Selling U/W Pics?

What's the best way to sell my U/W Pics online? Create my own website, sell to stock agencies, post to existing website dedicated to U/W Pics, etc.? My original thought was to create a site I could post my pics and have someone else complete order fulfillment i.e. ( printing, framing, & shipment ) leaving me more time to shoot, but how do I drive traffic to the site? Thanks in advance for your assistance !!

i would suggest covering all of those bases is your best bet. There is so much diversity and multimedia out there now that it is best to get it out to as many as can see it..

How do you drive traffic to your site? That's the age old question.

How do I get people to come into my shop?

How do I get shops to stock my product?

How do I get people to want what I have to sell?

That's why the advertising and marketing industry is so enormous.

I one knew the two guys in the '60s who invented Femfresh (sp?). They spent all there money on promotion and nothing on the product. (It was perfumed eye lotion in a spray!) Result: Total success!

Hi

I am trying to achieve the same thing and am doing what Mike suggests. I have a combination of my website, stock footage sites and self promotion with clients I dive with. Things are picking up slowly and I find that when I am not underwater, I am strapped to my PC , editing, updating, uploading etc etc. If I was married, her name would be dreamweaver or photoshop

I was also thinking creating an e-book to sell on line to include my pictures, full colour reef maps, dive site guides and my ravings about diving in Burma.

I have learned loads and am still learning from the many UW photo guru's on this site and it consumes hours of my time absorbing the great hints/tips and suggestions you find here on wetpixel. What a great a great bunch of people with vast experience who are willing to help.

good luck

Spen

I noticed echeng uses SmugMug to sell his prints...anyone else using this service?

One thing is for certain - you won't make a fortune out of selling your stuff,

I just about break even!

I noticed echeng uses SmugMug to sell his prints...anyone else using this service?

I use Smugmug and I'm totally satisfied with their service. Getting people to the site is the challenge. I shot an adventure race last weekend, passed out cards to 150 participants and the race organizer, uploaded over 200 images.......so far only about 30 hits. The hard part seems to be to get lots of people to visit your site.

But, you are certainly welcome to visit:

http://megahurts.smugmug.com/gallery/42206...267358052_EKgpC

Ken

In my experience flickr is a great way to get people to look at your images. At last count I had over 130,000 page hits on my site. I have gotten a number of emails asking for images, although most want them for free, or only want to pay $5-10. It is hardly a way to become rich and famous.

I'll add one more thought to this thread if I may,

You will never become rich from taking photographs underwater.

The problem with trying to get on in the world of selling your photography now is that everyone who pops their heads under the water seems to have a digital camera. They want to do it for themselves, not have someone take a picture for them.

Fifteen years ago I tried to sell some of my pics by hanging them on the wall at a busy dive shop. Win - win I thought, they get nice pictures on their walls, I get to sell my pictures. Total sold over 12 months? One - and that was to the owner of the shop (who I think was just being kind).

I've sold a few to friends, but the biggest profit I've made from this is a couple of beers to say thanks.

And bizarrly, a plumber who liked my pictures after he had done some stuff to my radiators agreed to payment in the form of one of my pictures off the wall.

All of this was when there wasn't much competition - or maybe I didn't sell many because I'm rubbish at u/w photography?

In any case, unless you strive for the simple pleasure of knowing there are people out there who appreciate your work as it hangs on their walls, I'd stack shelves at Wal Mart, you'll earn more.

However, there is one area where your photography might be profitable - check out what Zac Macauley does with advertising stuff, very impressive and I can imagine he does more than break even with it.

Brendan hit the nail on the head. The rarity of underwater pictures against the public interest makes them a of very limited commercial value. I was once a photographer for glamour magazines, that is until I discovered I got paid a whole lot more for photographing an old boxer holding a bottle of cologne. Even then, with highly paid for advertising photography of the '70s and '80s (Ah, they were the good old days!), the three rules of value for any picture was 1) your contact 2) your contact and 3) your contact. I also reckoned a picture was worth a lot more when it was still a concept and didn't actually yet exist!

I've just remembered how I got my first work published in Diver magazine:

I discovered their office was just around the corner from where I had a photography studio in London.

I walked into the editor's office (He's now Editor in Chief) and said "Nigel, I'm taking you out to lunch."

He answered that he couldn't come out, he was too busy, and had some sandwiches prepared.

I asked him if the sandwiches were the ones I noticed neatly packed on his desk.

When he nodded in the affirmative, I picked them up and tossed them in the bin, with the words, "I think we can do better than that!"

Yes, I scared him to death!

Ah, the confidence I had in those days!!!

...and yes I was a bully, but the meek shall inherit the earth - but only if it's OK with everyone else!

A lot of good advice above. I'd like to add one more perspective. One of the most common things in successful businesses is copying successful business models. Hence the advice to do what has worked for other people.

But that's not to say that blazing a new trail doesn't sometimes work -- as a matter of fact, if there were no-one blazing new trails, we'd still be exchanging bloody chunks of buffalo.

I certainly can't claim financial success in my ventures. Yet. But I remain convinced that one of the big reasons underwater photo/video isn't more marketable is that the market is still waiting to be created.

The attraction of "an old boxer holding a bottle of cologne" isn't something that's innately human -- it's a product of our culture -- our worship of sports heroes. Once the underwater world achieves super-star status, underwater pictures will be more marketable.

Another example: when I speak with non-divers about what's underwater, I often get the blank stare that greets someone talking about little green men on the moon. When I show them underwater video, they make all the noises and gestures of people watching a good sci-fi movie. It just doesn't register that what's underwater is a part of the same planet we're living on! After all, how many squirrels do you know that have 5 part symmetry or penises that are 20 times longer than their bodies???

My pitch, then, is that we can't ignore commercial value, but it's neither the only variable to consider, nor is it immutable. Let's hope for, and work toward, a better future for our underwater visions by helping expand the awareness and appreciation of the underwater world!

A lot of good advice above. I'd like to add one more perspective. One of the most common things in successful businesses is copying successful business models. Hence the advice to do what has worked for other people.

 

But that's not to say that blazing a new trail doesn't sometimes work -- as a matter of fact, if there were no-one blazing new trails, we'd still be exchanging bloody chunks of buffalo.

 

I certainly can't claim financial success in my ventures. Yet. But I remain convinced that one of the big reasons underwater photo/video isn't more marketable is that the market is still waiting to be created.

 

The attraction of "an old boxer holding a bottle of cologne" isn't something that's innately human -- it's a product of our culture -- our worship of sports heroes. Once the underwater world achieves super-star status, underwater pictures will be more marketable.

 

Another example: when I speak with non-divers about what's underwater, I often get the blank stare that greets someone talking about little green men on the moon. When I show them underwater video, they make all the noises and gestures of people watching a good sci-fi movie. It just doesn't register that what's underwater is a part of the same planet we're living on! After all, how many squirrels do you know that have 5 part symmetry or penises that are 20 times longer than their bodies???

 

My pitch, then, is that we can't ignore commercial value, but it's neither the only variable to consider, nor is it immutable. Let's hope for, and work toward, a better future for our underwater visions by helping expand the awareness and appreciation of the underwater world!

A very good post!

After all, how many squirrels do you know that have 5 part symmetry or penises that are 20 times longer than their bodies???

Well, I defy you to make more than 30 seconds entertainment out of Crepidula fornicata, and any at all out of the Phylum Priapulida!

Or, on second thoughts, is that the answer: scuba-smut?

John may have been a glamour photographer, but I seem to recall that attractive women have always sold better than the male sexual organ. It's back to Zac Macauley!

Tim

B)

I should have mentioned that when I started writing/photographing about underwater for Diver Mag, I was so keen to do it I paid for all my trips. After four years I realised I had sponsored the magazine to the tune of £16000 - so I declined to do any more which is when they offered me the contract!

Seems like more money can be made selling the UW photography equipment... (you pick, sell your own, or become a retailer...

Seriously, if your pictures are compelling, start a website, generate traffic and hopefully some good folks will pay to advertise with you. And perhaps somebody will be interested in buying a picture or two.

Have a portfolio made of your shots and try to sell them to somebody in the poster sale business. (Google and find someone making money selling posters.... copy their model or sell them your images!)

Well, I defy you to make more than 30 seconds entertainment out of Crepidula fornicata, and any at all out of the Phylum Priapulida!

 

Tim

 

B)

See page 70 of "Learning to See Creatively" by Bryan Peterson, Revised Edition 2003.

This is a picture of people on a beach. How cliche is that? Through a stock agency the author sold the picture enough times to make over $18,000. The subject of the photo/video isn't the only term in the equation -- sometimes the way the imagery is composed is equally important.