52 Ways To Monetize Your Photos

Got a hard drive full of pictures?

Wish you had a bank account full of cash?

If you’ve got good photos, you’ve got an opportunity to make some useful extra money.

Here are 52 ways to monetize your images. (And keep reading the Photopreneur blog for details on them…)

[update - our best selling book, 99 Ways To Make Money from Your Photos, based on this post, is available as a paperback on amazon]

1. Give business people Moo cards.
Turn your photos into mini-Moo cards and market them as unique intros for
business people who think they’re unique.

2. Become a paparazzi!
Snapped a celebrity doing a walkabout? Scoopt finds buyers for news
pictures… and a model eating is always news.

3. Put a mouse on an image
Zazzle is one site that lets you put a photo on a mousepad and sell it through
their store…

4. Create a photography book
…and Blurb makes it a breeze to publish your photos in a book and sell it to
admiring fans for a profit.

5. Create a specialized photography book
It’s nice to put your favorite images in a photography book; it’s nice money
when you put your kid’s school soccer team in a book and sell it to their
parents.

6. Give MySpace users unique pages
It’s hard to stand out on MySpace and other networking sites… unless you’ve
got some very special images. So contact networkers and offer them yours.

7. BritePic your pictures
BritePic lets you put a floating ad on your images when users mouse over –
you earn even if the pictures aren’t on your website.

8. Blog about your pictures… and get paid for it
Google’s AdSense program is giving many bloggers a handsome income. Put
your images on a blog, discuss them and earn from ads.

9. Find local distributors for your local images
Even simple pictures sell well when people recognize them. Get your local
images in local stores and you’ll make sales.

10. Create creative computer covers
Moo isn’t the only place that can turn photos into stickers. Other printers can
do the same thing, letting you turn photos into long shapes to cover dull PCs.

11. Give hosting companies exclusive libraries
Hosting companies give packages to clients that can include microstock deals.
Give them an exclusive library of images and they’ll have a unique offer for
their customers; you’ll have your own microstock customer base.

12. Create creative car window covers
When the weather is hot, cars get hotter. Print your photos on windscreen
covers and offer them to accessories stores.

13. Earn real income from real estate
Taken pictures of buildings? Take pictures of buildings with For Sale signs
and offer them to the sellers. If your photo is better than theirs, you’ll be
exchanging contracts.

14. Take a trip to a travel agents
Travelers want to know where they’re going so if you’ve been there and
photographed it, give travel agents a chance to show them. For a small fee, of
course.

15. Decorate cafes
Ask café owners to put your pictures on their walls. They get free art… you get
to show pictures with price tags.

16. Earn every day with calendars
Calendars are simple to make but tough to get into stores. So sell them online.

17. Build a membership base
Create a club and give members a photo a day with an explanation of how it
was shot. It will be like an email photography course… with tuition fees.

18. Put your pictures on microstock sites
Hey, everyone else is doing it — and some people are making six-figure sums
doing it!

19. Put your pictures in competitions
The ‘net is stuffed with photo contests these days. Some of them pay cash
prizes, others pay with a valuable reputation boost. Be a winner!

20. Go mobile
Ringtones are a huge market and ringtone companies also sell mobile phone
wallpapers. Ask them to sell yours.

21. Snapped a logo? Take it to the company
If there’s a logo in your picture, you’ve got just one possible buyer. So ask
them to buy it.

22. Put it on a t-shirt
Yes, we know it’s old-fashioned but it works! People do buy them…

23. Turn your photos into art works
You don’t need a gallery to create art works; you just need a canvas printer.
There are plenty of those around so put your picture on a stretcher and sell it
as art.

24. Turn your art into sketches
Photoshop lets you turn your images into sketches. So if you can’t draw, pack
your camera, a laptop and a portable printer and head to where the tourists are.
While the sketchers sketch, you can shoot and print.

25. Customize stationery
Fancy stationery comes with all sorts of flowery designs. Why shouldn’t they
come with your pictures? Find a printer, create notebooks and put them in
stores.

26. Put your pictures on programs
Software companies need all sorts of images… to decorate their disc covers, to
put on their boxes, to function as backgrounds. Check out who’s working on
what, shoot some stills and make your pitch.

27. Play with picture cards
Soldiers play with sexy playing cards but who says you have to be crude?
Take 52 themed pictures, print them on cards and take a bet on gamblers.

28. Take to student life
Students don’t have much money. Neither do their publications. But they do
have enough to pay freelance photographers with good pictures and they’re
open-minded enough to try someone new. And you don’t have to be a student
to do it.

29. Decorate model apartments
Property developers always create at least one apartment that looks lived in to
show prospective buyers. Why shouldn’t the developers put your pictures on
the wall?

30. Decorate furniture stores
It’s not just developers that need to create fake living spaces; furniture stores
do it too. Take a look at what’s on offer, create pictures that match the chairs…
and market them.

31. Put it in the bag
You can put anything on a handbag these days, even a $5,000 price tag. So
talk to a bag designer and build a winning team.

32. Cover school books
No, you’re not back at school… but plenty of kids are still there and every year
they have to cover their school books — usually in horrible colored paper. Take
trendy pictures, print them on thin paper and sell them to kids who want their
books to look cool.

33. Stretch your pictures to 42 inches
The price of flat-screen TVs has fallen faster than an anvil in a road-runner
cartoon. These days, almost everyone has one on their wall and most of them
are dark most of the time. But there’s no reason they should be. Some of them
can take uploaded pictures. Make a disk and make them yours.

34. Cover CDs
People are still burning CDs… and still storing in them in boring plastic
covers. Put pictures on circles and offer them to stores that sell blanks.

35. Cover flash cards
Of course, more people these days are using flash memory cards to hold their
information. They may be small but they’re big enough to hold a photo with
sticker. Especially if you print it small enough.

36. Create collectors’ packs
Shoot a series of themed images such as birds of California or hairstyles of the
rich and famous. Print them on cards and sell them in niche outlets in
restricted doses. It worked for baseball players…

37. Tell stories with your pictures
You don’t have to draw to create graphic novels. Call some pals, create some
poses and print them as story books.

38. Turn your pictures into wallpapers
Desktop wallpapers are still big business. Or at least, big enough to buy your
photos. So sell them and appear on computers across the nation.

39. Help campaigning groups
Local pressure groups need images for their campaigns and they’re the sort
that aren’t easy to find — beautiful pictures of the local woods, for example, or
the headquarters of a property developer. Snap and sell.

40. Become a local photojournalist
It’s not just pressure groups and student papers that are willing to take
freelanced images. Local newspapers often will too, especially the free ones.
Call their photo editors and make your pitch.

41. Change clothes…
Not yours, the clothes in your pictures. Shoot a series of people standing in the
same pose, shoot clothes to match, then team up with a programmer to let
people play around with them. Then sell the game to a site about fashion as
sticky content.

42. … and expressions.
There’s a good reason Mr. Potato Head is still around. He’s fun. So create an
electronic version by shooting portraits then ask your friendly programmer to
let players change noses. You get to share the game profits.

43. Sit on your best work
If you can put a picture on a t-shirt, you can also put it on a cushion cover. So
do.

44. Let buyers eat your pictures
IcingImages.com lets photographers print images on sheets of edible paper
and stick them on cakes. Could be a tasty deal for wedding photographers.

45. Market to Flickr book marketers
Book marketers are using Flickr to drum up publicity. They need good images.
You need sales. It’s a match made in a kitchen.

46. Sell to eBay auctioneers
Many of the items sold on eBay appear time and time again, often with poor
images. So shoot commonly sold products and sell the pictures to sellers.

47. Illustrate recipes
It’s not just Flickr book marketers who need food pictures. Recipe sites do too.
Cook up a storm and photograph the results. Then eat them and offer the
pictures to the people who made the meal possible.

48. Advertise on Craigslist
So simple. So overlooked. So why not be the first to advertising outstanding
prints on the world’s coolest classifieds?

49. Create coloring books
Take pictures of cats, dogs and bunnies, follow these neat Photoshop steps and
put together your very own coloring books.

50. Cover the Earth in your pictures
Well, Google Earth anyway. Some photographers have already put their aerial
images on Google Earth but why not turn all of your best travel photos into an
overlay… and sell them?

51. Take “after” photos
There are few things more appealing than vintage photographs… except
comparing them with how the place looks today. You can’t go back in time but
you can find the old places, shoot them today and sell them to vintage photo
sellers to complete their set.

52. Sell them as prints
Yes, we know it’s old fashioned but there’s still a market for pictures you can
hold and touch. And there are plenty of photo sites that let buyers order online