How about selling images

[nox]

I started my photoblog as an experimental, non commercial project for me and my friends. After a couple of month the number of visitors increased, so I decided to go public and have profiles at at some of the important photolog websites.

Recently I have received many emails from people who are interested in buying photos. I am still deciding whether I want to sell prints or not. Therefore I would like to ask you about your experience with selling images from your blog.

Would be great to hear from you!



p.s.
Some of the topics that come to my mind:
Selling files or prints?
How to organise payment and shipping?
Prices?
Is selling images an important aspect of the photoblog?
Who is buying the images?

[nox]

Obviously nobody seems to sell any photos...

[dakwegmo+]

I'm not currently selling any photos, but I have also had some people wanting to buy some prints, so I've considered setting up my photoblog as a commercial site as well.

Here are my thoughts on your specific questions:

Selling files or prints?
I am only interested in selling prints. Once you sell the file you essentially lose control of it. Sure someone could scan a print and reuse it, but it's a lot easier to mis-use a digital file. The only way I'd sell the file is if someone were paying a lot of money, and I never expected to use that shot again.

How to organise payment and shipping?
I am planning on using this buy through paypal addon: http://forum.pixelpost.org/showthread.php?t=5571 here, and then printing and shipping the photos. I've looked at Kodak's Marketplace options, but wasn't thrilled with it. If I had more control to change the layout of my storefront I might reconsider, but for now the paypal addon seems the way to go.

Prices?
The most important thing in pricing is what people are willing to pay. The best way I can think of is to to to the people who have expressed an interest in buying a shot and ask them to make you an offer. If you're not willing to do this, look at other photographers and see what they're charging. Either check their websites or go to local arts festivals and see what people are selling photos for. Once you get started the prices will work themselves out, you can adjust your prices based on your goals, needs, desires, etc.

Is selling images an important aspect of the photoblog?
Nope. In fact I think a photoblog is a pretty poor way to market and sell photos. You can adapt a photoblog to selling photos but there are better ways to do it. My goal in selling photos isn't entirely profit motivated, so working with the context of a photoblog makes sense for me.

Who is buying the images?
I really think this is the most important question. If there's no market for your photos, then does it really make sense to sell them? Since you've already said you've had people asking to buy them, find out everything you can about them. Most of the people who have expressed an interest in my stuff are family, friends, and the people who my family and friends pointed toward my site.


Other things you'll want to consider:

Should you sell just a naked print, or offer them matted, matted and framed, etc? It seems to me there would be more of a market for framed photos, but it also increases both the cost and the hassle involved in processing an order.

Do you make some of your photos "limited editions"? People like to think they're getting something special and will pay more if they know the print they're getting is rare. You can make some of them limited editions, but once you do, you may have limited the way the shot can be used in the future.

What sizes to offer? For matting and framing purposes it'll be easier and cheaper to stick to standard photo print sizes, but if you have shots that are cropped to square, or other odd shapes, you'll need to take that into account. You'll also need to make sure each image can be printed at the sizes you make available. If you have to do a lot of cropping to get an image just right, there may not be enough information for the largest prints.

So anyway, those are my thoughts. I'd love to hear what others think.

[feanne]

It's always awesome to get those sort of emails. Congratulations!

I use Pixelpost for both my daily drawings blog (http://dailydrawings.feanne.com) and my online art shop (http://artshop.feanne.com).

On my online art shop I sell small, affordable, postcard-sized original drawings. I guess I can say it has worked moderately well for me; right now the shop is almost sold out. (I have to add new pieces soon!)

The people who buy my artworks are mostly from the US and from the UK. They see my artwork on other sites and they go to my website and buy my art. However my sales are not consistent (I think it's like this for the art industry in general), I could get hundreds of dollars in one month and no sales at all for the next six months.

I let Paypal handle all my shopping cart stuff and it's worked pretty well for me.

[blinking8s+]

I've sold a few photos, I do it on the side, not through my photoblog.

I plan on looking into some sort of integration with http://shopify.com down the road though.