Newbie Pro Account Sales expectations

Webin

I have a feeling this topic has been discussed a billion times before, but I thought I'd ask my questions directly instead of sifting a billion threads...

I recently heard rave reviews of SmugMug on the radio (Leo Laporte), and am pleased to see it might offer the next step I need in photography. I consider myself an "amateur with potential", and really enjoy taking nature photography. I've always been interested in selling some photos to make a little money with my small amounts of talent, which would spur me to improve my technique, equipment, and time commitment. I've had a small gallery set up online at http://ryan.dey1.com/photo/ (ignore the house photos), but stumbled when it came to setting up a shopping cart system to sell my work. It looks like SM offers the sales processes, image sizes, and content protection I was struggling with.

I'd sign up in an instant if it weren't for the price of the Pro level membership. I can see that it offers many great features, and people seem to love it, but as someone who's never sold a single photo, the yearly membership price is substantial for me. My biggest question at the moment is what sorts of "random sales" could I expect as a new member? If I use keywords, a good bio, set reasonable prices, and all the other stuff listed on the tips pages, can I expect to get even a handful of small sales per year (say $50-$100 in profit)? I realize that the profits of any business will be directly related to the amount of work you put into it, but being just a hobbiest photographer, I don't want to put in crazy amounts of effort to sell 2 photos. Added to that, I feel like I'd be throwing my "so so" images into a sea of "really nice" images, and since mine aren't at the same quality level, they'd get lost in the noise and never make any sales. (I should note I'm being realisitic here. I'm not saying my photos are crap, but I don't have the skill of many people around here yet).

That was a really long paragraph, so let me ask my second question. As a way to help defray membership costs, I'm considering sharing the account with my dad, who got me interested in photography, and has the same pro-am goals as I do. To simplify the profits and tax-reporting, would it be wise for me to fill out the w-9 and assume the tax responisbilities alone (and manually split the proceeds with him), or is it possible to have two tax-paying photographers in the same account?

Thanks in advance. I look forward to my 2 week trial.

//Ryan

Blaker

Sorry I don't have the answer to your questions, but I did check out your current gallery and have a comment that might help you .

When you are presenting your photographs, I can't stress how important it is to EDIT EDIT and then EDIT again! For example, you have several photos of a lighthouse in the sunset- instead of showing all of them, choose the BEST one out of the bunch and show only that one.
You want your gallery to have IMPACT!
If it is full of mediocre photos of the same subject, people will be quickly bored and won't look at each one, so if you do have a gem hidden away in there, it will be missed.
It's much better to have a few AMAZING photos than many mediocre ones.
Good luck with your endeavor and I hope someone comes along that can answer your questions!

Webin

Thanks for the kind words, Blaker. I agree that having lots of the similar shots can make the good stuff seem ordinary. I think the organization of my old gallery was a little limiting, and something I've wanted to change. When you have only say 10 photo shooting sessions with nice photos, an amateur picks the best shots from each session and organizes them based on when they were shot... "The day I went out to the beach", etc. As my portfolio grows, it becomes harder to do that. I might only have 1 or 2 images that I think are superior work, but can't really make an album with just those, so they all start getting thrown into a miscellaneous category. Organizing them all into best-of or thematic categories instead of chronologic categories is one thing I'd hope to improve if I move onto SmugMug. I have maybe a dozen other 1-off shots that I haven't uploaded anywhere because of these organizational issues.

Mulder32

my 2 cents
I would not get my hopes up; sorry to rain on your parade, but online sales are almost non-existent. Whether it's sports, weddings, nature, etc, online sales just don't happen that often. You'd have to find a way to get a ton of traffic to your site.

Cygnus Studios

Webin wrote:

I realize that the profits of any business will be directly related to the amount of work you put into it,

You answered your question with this statement.

If you are simply looking for some stranger to pop onto a random pic and buy it, there are plenty of stock photo sites offering this type of service.

I personally love smugmug, but I send my clients there to view their specific gallery to purchase photos.

scole

I think that people who do event driven photography (weddings, sporting events, etc) have the best chance of making money from a Smugmug Pro Account since it's a delivery tool for their photos. My photography is nature & landscapes and I actually don't expect much sales from the site.

Random sales can happen but it will be rare (hasn't happened for me yet). The other way of looking at it is that you are laying a foundation for your future success.

One other thing- don't get hung up on your photos versus other photographer's photos. There will always be better photographers out there so all you can do is work on your own technique and style. Everyone has opinions so you'll never know when someone sees one of your photos and immediately connects with it. It can be hard to maintain this philosophy but good things will happen if you do.

Good luck!

Scott_Quier

I have to include myself in the "nay-sayers" category.

My pro account pays for itself quite nicely, but that's because I shoot weddings and portraits and my client base is pretty much a captive audience.

On the other hand, I have had one "random" sale of a landscape/willdlife photo (8"x10")



so it is possible.

peteracker

Confused by lack of sales.
I joined at the beginning of the year hoping to see some extra income on the back end of the events I'm shooting. Some of the stuff this year was small and sales were very light but I had 2 larger meetings - 120 people - and they all got information up front and an email blast when everything was uploaded. The pictures from all their events, golf, feeding giraffes, cocktail receptions, etc., etc., all look great and the email blast for the second one went out this week garnering, at the time of writing, over 13000 views.... and not one sale. I am totally flummoxed by the lack of sales of pictures of people that look great and are having a good time, to the point I wrote to ask if the new cart didn't work! I think the prices are reasonable at $1.21 for a 4 x 6 and $3.25 for a 5 x 7 and after checking with the smugmug heroes everything is set up correctly so I am open to suggestions as to why, after over 10,000 pictures viewed this week alone, not one sale has come.

Thanks!

Peter.

www.packerphoto.com

Blaker

Well, I just checked out your Event galleries, and I can download the huge Original without watermark - once I've downloaded it I can keep it on my computer or get my own prints made from it.
If I can get them for free, I've got no incentive to buy them from you!!

peteracker wrote:

I joined at the beginning of the year hoping to see some extra income on the back end of the events I'm shooting. Some of the stuff this year was small and sales were very light but I had 2 larger meetings - 120 people - and they all got information up front and an email blast when everything was uploaded. The pictures from all their events, golf, feeding giraffes, cocktail receptions, etc., etc., all look great and the email blast for the second one went out this week garnering, at the time of writing, over 13000 views.... and not one sale. I am totally flummoxed by the lack of sales of pictures of people that look great and are having a good time, to the point I wrote to ask if the new cart didn't work! I think the prices are reasonable at $1.21 for a 4 x 6 and $3.25 for a 5 x 7 and after checking with the smugmug heroes everything is set up correctly so I am open to suggestions as to why, after over 10,000 pictures viewed this week alone, not one sale has come.

Thanks!

Peter.

www.packerphoto.com

peteracker

Blaker wrote:

Well, I just checked out your Event galleries, and I can download the huge Original without watermark - once I've downloaded it I can keep it on my computer or get my own prints made from it.
If I can get them for free, I've got no incentive to buy them from you!!

The Corporate Events are Password protected and watermarked so can you tell me what you accessed and if you were able to get into the Engage2Excel or Dayton Superior events??

peteracker

peteracker wrote:

The Corporate Events are Password protected and watermarked so can you tell me what you accessed and if you were able to get into the Engage2Excel or Dayton Superior events??

Needless to say, I am less than happy about that response because I thought the watermarks and right click protection prevented anyone from doing that!!

Blaker

peteracker wrote:

The Corporate Events are Password protected and watermarked so can you tell me what you accessed and if you were able to get into the Engage2Excel or Dayton Superior events??

Hi,
I went into Events, then into the unprotected galleries ( Ringling , Flynt -Garrett, and CAN).
In those galleries I can download all the Originals ( high resolution) without watermarks, so you might want to go in under "visitor view" and check out your protected galleries for this, too.

peteracker

Blaker wrote:

Hi,
I went into Events, then into the unprotected galleries ( Ringling , Flynt -Garrett, and CAN).
In those galleries I can download all the Originals ( high resolution) without watermarks, so you might want to go in under "visitor view" and check out your protected galleries for this, too.

Thanks Blaker, I guess I'm discovering a little too late that setting a watermark, right click protect and password protect isn't enough to prevent people from being able to download pictures for free. Awesome.

I still don't understand how it happens though and I just went in under visitor view and got the These images are copyrighted blurb..... so frustrated and confused.....

denisegoldberg

peteracker wrote:

Thanks Blaker, I guess I'm discovering a little too late that setting a watermark, right click protect and password protect isn't enough to prevent people from being able to download pictures for free. Awesome.

I still don't understand how it happens though and I just went in under visitor view and got the These images are copyrighted blurb..... so frustrated and confused.....

You need to disable access to the originals. The originals are always used for printing, but if you don't want people to grab them without paying I would recommend not displaying them.

The originals are not watermarked. All of the other sizes are watermarked.

Right click protection is very minor protection. You can't right click on the photo, but if the image is displayed on a computer it is sitting on that computer, and it can be grabbed from the buffer by a hacker.

--- Denise

peteracker

denisegoldberg wrote:

You need to disable access to the originals. The originals are always used for printing, but if you don't want people to grab them without paying I would recommend not displaying them.

The originals are not watermarked. All of the other sizes are watermarked.

Right click protection is very minor protection. You can't right click on the photo, but if the image is displayed on a computer it is sitting on that computer, and it can be grabbed from the buffer by a hacker.

--- Denise

Thanks Denise, I just got the same answer from our heroes at smugmug. I guess I wasn't thorough enough when I read through all the tutorials and didn't realize that those weren't protected or watermarked. I suggested that a warning next to that button might help but it's too late for me now with 13000 images viewed and possibly grabbed this week. You live and you learn dontcha!