are images selling ?

[zlazk]

Hello to all,
I just signed up. I have a Pro acc. on Smugmug and so far not a single image sold in one month.
I checked the traffic rank of both on Alexa.com, and turns out, the PBase is ranked much much higher than smugmug. the only close contender is Flickr.
It means that PBase has much higher traffic and the chance to be noticed is better here, I guess.

1. So, my question to those who are here for some time, are images selling?
2. Do you get any inquiries ?
3. If somebody wants to buy an image, what is the process?

Thank you!

[adalberto_tiburzi]

The other month I received an offer:
"100 $ if you STOP posting".

[annayu]

The other month I received an offer:
"100 $ if you STOP posting".

Adal,

ziazk, perhaps pbase or smugmug aren't the right places to sell pictures. Anyhow, your keywords are very important if people are to find your pictures.

[halesr]

Okay, here is my take on selling from pbase and I could be WAY offbase. I don't see selling from pbase as its mission. See entry screen to pbase, which says, "The primary mission of PBase.com is to be the best photo sharing and photo hosting web site."

Some people do sell from here. Some have even added shopping cart features. And, partially this depends on what kind of selling you want to do. I think if you want to sell stock images, you would have better luck working through one of the main stock image providers.

If you want to sell fine art image, which are realatively costly you might want to sell through something like Photographer's Showcase, which is part of PhotoEye. The Photographer's Showcase is a new gallery at photoeye.com where serious, juried, fine-art photography is exhibited and sold. The artwork is self-administered, allowing artists to input and maintain their own biographical information and portfolios of images at a very affordable rate. It is a true showcase and marketing tool for the serious photographer.

To get your work shown there, you have to be juried in. Most serious fine art photographers and especially those with a reputation have galleries representing their work, or have a personal site.

I don't think just having images here on pbase will get you seen by the buying public (if there is such a thing). You would have to drive traffic to your pbase site by being in local shows, showing at fairs, etc. You would need to get out promotional images with your pbase site as a place to see more of your work.

I have had the most luck selling my work, and I admit this is not a real focus of my photography, by being in a local juried show and having work sell at the show and by individuals contacting my afterwards. I think 99% of my sales have been via gallery shows. I have not really worked at this lately, and I do realize that the web as a point of viewing images and purchase is more where it is now. I am just pessimistic that putting images on pbase and expecting to sell a lot is not too realistic.

Some others on pbase have had a lot more experience selling and there have been other threads on this issue. Perhaps they will chime in or you can do a search for selling.--Rene

[gpaai]

Ebay I'm tellin' ya! LOL!

All kidding aside, I know a guy that sells 8X10 prints on Ebay for $15.00 to $25.00 a pop. Apparently older women love to decorate their kitchen with pictures of flowers.

[halesr]

I resemble that remark ("older women") and I don't buy flower pictures for my kitchen.

[annayu]

And I resent that remark "older women"...
Hmm .. going to remove all those flower pictures in my kitchen...

[gpaai]

Did I forget to add "present company excepted? (or is that accepted...)

[troonly]

mmmm now I've got quite a few photo's of flowers.....
what's my old Ebay password......

[darter02]

I have been contacted by a number of publishers via this site. In fact I have been doing rather OK leasing the usage rights to my photos I’ve posted here. You can make money using Pbase. Editors do look through here and the search function, when it’s working, can really help. I’ve also learned to tag my images with keywords so a google search will also help someone find my images.

[dazedgonebye]

People do find your images here.

I've had a non-profit contact me to use my photos to show off their bit of desert preserve.

I've had the wife of a structural engineer buy a 20x30 print of one of his buildings.

I've recently been contacted by a person producing a documentary as a companion piece to a movie. She wants to use my images in the documentary.

All of those folks have found me in the last few months via google.

[dellybean]

I agree - pbase has done me well. I've been contacted by a book publisher, several web design firms, a magazine publisher, a calender designer, and private persons wishing to buy prints. I never intended pbase to be a profitable venture, but after a lot of prodding by friends and family I've turned a section of my site into a "for sale" site so we'll see what happens with that. At least it's paying my yearly dues!

I've found that in each instance, clients/buyers were looking for something specific and my work filled that need - for example, a photo of a gosling for a calendar, a photo of a koala for a coffee table book, and especially photographs of Boston for licensing. I think it helps to have a "hook", and a decent-sized portfolio of work around each "hook", instead of a bunch of random images, pretty and interesting though they may very well be.

Just my 2 cents. If you're interested, my "commercial" site is here: http://www.pbase.com/dellybean/beautifulboston Good luck!

[debbie_wat]

[color=green]"I’ve also learned to tag my images with keywords so a google search will also help someone find my images."[/color]

Do you mean the title of the photos? Excuse me if this is a dumb question but I am new to this and not sure what you mean.

Thank you

[arjunrc]

I've recently started exploring another possibility of revenue in addition to image sales. I subscribed to the google adsense program that may result in reasonable payouts if your site is popular. Having checked the TOS of pbase as well as conditions of the program, it looks like a good fit. Google's adsense program displays text only ads (if you want), there are no popups and you can customize its look and feel. The irritation factor for viewers should be minimum as long as you don't go overboard with it.

Let's see how it goes I keep tinkering with new things - if this is not worth it, I'll eventually remove it

regds
arjun

[darter02]

[color=green]"I’ve also learned to tag my images with keywords so a google search will also help someone find my images."[/color]

Do you mean the title of the photos? Excuse me if this is a dumb question but I am new to this and not sure what you mean.

Thank you

On the edit page for a photo is a field where you can type in keywords that relate to your photo. For instance, say I have a photo of a deer. I may or may not have a tittle or description that illustrates what the photo is of. Meanwhile, in the keywords field I might type, "deer, buck, mammal, animal, bambi..."

These words do not appear visibly anywhere. They just tag your photo.