Freelance photographers make their money much the same way as freelance writers, in that they take pictures of everyday items and scenes, build a portfolio of stock photography and sell the prints for others to use. Many companies, especially advertisers are always on the lookout for sources of stock photography when they are putting a print ad together and it is usually cheaper to buy a ready-made print than to hire someone to take a specific picture.

To get started in offering stock photography for sale, a person will spend a lot of time and effort using their craft to build a quality portfolio. With the advances of digital photography, the pictures can be altered in size and color and filed in an electronic file for easy recall and printing, if necessary. While some publishers still use color transparencies for pictures many more are requiring a digital version of the print. The photos can be file protected with a watermark to prevent unauthorized use and can be sold to more than one person, subject to the initial agreement.

While most companies will buy the picture outright from the stock photography file, other may only want to buy the right to print the picture one time. The purchased first print rights allows them to use the picture once, and if they or anyone else wants to use the print, they must buy subsequent reprint rights.

Selling Prints Requires Good Marketing Strategy

Once a person has built an extensive file of stock photography they can let their work be known. By getting their name into the view of those who buy stock photography, they can generally find an interest in their work. There are a few sources that allow people to list partial files, but one of the best methods of selling their work is through a quality, high-traffic website.

Like any other retail or wholesale site on the internet, marketing is going to be the key and despite the quality of the pictures in their stock photography files, if they cannot garner visitors to their site, their files will remain untouched. Old-style marketing required a lot of meetings and appearances at gatherings to talk face-to-face with decision-makers. Today’s internet marketing is not much different, in that buyers still want to meet the person with whom they are dealing.

However, a quality, search engine friendly website offering stock photography for sale can invite customers from a global buyer base and increase the sale of the pictures, regardless of the subject.