need Gallery Software - I recommend Allwebco who have a range of galleries
specifically for photographers and artists from $ 50 upwards. Their aftersales service is super.
If you want to do-it yourself, Coppermine is an excellent gallery making piece of software but you may need help installing it. Check first.
The alternative is to get a ready made photogallery and these range from Yessy.com who charge $59 for lots of photos right up to companies who charge hundreds of $$.
Do a web search on photo hosting or photo gallery or just look at a photographers website and ask him/her what software they use.
Look at The Photo-Marketing Handbook for lots of good ideas on selling Photos.
You will have to spend LOTS of time promoting your website and including it on your stationery and business cards.
There's also a lot of work to do writing to potential customers telling them about your website.
You can also offer limited edition prints on your website and this is worth investigating.
Fine Art prints can sell for $100's each but the quality MUST be superb. Professional Printers charge $40 and up for high quality prints and you have to at least treble that to make a profit.
Resource Section :
Keith Jones has been a Stock and Travel Photographer for over 40 years
His Website is at http://www.fotos4web.com
Where you'll find lots of his photos and articles.
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