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How to Earn from Stock Photography

If you are an amateur photographer or simply someone who loves to dabble in photography, you may be able to earn money from your images. The business of stock photography has grown significantly on the Web, which in turn has allowed photography enthusiasts to find a marketplace for their images.

If you have good images, you can easily earn anywhere from $300 to $1,000 a month. Here are some places where you can sell your photos and earn money from them:

• Shutterstock = one of the most, if not the most popular micro stock photography sites on the Web today. Some photographers earn about $600 a month from this site alone. The site pays you $0.25 per download of your images, as well as referrals both in terms of other photographers and photo buyers.
• Alamy = as a contributor, you get 65% of the sale of your photos while you retain copyright and editorial control over your images
• Photoshelter = this site has over 25,000 buyers including magazines, advertising agencies and other high profile types of organizations. They will host your images, the number of which will depend on your subscription plan which ranges from free to $49.99 per month, and they take 10% of every sale you make.
• StockXpert = offers you 50% for each download of your photographs, but they screen the images first to ensure the quality of the photographs offered in the site
• Fotolia = a UK website, this site provides commission to photographers of up to 80% though the average is about 52% of the total sale price. You can choose to sell your images on an exclusive or non exclusive basis.
• iStockPhoto = royalty structure is 20% if non-exclusive and 40% if exclusive.

Other sites that you need to check include:

• Acestock http://www.acestock.com/
• Corbis http://www.corbis.com/
• Dreamstime http://www.dreamstime.com/
• BigStockPhoto http://www.bigstockphoto.com/
• Fotolibra http://www.fotolibra.com/
• Photostockplus http://www.photostockplus.com/index.php