Get In The Right Place
The automatic controls on cameras today make the technical side of photography much easier than a generation ago. As a result, the person with a sensitive eye finds that she or he is amassing a healthy
"How can I get my pictures published?" is usually the next question. And rightly so, because you've seen pictures published that were not even as good as yours.
Award-winning pictures in exhibitions and contests may earn you blue ribbons, but if you're interested in seeing your credit line in national circulation and receiving checks in the mail, here are some tips on how to shift your emphasis.
For the purposes of marketing, the real judges of what makes a good photo are the editors at magazine or book publishing houses, who buy photos not because they like them, but because they need them.
I've been in many an editor's office where stunning calendar-type pictures are on the wall, but the editor is signing a check for a work-a-day nuts-and-bolts picture he or she needs for their current project.
If you're interested in making money from your photographic talent, you will want to follow a basic business concept: positioning. If your collection of photos is strong in, say, education, position yourself so that you become a valuable resource to editors who are in continual need of education photos. I know photographers who have positioned themselves so well in their specialty area that they can call editors collect.
THEME PUBLISHERS
When you position yourself, you lock yourself into publishing houses that produce visual materials relating to one theme. This may be auto racing, gardening, hang-gliding, medicine, and so on. When youOnce you sell your first photo to a theme publisher, you will find it much easier to make subsequent sales. I have found that once a photographer establishes him/herself with a theme publisher, (s)he can expect to stay with that publisher for an average of ten years, minimum. The individual editors at such a publishing house may come and go, but the theme of the publishing house remains the same. This translates to $20,000 to $50,000 in sales over the ten-year period. And of course the business relationship may go on even longer.
And that is the beauty of marketing your own photos. You can choose to stay with only one or two theme publishers, or go big time and deal with dozens of them, if you position yourself. -RE
Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of the weekly PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA Email: info@photosource.com Fax: 1 715 248 7394 Web site: www.photosource.com
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