Commercial Ventures

[Chris_Johnstone]

In an increasing attempt to make some money from my photography (and reach my ambition of one day becoming a pro) I wondered how many people that posted here were (semi) professional?

Furthermore, what steps did you take in order to reach this status? Was it a business venture of some sort? Did stock photography play part? Did you contact magazines in order to sell images.

I already have a website through which people can buy prints but the means of payment are either through paypal or cheque. If I set up an eshop, what does this mean in terms of VAT and so on? I am not a business so I wouldn't charge it but do I need to declare anything? I'm a little vague on the law/stipulations in this area. If it helps, I use 1and1 hosting and was going to set up shop using their in-built shop.

Feel free to pm.

Chris

[ron1863]

I don't know about any semi or pro phorographers on WAB but looking at some of the members photographs, there are several who could be. I am sure that some of the Wabbers will answer your business questions.

Good Luck
Ron

[denisg]

Originally Posted by Chris_Johnstone

I already have a website through which people can buy prints but the means of payment are either through paypal or cheque.
Chris

Depends on the value you are selling and how the costs equate. Assuming you don't have a cc account directly with the bank then you could also approach companys like Protx, Nochex or Secpay etc. Do a Google on IPSP's (Internet Payment Service Provider's) and take a look at the deals they offer. You pay a monthly sum, often around £10 - £20, and a cc co commision, up to 3%, but you bury these costs into your product margin of course. These have an additional benefit of being secure and worth a mention and use of their icons on the front page of your site as a confidence builder.

Denis.

[jennyb]

Chris, you only have to register for VAT if your turnover is over (something like) £67,000 in a 12 month period. However, you can register for VAT if your turnover is below that and the benefit you get is that you can claim back all the VAT on expenses for your company. But, the prices of the products or services that you are selling then become 17.5% higher for your customers.

I am not a professional photographer so really cannot help with that but I did start up my own Internet business.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Jenny

[pressld2]

I've been uploading to a stock site for nearly 3 years now and so far have sold a grand total of 1 photo! I'm tempted to try a few other stock sites, especially those that specialise in wildlife or macro but haven't got myself organised enough yet. I won't touch the micro payment sites like Alamy.

I don't know anything about VAT but Income Tax and National Insurance are both payable on any earnings from photography. This should mean that the cost of equipment can be classed as a business expense and offset against tax - I'm sure that's what people like Andy Rouse do - but as my total earnings after commission is still below £40 I really haven't looked into that in much detail.

It's a shame eeyore is taking a break from WAB as he is a semi-pro and could probably offer some sound advice. You could try PMing him.

Dave P.

[denisg]

Chris, just a little observation.

If you wish to sell photographs from your web site you will need a little more text content and some upgrading of your head section to incorporate more SEO optimisation. Even WAB fails miserably here.

You need to think like the customer and not the seller. You can have the flashiest site in town but if you don't have words and phrases on your site that people would search for in Google et al, you won't get many visitors, or should I say serious buyers. Test the results yourself. You use keywords like "wildlife photography" so try a search for that phrase and you will find around 1,530,000 hits. If you 'aint in the top 50-100 you are not going to get a lot of visits from searches!

Again, do a search for SEO or search engine optimisation and take some hints.

Ensure you have the correct robot instructions in a meta tag and a Google site map will also be of benefit.

I would also suggest you choose your Gallery software carefully. Adobe Lightroom is ok but not particularly search friendly and there seems to be no navigation from individual pictures except last or next. There is no way of choosing to view a different Gallery or route back to a home page. With some effort, Gallery software (Free!!) such as Coppermine or Gallery can be adapted to look almost identical and part of the overall site if handled correctly and are fully open source coded to change what you want. They are also SE friendly but again can be made better.

Please don't take this as a criticism Chris, it's not. I'm no expert, but it is what I get involved with every day and SEO cannot be stressed highly enough for a successful selling website, or any website that wants visitors, IMHO.

Hope this helps.

Denis.

[wildlifesnapper]

Originally Posted by pressld2

I've been uploading to a stock site for nearly 3 years now and so far have sold a grand total of 1 photo! I'm tempted to try a few other stock sites, especially those that specialise in wildlife or macro but haven't got myself organised enough yet. I won't touch the micro payment sites like Alamy.


Dave P.

One sale in 3 years! Time to kick them into touch unless you've only got a dozen pictures with them.
Why shy away from alamy , it certainly not a micro site.

neil

[pressld2]

Originally Posted by wildlifesnapper

Why shy away from alamy , it certainly not a micro site.

You're quite right, Neil, it's not. Can't think why I thought it was. I'm away on holiday shortly but when I get back I shall sign up with them and see how I get on.

In all honesty, I think the reason I've only sold one image in 3 years is that my photos are not really good enough. This is not false modesty - I think I'm a pretty good photographer and know how to take sharp, correctly exposed and well composed images. But so do thousands of other photographers and my images lack that certain something that makes them stand out from the crowd. I only have to look at what's available through stock sites or even here in the WAB Gallery to see that my images, while good (and sometimes very good ) are not the best available.

Ho-hum. There's nothing for it - I'll just have to improve!

Dave P.

[wildlifesnapper]

Dave, don't put yourself down I've just had a quick look through your Gallery and there are some lovely , saleable shots.
I don't know whether they are all full frame or not, but that's a tip to anyone wanting to use alamy - do as much cropping in camera as possible because you have to upsize your images to 48mb minimum.

Good luck if you give it a go and I hope you are pleasantly suprised

neil

[zan]

I think the hardest thing to do with wildlife photography is to differentiate yourself. Why should someone buy your photos over someone else (who is better known\more experienced\better travelled)? You have some really nice shots on your website, but I think you could sell yourself better on there, and make your galleries a bit more eyecatching.

I don't really consider myself a pro\semi-pro photographer, but I enjoy it, and occasionally sell a few images. This basically pays for the website, and gives me a wee bit of spare cash which is nice. No sales have come through the website right enough, or through the stock agency I'm currently with (although I don't really have a lot of photos with them anyway).

Anyway, my website name is in the sig bar, or PM me for more details if you like.

zan