Wooo Hoooo!!! Sold my first print!!!!

NavyMoose

I just got that much anticipated SmugMug email saying someone bought a print from me. I have the one day proof delay, but this photo was fully sharpened when I created the JPEG so it wasn't neccessary in this case.

:barb:barb:barb

This is just so awesome!!!

Navy Moose

Allen

Congratulations. But probably just the first of many.:D

kml

Congrats!!

NavyMoose

kml wrote:

Congrats!!

Thank you, everyone. It was a great feeling!

Navy Moose

Giphsub

Well done!

May I ask how long it took to make the first sale? And was it guided there by an event you did, or a random sale? I have yet to make a sale myself.

thenimirra

that's wonderful! I'm so happy for you. Congrats.

Hoping that this is the first of many more!

melissa6631

thenimirra wrote:

that's wonderful! I'm so happy for you. Congrats.

Hoping that this is the first of many more!

No one has every bought any of my photos. Although I pathetically bought a bunch of 4x6's and 5x7's from myself and sent them to grandparents as a gift.

*sigh*

I think I do have a few that would make nice wall portraits. I just never know if it's corny to hang your own photos in your house. lol

events

melissa6631 wrote:

No one has every bought any of my photos. Although I pathetically bought a bunch of 4x6's and 5x7's from myself and sent them to grandparents as a gift.

*sigh*

I think I do have a few that would make nice wall portraits. I just never know if it's corny to hang your own photos in your house. lol

I got talked into shooting and event where they insisted I bring a dye sub printer on site to sell prints on site. I bought the printer, all the supplies and even after having a booth on site for twelve hours I didn't sell a print.

Then the organizer asked if I could sell prints online. Something else I hadn't done but here I am now. I put up over a thousand pictures from the event and she blasted her email list of hundreds of participants and not one sale.

I also shot and posted a second event here and am waiting to blast that info out and perhaps the second group of people might generate some sames but as of now I am pretty discouraged. Both of these were charity events I shot gratis in hopes to recoup some cost selling prints and in fact would make some extra to donate back to the charity. For one even there were three of us there all day, and two of us all day for the second event. Lots of costs, time, and hassle for no sales..

Although I have spent a lot of time trying to learn the SmugMug system and uploading all the pix (which took forever) I don't know if I can justify paying for a pro account if no one is going to buy any pix.

Dogdots

I'm curious....who has sold pictures in their smugmug sites?

MichaelKirk

I have......
Here is my background:
I opened a Pro SM account June 2006 and all I really did was start uploading some of my family pictures...(for family) for thej first 6 months or so.. Over the winter I spent time customizing my SM account and started shooting sporting events Spring of 2007.

So in the 8 months I have been actually uploading and selling events I have pretty much received a check each month from SM and sold way more than I anticipated. I just recently increase my pricing as I really think demand justifies it, plus the cost of my time and equipment. Individual sales have decreased a bit, but I am not too worried about that right now.

I am also now working with a few magazines and have had a few photos published and crossing my fingers for my 1st potential cover shot - they are review some of my photos now for that potential cover
One f the magazines is a Huge National publication that has been much more difficult to penetrate since they have a few "go to" contributors - but will keep plugging away with them.

I keep spending more and more on equipment, but think I have pretty much everything I need right now - my goal is to have everything paid off 100% with profits from photos sales by next year and then start turning 100% of the $$ back to the family.

Feel free to take a look at my SM website and ask any questions - be glad to help anyone out with ideas.

My first comment is you really gotta pay to play!


Michael

savannahga

Dogdots wrote:

I'm curious....who has sold pictures in their smugmug sites?

Been at Smugmug 3 years & has sold 250 prints & 5 $300 downloads without any advertising. Not bad for a non event or portrait site I guess.

Dogdots

Congrats on selling your pictures! I like how your web site is set up. Very professional. Your pictures are very good.

It does cost a lot in gear, but well worth it in the end if you can sell what you take. I will have to seriously think about getting a site set up.

I'm sure I will need some help and a lot of imput to what is good or right to put into a web site. I know you can't just put any thing in.

I see you have found a nitch in an area of photography which I hear many people say you should do. That way you concentrate on what you do best and it will show up in your work.

MichaelKirk

Customizing your site...
Customizing you site can be fun and aggrivating at the same time. I know nothing about coding so it was not easy for me. My advise is to start simple, take a look at other peoples sites and try and make your into what you like about others. Do one change at a time, make it right and then move on to the next one.

The thing about specializing is that it definately opens up other areas of opportunity. I primarily shoot sports (pretty obvious by looking at my site), but now get some request for family photography. I also entered on a whim our towns art show and actually won 1st place in the photography division. I only had a handful of non-sports related photos to chhose from for a submission......so now I am thinking of taking more time in non-sports related photography.....maybe even contact the towns gallery for a discussion about showing some pieces.

Michael

Dogdots wrote:

Congrats on selling your pictures! I like how your web site is set up. Very professional. Your pictures are very good.

It does cost a lot in gear, but well worth it in the end if you can sell what you take. I will have to seriously think about getting a site set up.

I'm sure I will need some help and a lot of imput to what is good or right to put into a web site. I know you can't just put any thing in.

I see you have found a nitch in an area of photography which I hear many people say you should do. That way you concentrate on what you do best and it will show up in your work.

Dogdots

Sounds like there has been success with your sites thru smugmug. I'm glad to see that.

If I do start a site I will start small first Michael. As I don't want to be so overwhelmed with things. Now I just have to go thru my photos and figure out which ones I want to put on the website

Kahuna

Sales
I shoot local sports and have sold 1300+ prints over the last couple of years. Traffic has been driven to my site mostly by word of mouth - whether that be parent to parent, kid to kid, or coach / club email blasts.

I've had parents rave about my pictures but never purchase any - one even proudly proclaimed that they print them off the web and have them hanging on their refrigerator. I guess quality isn't an issue if it destined for temporary display on the fridge.

I've recently disabled right-clicking to slow this phenomena down. I've also had high school yearbooks lift pictures this way - my major annoyance is with how bad the resulting images look in print.

I left right-clicking enabled until now because the kids love looking at the pictures of themselves and their friends. I've seen lots of my pictures featured on myspace pages ... and that is fine with me.

I love having parents tell me "Well, if you are here I'm just going to relax and watch the game and not worry about taking pictures."

Whether you are shooting sports or not, focus on providing images which the customer can't take for themselves, whether it is because of equipment, access, or skill. And most importantly ... enjoy yourself ... the sales will come.

Thanks ... Pat

NavyMoose

savannahga wrote:

Been at Smugmug 3 years & has sold 250 prints & 5 $300 downloads without any advertising. Not bad for a non event or portrait site I guess.

I've been doing far more shooting than I have editing. I just hate sitting in front of the computer and play with Lightroom / Photoshop. I would rather be out shooting.

Go PATS!!

Navy Moose

NavyMoose

It took several months to make my first sale. My buddy is head pro at a golf course near me, and he wanted me to shoot the women playing golf. I was surprised only one bought a photo.

I try not to let the google analytics reports get me down. If I posted more photos to the website, I'd be higher on the google scores.

Giphsub wrote:

Well done!

May I ask how long it took to make the first sale? And was it guided there by an event you did, or a random sale? I have yet to make a sale myself.

SPACE

Way to go. I'm thinking about joining too.

wilsonjg

Dogdots wrote:

I'm curious....who has sold pictures in their smugmug sites?

I've had a SmugMug site for a year or so and have had 916 sales so far............BUT.............most of my gallerys are sports, which are driven by moms that want photos of their little ones, so I'm lucky in that respect.

Almost all of my attention has been from word of mouth from satified customers, which is very rewarding. SmugMug has been a great little venture for me.

I'm not a pro, but when my "hobby" got completely out of hand, I decided I better start trying to return some income from my photography or I'd be in debtors prision in not time at all!!

Good Luck with your SmugMug page.....I'm sure it just a matter of time before you get a few good customers and they spread the good word about your site.

-Joey

Dogdots

Sports! That seems to be the selling subject. Momma will pay for a picture of their kids. I would have when my kids were younger.

DJT

I signed up exactly 1 year ago for a pro account. Not so much for selling but for the fact that I can customize the layout (which I haven't yet) and the idea of having a second/third storage option for my photos. I've already had an external drive crash (I was able to retrieve the photos myself, but it took hours).

I have a website already, but I'm only allowed 2gig of space and having smugmug with "unlimited" storage sounded great. I was paying 100.00 a year for 2gig and now 149.00 ?? for smugmug. And if I sell a print or 2 and am able to pay for the site thru that, that would be GREAT! However..... I've sold a few and they were to members of my Church so the markup was really really low; I've made a profit of 1.81 WOOT!

Seems like sales were better when I made NO profit than when I make a profit. I've had ppl call me and say they can't right click and ask why they can't. um....... or if I can print some pictures for them at home or if they can borrow the CD and print at their house or take to Wal-Mart. I've had a few even tell me the same, "You going, good, I'll let you take pictures and I'll sit back and relax". Then they don't buy any prints or only buy them when I don't have a mark-up. And for Church Members, the markup is 3 cents (4x6) - about the same price as Wal-mart, but the quality is soooo much better.

thehikingdude

Dogdots wrote:

I'm curious....who has sold pictures in their smugmug sites?

I've had one order for 9 prints so far. Got my site setup just over a week ago so it's too early to say how well I'll do with it. At least that's what I tell myself!

Dogdots

Congrats hikingdude---

I checked your site---sports sell!!!

Jetranger

NavyMoose wrote:

I just got that much anticipated SmugMug email saying someone bought a print from me. I have the one day proof delay, but this photo was fully sharpened when I created the JPEG so it wasn't neccessary in this case.

barb

This is just so awesome!!!

Navy Moose

When you say someone bought a "print" from you - does that mean they ordered a print through the website - or they purchased a copy of the digital image?

gman33

I finally got THE email today!!!

I have been on Smugmug for a few months just to put some simple photos up and than a friend of mine who was a football coach for a local team asked me to come and take some pictures. The parents loved the shots but no sales from them.

Than I walked onto a football field closer to my home, for another team, and just so happens that the coaches were actually board members of the athletic league....they never had someone take action shots for them and now they want to make me the official photographer for their 400 kids.

Now I got the email today and my nerves are shot about the results. I know the prints will come out nice and they are guaranteed, but I guess I am just nervous that they will be happy.

We shall see...if you would like to C&C on my site, I would appreciate it. The sports galleries are PW protected...sorry but the parents like that

Thanks
Ed

Jetranger

melissa6631 wrote:

No one has every bought any of my photos. Although I pathetically bought a bunch of 4x6's and 5x7's from myself and sent them to grandparents as a gift.

*sigh*

I think I do have a few that would make nice wall portraits. I just never know if it's corny to hang your own photos in your house. lol

You'd put other people's photos up in your home?

Now THAT's corny.

bham

NavyMoose wrote:

I just got that much anticipated SmugMug email saying someone bought a print from me. I have the one day proof delay, but this photo was fully sharpened when I created the JPEG so it wasn't neccessary in this case.

barb

This is just so awesome!!!

Navy Moose

Congrats, you wanna post a link to the photo so we can see what you sold.

bham

Dogdots wrote:

I'm curious....who has sold pictures in their smugmug sites?

I have sold pics thru 2 smugmug sites.

beetle8

gman33 wrote:

The sports galleries are PW protected...sorry but the parents like that

Thanks
Ed

I disagree with the PW protection, when I first started out I felt like that would be the most secure way and that the parents would apreciate it. I stopped doing in early on because there is an easier way to secure the photos without the hassle. I put them in private galleries remove the searchability and shareability and create a direct link to the gallerie from my site. Now the only people that are going to see them are the parents who know that they are there, similiar to if you had to broadcast a PW for all potential customers to hear. I've never had one person complain about the lack of PW but had a few in the begining with issues not getting in.

Jetranger

beetle8 wrote:

I disagree with the PW protection, when I first started out I felt like that would be the most secure way and that the parents would apreciate it. I stopped doing in early on because there is an easier way to secure the photos without the hassle. I put them in private galleries remove the searchability and shareability and create a direct link to the gallerie from my site. Now the only people that are going to see them are the parents who know that they are there, similiar to if you had to broadcast a PW for all potential customers to hear. I've never had one person complain about the lack of PW but had a few in the begining with issues not getting in.

I find the PW is a lot easier to use, as you can set them up with clues that are obscure enough that people cannot guess, but everyone who should get in will know what it is. Then everyone has to only know one website - and they can menu travel to each event. They don't need long URLs that need to be e-mailed to them with each event. They are not searchable nor shareable but you can drill down to them from the main menu (categories).

All the galleries on my site that have people in them are password protected. I have not had to e-mail or broadcast any passwords to anyone yet. They all can figure them out from the clue, and they are obscure enough that nobody would be able to guess them. I just set them up and they can all find them and get in without any contact. I find this to be the most hassle free - and yet still secure.

thehikingdude

Since starting my site up 1 month ago I've had 11 orders for a total of 58 photos. No idea if this is a good start or not, but it sure feels good! And the most important thing to me is that I'm having a blast doing it.

Waiting for basketball to kick up later in the month.