Advice & Encouragement on a 'Pro' Account?

Mongrel · January 12, 2005

Good Day All,

Well, I'm trying to get the courage up to go for a Smugmug 'Pro' Account...

After shooting my hometown girls field hockey and my nephews football games this fall I'm getting requests for prints whenever I run into players, parents, and coaches. I shared some of my stuff with a few people and it was received very well apparently. I did the usual free prints for *friends and family*, but I want to take it up a notch in the spring. Having a great place like Smugmug to handle the printing side will be wonderful (shameless plug :rofl ). I can then concentrate on taking pitchas.

My main focus is on sports action photography as the team photography etc. is already contracted out (well, I don't know if it's a contract-but somone else does it). No one to my knowledge does what I intend to do so no toes will be stepped on in the making of this money

I have read the info on setting up the account and pricing etc. (I'm still pretty confused-lol), but I'm curious as to how official this needs to be from a business standpoint. I guess when I saw the Federal Tax Form I got a little nervous...

So, just how much is involved in setting up a part time photography business like this? Can anyone point me in the right direction for some basic business help? I've never done anything like this so it needs to be pretty dumbed down-:D

Thanks in advance for any and all help...

Tony

Nikolai · January 12, 2005

Don't hesitate. Just get it:-)
The worst case scenario - you pay $90 for one year and next year switch to $50 advanced (no custom pricing) or $30 standard (no video). One nice session sold - and you got your money back, everything else is a pure profit.

Seriously, if you're into it - it's a no brainer

Cheers!

marlinspike · January 12, 2005

As far as I know there is some tax stuff involved (I forget which form...I think SE), but I don't really know since I won't be filing until next April (not that I'd wait until April 14 or anything

). However, I want to give you a piece of advice. Start the prices where you want to end them. That is, don't initially price low with plans to raise prices later. People will pay x dollars for pictures, but they won't pay x if last month they cost x-1.
Richard

Mongrel wrote:

Good Day All,

Well, I'm trying to get the courage up to go for a Smugmug 'Pro' Account...

After shooting my hometown girls field hockey and my nephews football games this fall I'm getting requests for prints whenever I run into players, parents, and coaches. I shared some of my stuff with a few people and it was received very well apparently. I did the usual free prints for *friends and family*, but I want to take it up a notch in the spring. Having a great place like Smugmug to handle the printing side will be wonderful (shameless plug ). I can then concentrate on taking pitchas.

My main focus is on sports action photography as the team photography etc. is already contracted out (well, I don't know if it's a contract-but somone else does it). No one to my knowledge does what I intend to do so no toes will be stepped on in the making of this money

I have read the info on setting up the account and pricing etc. (I'm still pretty confused-lol), but I'm curious as to how official this needs to be from a business standpoint. I guess when I saw the Federal Tax Form I got a little nervous...

So, just how much is involved in setting up a part time photography business like this? Can anyone point me in the right direction for some basic business help? I've never done anything like this so it needs to be pretty dumbed down-:D

Thanks in advance for any and all help...

Tony

mercphoto · January 12, 2005

marlinspike wrote:

As far as I know there is some tax stuff involved (I forget which form...I think SE), but I don't really know since I won't be filing until next April (not that I'd wait until April 14 or anything ). However, I want to give you a piece of advice. Start the prices where you want to end them. That is, don't initially price low with plans to raise prices later. People will pay x dollars for pictures, but they won't pay x if last month they cost x-1.
Richard

Good point. Don't do "introductory pricing", or "new to business pricing". I've been selling seventh grade football pics the same way you did. Started out for the neighbor's boy, then other parents wanted pics. I've found they'll pay at least $5 for a decent 4x6, and prices go up from there.

As far as taxes go, there is one form from the IRS you need to fill and and return to Smugmug. Smug even has a link to that form from the IRS web page for you. Then you'll file Schedule C for income from a business. Very easy. Last thing I did was register a "doing business as" form (DBA) with my county, giving my biz a name: Mercury Photography.

Its intimidating, but its a piece of cake to do.

BBones · January 21, 2005

so now it is tax season. What do I need to do in regards to the sales made from my Smugmug site? I did make some sales, but since August I still have not made enough to pay a month of rent yet.

Claim it?
Don't worry about it?

I am almost positive I chceked the IRS form for "Individual" and not a business since I do not have a license yet.

marlinspike · January 22, 2005

How much did you make? I believe you have to fill a schedule C for any amount, but you don't pay anything unless you turned a $400 profit (not sales, profit) (you get to deduct equipment costs for the year, depreciation, basicaly everything. If you can't pay for rent, I'm guessing you didn't turn a $400 profit).
Richard

BBones · January 22, 2005

$1000. Rent is expensve where I live (Kirkland, WA) and I have to have a larger place then a bach pad because I have a daugther.

So I just need to find one of these forms and take it with me to HR Block?

savannahga · January 22, 2005

I'm sure H & R block has that form.

Andy · January 22, 2005

BBones wrote:

so now it is tax season. What do I need to do in regards to the sales made from my Smugmug site? I did make some sales, but since August I still have not made enough to pay a month of rent yet.

Claim it?
Don't worry about it?

I am almost positive I chceked the IRS form for "Individual" and not a business since I do not have a license yet.

if you want to be paid by toni, then you must fill out a w-9. then you'll have taxable income.

BBones · January 22, 2005

Yeah I filled out that form, does Smugmug send me anything or do I just go to HR Block and say that I made $X.XX and they can write it down?

marlinspike · January 22, 2005

Here's a thread with some pertinent info
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=2870
Richard

NoNo · January 24, 2005

I'm in the same boat, trying to figure out if I want to spring for a pro account. I would count myself as an advanced amatuer, but I receive a lot of compliments on my photos and people telling me I should sell them. I'm not looking to quit my job, I just want to get a nice side business going to help pay the bills. For those of you in the same boat that have taken the plunge, have you found it was worth it? How much traffic does your site get? I know at worst I'll be down $100, but I'd like to avoid that if I can. Thanks so much for your help!

marlinspike · January 24, 2005

NoNo wrote:

I'm in the same boat, trying to figure out if I want to spring for a pro account. I would count myself as an advanced amatuer, but I receive a lot of compliments on my photos and people telling me I should sell them. I'm not looking to quit my job, I just want to get a nice side business going to help pay the bills. For those of you in the same boat that have taken the plunge, have you found it was worth it? How much traffic does your site get? I know at worst I'll be down $100, but I'd like to avoid that if I can. Thanks so much for your help!

I don't sell any photos except for my sports ones which I actively advertise to the players/coaches/player's parents.
Richard

EDIT: I'll qualify the above by saying that if you look at my smugmug site you'll see I don't have many non-sports photos though, and most are not sellable. Just thought I should mention that to be fair (most of my non-sports stuff goes on film just because I like shooting film, but I would never get to do that for sports, so I just divided things up between film and digital).

onethumb · January 25, 2005

NoNo wrote:

I'm in the same boat, trying to figure out if I want to spring for a pro account. I would count myself as an advanced amatuer, but I receive a lot of compliments on my photos and people telling me I should sell them. I'm not looking to quit my job, I just want to get a nice side business going to help pay the bills. For those of you in the same boat that have taken the plunge, have you found it was worth it? How much traffic does your site get? I know at worst I'll be down $100, but I'd like to avoid that if I can. Thanks so much for your help!

The honest answer is that you get what you put into it. A pro smugmug account is merely a storefront. But to have a successful store, you need to get foot traffic to it.

We try to help, by encouraging Google to spider your pages and index your photos and the text around them, but that only goes so far.

The pros at smugmug who make money all advertise and/or promote their sites actively in some form. Some advertise on the net, others tell their clients about it directly, some pass out cards, some have it on their business cards, etc.

Not a single person making money at smugmug, to my knowledge, has done it by simply setting up a Pro account and sitting back to wait and see.

So if you're willing to make it work, I think smugmug offers all the tools to make the actual sale of the print(s) easy. Getting people to look at them and see if they want to buy them, though, is your job.

Don

marlinspike · January 25, 2005

onethumb wrote:

We try to help, by encouraging Google to spider your pages and index your photos and the text around them, but that only goes so far.

Does that mean I'm putting myself at a loss by not having keywords/captions? I'm working on the caption thing since I know that makes things look a bit more professional (I just don't have the time, even though you guys have made it as easy as can be), but I had no plans to start using keywords since I don't really see the purpose (plus, I don't want people going to my photos based on the keyword links. I rather they go through the proper links - don't ask, I just have my little quirks is all).

onethumb · January 25, 2005

marlinspike wrote:

Does that mean I'm putting myself at a loss by not having keywords/captions? I'm working on the caption thing since I know that makes things look a bit more professional (I just don't have the time, even though you guys have made it as easy as can be), but I had no plans to start using keywords since I don't really see the purpose (plus, I don't want people going to my photos based on the keyword links. I rather they go through the proper links - don't ask, I just have my little quirks is all).

Personally, I really doubt Google indexing helps many people sell more items all that much. But yes, if you want to get the maximum amount of mileage from Google, any text will help.

Since Google is a purely text-based (almost out of necessity) search tool, they look at any and all text around your photos. In the URL, in the Caption, in the <img> tag, you name it, if it's a word, it'll try to use it.

If, however, you go overboard, they'll ding you. They have some fairly sophisticated algorithms to detect when you're just planting words frivolously, and Google ignores them.

Don

NoNo · January 25, 2005

onethumb wrote:

The honest answer is that you get what you put into it. A pro smugmug account is merely a storefront. But to have a successful store, you need to get foot traffic to it.

We try to help, by encouraging Google to spider your pages and index your photos and the text around them, but that only goes so far.

The pros at smugmug who make money all advertise and/or promote their sites actively in some form. Some advertise on the net, others tell their clients about it directly, some pass out cards, some have it on their business cards, etc.

Not a single person making money at smugmug, to my knowledge, has done it by simply setting up a Pro account and sitting back to wait and see.

So if you're willing to make it work, I think smugmug offers all the tools to make the actual sale of the print(s) easy. Getting people to look at them and see if they want to buy them, though, is your job.

Don

Thank you for your feedback. Obviously there is a degree of work involved in getting people to visit the site. As I said, I don't plan on making this my main source of income or anything like that, just something I want to try on the side, so I won't be taking out full-page ads in the paper. I think I'll just try word-of-mouth early on, maybe make up some fliers. I'm sure eventually I'll get a pro account, it'll just have to wait until all of my trips are over and I actually have some money. Thanks again for your help!

Advice & Encouragement on a 'Pro' Account?

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