Selling photos - Update

Just wanted to update you on how things are going...

I now have 30 photos available to purchase online. I have to admit they vary in quality, but I think you can see a gradual progression and they are getting better all the time. The main pointers I have noticed are:

• Photoshop can not save every picture - sometimes they can be too dark, or just too pants
• The world is changing all the time (but of a stupid sentence) but if you go for a walk you will spot things that weren't there yesterday.

The new 'studio' set up

I have added to my 'photo studio' a bit of foil! To improve the lighting and it is helping a lot. 

I also have a big sheet of white card which I have got from a friend so will save using lots of sheets of white paper!

I think when I first applied to various photo selling websites that my standard wasn't great. I have taken around 300 photos to get 30 accepted online - a case of picking the best ones - and I think my standard is better now.

But the site I am currently using to sell the photos is not the most widely used site on the web. So I have decided to use the site I am on to build up my profile whilst allowing them to sold at the same time. Then when I have enough photos of a good standard I am going to try to reapply for some of the better photo selling sites that I was previously rejected entry for - crafty idea I think.

I have still yet to make a sale of a photo but I think this is largely due to the standard of my pictures - it is not as easy as I thought! But my standard is getting better and I'm going to keep taking photos until I stop enjoying it. Even if I stop submitting photos these images will still be for sale - I will just have to pop on there and withdraw my earnings!

I am working on other ways of making money online at the same time and I have some exciting news for the next blog entry - I have made some money! - stay tuned, all will be revealed!

Running Total: £0.00

Selling photos online

Now I was going to open this post with "I'm no David Bailey" but to be honest I don't even know who that guy is, its just a phrase you say, but it turns out this is him > Wiki link (doesn't look very happy in the picture of him on there)

This money making attempt is to make money from selling photos online. Although I don't know who David Bailey is I appreciate the sentiment behind the phrase as I am also no photographer but from reading around, with a little bit of time and effort, there is potentially some 'free' cash in it. Time and effort are things I have in spades (another phrase I don't really understand) but anyway I have had a crack at it, and here's how I got on...

Research..

It has taken me a while to pop up this next blog post because I have been researching this topic as much as possible before delving into it. There is a really good forum post on money saving expert which I would recommend if you are thinking of having a crack yourself, there is also this brief help page and a few good forums and other blogs, just do a google search for 'sell photos online.'

From what I have picked up there is a general consensus that the best pictures to sell online are pictures for the corporate market. So I've been trying to get into the frameset of pics that corporate sites or intranets will be after, so I'm thinking things like - "contact us" pages, every site has one so thats envelopes, letters, phones, mobiles that sort of thing. Also thinking of images that could also be used across their sites, like notepads, pens on paper, calculators - these have loads of uses. From what I have learnt these are my best bet, but of course these have been done millions of times already so it is a very saturated market but this is the market I am going to start in as I can easily appreciate the uses.

If I can think of any other ideas I will change tact but I think I'm wasting time taking photos of animals as my camera is not got a very good zoom - its a average 14 mega pixel digital camera. The birds are half way to South Africa before I can get a decent shot.

So plan sorted.. time to take some pics. 

Being no photographer naturally I don't have an amazing camera or a photography studio. But from looking on the internet the best selling photos are those with white backgrounds - which is fair enough as they then can be adapted into other designs etc,

So being without a studio is a draw back, however nothing that some white paper in a bright room can't fix?

Heres a picture of my 'studio' !

I figured I would use a box which I received a parcel in which was full of packaging stuff. Thought it could make a good image on a shop on a post and packaging or delivery page?

I got quite a lot of pictures out of this, just taking pictures at different angles, different zooms and then moving the box around and changing how the packaging lies on the floor.

Here is one of my pictures:

I don't think the image is too bad. This is one of my first attempts but I have since mastered the lighting better, the problem with this one was that I had to use Photoshop a bit to increase the brightness and then I lost some of the shadow.

I have got better and I have to say I'm finding this really good fun! always on the look out for things to take photos of.

Pictures sorted, let the money roll in..

Well, got to be positive minded.

Now that I've taken a good amount of different pictures I have to pop them on photo selling websites.  There are loads of these, I found loads by just a simple google search for 'sell photos' or craftily 'buy photos.' 

Some sites are easy to apply for but others take a while, some of the sites make you read a massive list of requirements and then make you do a test at the end which you have to pass to get into their publisher/contributor section. But, for istockphoto you can find answers for the quiz! - cheeky!

I have signed up for 3 sites and the joining bit is pretty painful and you have to have 10 photos approved before you get accepted, so the first time I was not ready, I panicked and put some on there but was rejected. The second time I took 10 good photos of different things, really paying attention to their requirements, sorted them out and got accepted! woohoo I'm in!

I have found you can't take pictures of loads of things! but the main sticklers are:

• people - unless you have a model release form
• signs - anywhere there is a sign in the background - I had a really good picture taken outside but it had a car park 'P' in the background - so it was refused.
• buildings - you have to have a building release - and lets face it you don't. I had a great photo of an office building, the clouds were reflected on to its windows, looked awesome but was refused.
• anything copyrighted - a design, a style, a trademark - all will mean your photo is rejected

One site said something like "unless the picture is planned, don't bother." That's not verbatim but a good policy to go with. I'm sticking with that.

This is a long term money making project as the payout thresholds are very high - but I'm willing to give it time.

For all the praise for Search Lotto you can't say its much fun but taking photos genuinely is...that said, I've still got a ticket for Friday's euro millions and Saturdays national lottery...

So that's search lotto and selling photos -  two projects I have running concurrently, two sources of free income on the web.

But nothing to add yet.....contributions welcome!!! :) that's a joke (?)

Running total: £0.00

Search Lotto - update

Little update to let you know about how I got on with Search lotto..

Ah balls!

In my last blog post I was raving about Search lotto, I haven't stopped raving and its still a great site but I regret to say that this week I have yet to win anything...again...sad face.

I'm sticking with it though as after all as I said repeatedly in my blog post it is a lottery. So sticking with it means that I will be religiously doing 10 searches on the site a day - there is a maximum of 10 searches you can do each day and you have to do 50 searches by 10am on Friday to get two tickets for the Saturday draw or one ticket for the Saturday draw and one for the Friday euro millions.

I have found that this means that you have to plan it out, I'll do 10 searches on Sunday, then 10 each day from Monday to Thursday. I commute to work so these searches can easily be done on the way to and from work on my iphone. Furthermore you need to wait around 10 minutes between each search so its a good job its a long commute and this is when the will power comes in.

I'm going to make the decision that Search Lotto is going to be my foundation of a series of other money making schemes as it is easy to do and I can keep it going until I get bored out of my mind of searching different random things. We'll see how long it keeps going..

You quite often find with these things it is the foundation that comes through in the end - I hope that is a phrase which will come round to kiss me on the face and present me with a cheque for millions, after all if 'could be me.'

If Search lotto was the only way I was going to make my money from my time, I would need an awful lot of waiting time. That's why I have some other good plans in the pipeline for money making.

The problem with this scheme is that there is no guarantee of money its like putting money on horses - odds are probably better with that. I'm going to stick with it but I need to come up with better...


Running Total: £0.00

Search Lotto

Ok here is my first money making tip and I have to say this one is brilliant, its easy but not overly quick and does involve a lot of that important asset of yours...time.

But its still brilliant.

This first bad boy is Search Lotto. This is a really clever idea, one of those ideas that you wish you would have thought of, but well you didn't, well you might have done, but somewhere some chap did something about it.

The carrot you can get here - is a free UK National Lottery or EuroMillions ticket (you have to be a UK bod) So you wont make money directly but you can make money in a round about way.

I say a free ticket, in fact you get a 10th of a free ticket. So if you win a tenor with your numbers you will get £1.

To get your ticket all you need do is make 25 web searches from their site in a week. 25 searches gives you one ticket (or a 10th) you can do a maximum of 50 searches a week so you can get 2 tickets (2 10ths)

I can vouch for this site as I have used it for a while before I started this blog. It is of course a lottery! but I have won twice, first time I won £10 so I got sent £1 and the second time I won £64 so I got sent £6.40. (As these were pre-blog I wont include them in the running total.)

I have been using it for about 3 months and that is all that I have won and I have been doing 2 tickets pretty much every week. But they give you the numbers the Friday before so you know there is no con going on - i do wonder tho if you did win millions - would the site just disappear!? - I hope not!

I must also have the record of having the most weeks in a row where I havent got a single number! but hey this is a lottery and the ticket is free.

Give it a go yourself and sign up for Search Lotto! - I have to say all links in this blog will be affiliated links - trying to get me more money on my running total - so please use them to help me out!

I think  Search Lotto is a pretty good one to start the blog with. I've got two tickets this week - one for the Euro Millions and one the Saturday National Lottery.

Euro Millions last night.....no numbers again! But I'm feeling lucky tonight.

So nothing to add to the total yet but next blog post coming soon, got some other good ideas to push it up.

Running Total: £0.00

Welcome to my new blog

Welcome to my first and only web blog.

The idea of this blog is to chart my attempts at making money on the web by only using my time. I am not allowed to use my own money to help me achieve my aims of making cash on the web, the only thing I can use to make money is my time. This is the only asset I am prepared to give to the world to achieve big cash! - and it should be said I work full time so this is an asset that is finite.

This blog is not about money saving, you can make loads of money using cashback websites when you spend money online - this normally involves spending so this doesn't count as a part of my blog. You can also cut back on your bills, move suppliers etc but this not what this blog is about. That said that is a really good way of making cash - see Martin Lewis's moneysavingexpert.com for that sort of lingo. Martin Lewis is the god for that sort of thing.

But anyway, what this blog consists of is my attempts at making money online using only my time and it will chart my progress and I'll provide a little rolling total for how im getting on.

I hope people will be able to use some of my tips along the way and let me know if I've helped you out. Feel free to join in at home!

Happy travels.....

Running Total: £0.00