Top 5 ways to earn passive income with digital photography

In this post, I want to share with you 5 main ways to earn passive income with digital photography

Being a photographer is not an easy job. In the vast overpopulated place called planet Earth, there are actually many photographers.

Despite a large number of buyers, the photography business is overgrown, and you as a photographer must sell your artwork.

Talking only about digital photography, I want to share with you the top 5 ways you can earn money with digital photography.

5. Earn money with digital photography #5

Microstock websites

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With stock websites like Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, Dreamstime and many other well-known names, you can license your digital photography for sale and can have some passive income

You can check my post “Can you earn money with stock photography” for more information

But shortly, yes you can earn, but not much.

An average sale is around $0.25 (depending on the stock website) and can go up to a few dollars or more.

In order to have an income, you must have a large portfolio, with thousands of outstanding quality of sellable images.

What I mean with sellable images is that some photos are likely to sell very good if you are aiming for a specific niche.

As an instance, two contractors shaking hand after a deal has been made, doctor and patient, businessmen having a meeting etc.

Photographs like flowers, cats and sunsets are unlikely to produce regular income unless you are very good at it.

Some great advantages are that you don’t have to focus on promoting your own photographs, but you do have to research your keywords in order to reach your customers.

4. Earn money with digital photography #4

Fine Art America, Zenfolio, Smugmug

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Those 3 websites are just a few from many which offer services for photographers, such as listing your images for digital downloads and printing services with an outstanding modern portfolio.

What makes those websites special is that the printing labs are around the world and customers can order printing directly from your website without that you have to deal with the printing and shipping at all.

You just host your images, set your prices, pick your labs and sit back.

You can create beautiful and modern websites with the services provided

I want to mention that this is not an affiliate marketing and I am not promoting their services based on that. It just the fact that I’ve used them for a while and I know their capabilities.

Their setback is the monthly prices for their services, but for people with a serious thought of setting their online digital photography shop, those may be a good option to start with.

3. Earn money with digital photography #3

Etsy.com

Etsy is a global online marketplace specialised with arts and crafts and is holding a large database of customers and sellers.

With Etsy, you don’t need to create a website to be able to run your online shop.

In photography, you can list your digital downloads, set your own prices and sit back. As mentioned, with the large database of customers, you can earn a regular income by selling your photographs as you wish.

For personal use, commercial or just editorial, you can create your type of license under your own terms & conditions.

The advantage of Etsy compared with some other services is that you will have to focus just little on keywords research, and more on creating beautiful photography ready to sell under your own terms.

Middle break?

As a reminder, this is a top 5 list of how to earn a passive income with digital photography and does not focus on selling direct prints, e-books or any other photography products.

With Microstock services, you don’t have to promote your own photography in order to reach your customers, but other options you will have to.

This topic does not cover on how to do keywords research or SEO, is just a list with the best options seen from my personal point of view, and after some research was done on this theme.

Enjoying our 5 ways to earn passive income with digital photography? Give us a share and spread the love! 🙂

2. Earn money with digital photography #2

Pinterest.

Pinterest. Why Pinterest?

With Pinterest, you are not selling directly your photographs, but is a great way to promote and divert traffic to your shop or website, where you can sell them.

If you are a photographer, you may heard about how Pinterest can be promoting your work, and I’ve seen amazing photographs Repinned thousands of times, if not more.

This can link directly back to your website, your online digital shop or can be used just to promote yourself.

With Pinterest, there are no drawbacks. It is impossible to fail with using this search engine (yes, Pinterest is more like a search engine than social media)

1. Earn money with digital photography #1

Your personal website / blog

Please ignore the above image 🙂 Is not that hard to build your own website.

Having your personal website and blog is a great way to attract customers and selling your digital photographs. With today’s hosting capabilities and the plugins available (as an instance, on WordPress), you are able to do whatever you want.

You can list your digital photographs to sell, you can use plugins and sell your prints directly from your website through printing labs, hell, you can do all of the above.

The options you can sell and promote your photography are unlimited. You can even have multiple external online stores, such as Etsy, Shopify and many others, and all linked to your website. And to use Pinterest to direct traffic to it.

But with hard work, time and dedication, you will be able to build an email list, to have regular visitors coming to your website, and from there, to redirect to your shops, products or directly sell your photographs.

Imagine your website as being a main hub for your business. Not only you can deal with your digital photographs, but with your services, run advertising and affiliates, and so on.

Combining digital photography with other ways of creating a passive income, you can easily go full time and above with your photography skills.

The only drawback is the time you will have to invest and attract potential customers. But if this is not a drawback, why are you still here?

Conclusion

Wherever you are picking from the above list, keep in mind that is a lot of work behind in order to create a regular passive income.

But with much work and dedication, everything is possible.

And most important thing, whatever you decide to do, never give up.

I hope that you found this post helpful, and if you like it, you can read a few of my other related posts below:

• Can you earn money with stock photography?
• 5 Tips to improve your DSLR photography
• Are you picking a niche in photography? should you do it?
• How to shoot gorgeous HDR photographs, even handheld.