25 Tips on Marketing Stock Photography

Sure, you've heard how in the world of stock photography, the picture that you make today can sell again and again, for your lifetime and beyond. All of it sounds good. Almost too good! So, where can you go to find out if this photography market is "real" and if it is for you. And, more importantly, can you enter and master the stock photography market.

Twenty-Five Tips for Marketing Your Photographs

1. Find your photographic markets, then create for those markets.
2. Photobuyers purchase pictures they need, not what they like.
3. Twenty thousand photographs a day are purchased by the publishing industry alone. Part of that market could be yours.
4. Start marketing your photographs today by studying the markets to find your targets.
5. A good, marketable photograph includes background plus person(s) plus symbol plus involvement.
6. Photos that evoke a mood will sell again and again. Let the viewer “read into” your photo.
7. You need a model release if it will be used commercially for an ad or endorsement but not if it is used editorially for information, education or illustration.
8. The key to a good relationship between you and a photobuyer is your reliability factor.
9. Rent your photos (for onetime use); don’t sell them.
10. Look like a pro, even if you don’t feel like one yet.
11. Midsummer and midwinter are the heavy purchasing months for editorial photobuyers.
12. A good stock agency is one that sells the types of photos you make.
13. Don’t work harder; work smarter.
14. Tapping the editorial markets lies as close as our computer.
15. You can pay for your vacation by using your camera to create pictures that editorial photobuyers need.
16. Photobuyers aren’t interested in your talent, they’re interested in whether or not you can deliver the kinds of pictures they need.
17. One reason a photobuyer won’t purchase a photo: The photographer didn’t state his fee. Do your homework and find out the use of the photo and the particular market’s fee range.
18. You can reduce photographic throwaways by pre-visualizing marketable image possibilities.
19. Photo researchers will locate you if your web site contains a text description of your photos.
20. Technical excellence counts with photobuyers, but they’re more interested in what your photo communicates.
21. Keep your photo-marketing goals to yourself; share the goals by accomplishing them.
22. To consistently sell your photos you must sell yourself, on the phone, on the web, in your e-mails.
23. Proper packaging of a photo submission can mean the difference between whether an editor views your material or sends it back to you unopened.
24. By the inch it’s a cinch; by the yard it’s hard. Start with the smaller markets and work your way up.
25. You can make unsolicited submissions, provided you do your homework first, spell the photobuyer’s name right and sent on-target photos

This list is from author Rohn Engh, author of the books “Sellphotos.com” and “Sell & Re-Sell Your Photos.”

The stock photography industry is currently experiencing a great deal of change. Technology is a major reason that is causing some of the change. For example, the industry is being “forced” to transition to digital. No longer is access to the stock images available relegated to a “few in the know” sources. Photobuyers and photo researchers no longer depend on the stock agency down the street for that just-right image. You may have it, and the buyer might be in Hong Kong or Alaska.

In addition to the accessibility changes within the stock photography industry, prices are changing at an accelerated rate. Some long time stock photographers are upset about the changes and are doing a poor job of adjusting. Other stock photographers are less committed to “tradition” and see the changes as “progressive development” within the industry. Rohn Engh’s books are very helpful in separating out what is important to know in determining if stock photography is for you or not.

For more articles on stock photography click here. Also, a very good and informative book on stock photography pricing is “Pricing Photography” by author Michal Huron.

I highly recommend these books.