Article Cosmos

If you type “stock images” into Google, you will get nearly 18 million results. It just shows what a huge market there is for photographs. The best thing is that anyone with a camera of reasonable quality, who can take sharp, well-composed pictures can sell their photographs and make money.

Stock Images
Stock Images are professional photographs of common places, landmarks, nature, events, people or objects. They are bought and sold on a royalty-free basis and can be used and reused for commercial design purposes. The photographer (or Stock Image distributor) has ownership to the images, and the commercial designer is allowed some limited use of the photo. The conditions that are imposed on the designer vary between suppliers. There may be, for example, a limit to the number of copies that may be circulated when printed in a magazine or journal.

Stock Images are a cost-effective method for designers to obtain professional images without the cost of hiring a photographer. Stock images refer to any images purchased via this distribution method and may be photos, computer-generated graphics, clip-art etc. Stock images can be purchased for download via websites, or as collections on CD or DVD ROMs.

When you sell your photographs as stock images, the designer pays to obtain a copy of the image which may then be used royalty-free. Any number of designers may purchase your image - they don’t become exclusive to the first purchaser. So the rights to use a popular image could be bought numerous times.

So if you have an eye for photography, and you want to make some money, you may be wondering how you go about it.

Selling Your Stock Images
The easiest way to sell your photos as stock images is to find one or more stock image distributors and sign up with them. As mentioned previously, type “stock image” into a search engine and you will find more distributors than you could ever need. The amount of money that you get paid can vary greatly between distributors, so check all the terms and conditions before you sign up.

Each distributor has different requirements for signing up as an image supplier. Some require a copy of your passport as identification. I would always advise anyone to think carefully before doing this. There are several others that don’t require copies of personal documents.

Once you have an account, you can start uploading your pictures. But please read the distributor’s terms and conditions before you do. They don’t want any old snapshot - they won’t sell at all.

What Pictures To Sell
Some types of image are very popular. Browse the distributor’s site to see the type of image that they sell. If possible, ask the distributor which are the best-selling images.

Tips for producing photographs for sale as Stock Images

Staging Your Subject
If you want to photograph small objects, set up a stage. Nobody wants a picture of a computer keyboard with all the junk on your desk in the background. (unless you’re selling a picture called “Untidy Desk”)
Obtain some large, plain coloured fabric or paper sheets on which to place the objects you’re photographing.
Do the same for stock images of people – a plain backdrop is generally more useful to a designer than a busy one.

Develop Your Niche
If you find you can produce better images of a particular type, concentrate on that market. Not only will your portfolio have a consistent feel to it, you will probably develop a better style and improve quality by concentrating on one type of image.

Public Shows
Take photographs of any public event that you attend. Occasionally, newspapers, and magazines need images from those events.

Overshoot
Take more photographs than you will possibly need. Digital photos cost nothing, so it pays to shoot from several angles and with different lighting. Your “perfect” shot of an apple might not be perfect to the designer.

Shoot Out and About
Wherever you go, take a camera. There are some excellent, yet small, compact cameras that produce professional results. Take candid shots in town centres, in the countryside etc. Some day, somebody might want that photograph.

Store Your Images Safely
Blank CDs and DVDs cost very little. When you get back to your home or office, transfer your images to disc for safe keeping. If possibly, print thumbnail images to use as index cards for your disks.
Save your images in their raw format, as they come off the memory card of your camera. Don’t adjust anything – you can do that later before you upload them to the Stock Image website.

Resources:
Phil Rogers is a keen amateur photographer who is discovering new ways to make money from his photography on the Internet. You can see some of his work at RedBubble

The most powerful Marketing book ever written? Quite possibly!

I’ve just gotten an e-book copy of Mark Joyner’s classic book, “Mind Control Marketing”. I’ve wanted to buy this book for years, but I’ve never been able to get my hands on it.  Mark pulled it from print not long after it was released and until now… the only way to get access to this powerful marketing information was to buy a used copy on Amazon or eBay for several hundred dollars.

Seriously, the cheapest I saw it offered for was $249 on Amazon. As much as I wanted the book, and as much as I had been primed to want it, I just couldn’t justify paying that much for it.

Mark claims he took the book out of print because “money isn’t everything” and he didn’t want the information to fall into the “wrong hands”… So why is he “giving it away” for such a low price now? For me, purchasing Mind Control Marketing was an absolute “no brainer”. I expected to pay a lot more for it that I did.

So, is this the most powerful marketing book ever written or nothing more than a compelling title, excellent sales copy and a well orchestrated, long-term marketing plan?

Actually, I didn’t even read the sales copy… I just wanted this book so bad I scrolled right to the bottom of the page and paid… I was expecting to pay at least $97. In my opinion, he’s selling it way too cheap. I’ve paid more than $27 for 20 page ebooks. Mind Control Marketing is over 160 pages of powerful information. You even get the “secret chapter” - reputed to be more powerful than the rest of the e-book.

This chapter wasn’t even included in the print book. Mark took it out just before the book went to print because he thought it was too powerful. (I’ve read it, I know why he may have felt this way.)

The information in the book DOES live up to the hype… It’s basically step-by-step instructions on how to manipulate people and it COULD be used for ill will. Maybe it’s dangerous letting everyone know?

When it comes to releasing controversial information like this, I have always thought that it’s better out than in. The people who worry about it getting out are those who fear they will lose their own power if it does.

Once the information is in the public domain, the power of its dark side diminishes, but ethical use of the information remains unaffected. So, maybe the $27 price does show that Mark doesn’t think money is everything.  He has decided that this is something we should all know and made it affordable to the masses.

I think reading it will help you grow as a person, as well as making you a better marketer.

Click here to check out Mind Control Marketing By Mark Joyner for yourself.

Respectfully

Dan Blackburn

Article Marketing Is Changing

Article marketing is one of the most widely used methods of promoting a website and making money online. It's not just those people submitting articles to article directories who should be considered to be an article marketer. Every hub on hubpages.com, every lens on Squidoo.com was put together by an article marketer. Whether they call themselves that or not.

Article marketing is changing rapidly with the advent of «Web 2.0», Social Media and social networking sites. What worked back in 2006 isn't so effective any more. But article marketing and marketing with articles will continue to grow in popularity and become even more powerful than it was back then.

Back in the day, you could submit an article to hundreds of article directories and everyone of them would give a reasonablly powerful «back link» to your site. For a time is was a marketers paradise, but you can see why the good times had to come to an end.

When something becomes «easy» it tends to become low quality. This is definately what happened to traditional «old style» article marketing.

What killed old style article marketing?

In my logical opinion, old style article marketing was killed by 3 things.

1. The proliferation of article directories on the Internet. So called «Internet Marketing Guru's» made it too easy for «wanabees» to own their own directory. This in itself would not have been so much of a problem had it not been for....

2. Automatic article submission software. These were the real killer. With all that spammy content being submitted to all those spammy directories, Google had to do something. The changes they made hurt even the good quality content and top authors. (Traditional article marketing is less effective for everyone as a result of this).

3. All the hype about making easy money with «Google Adsense» that has been stuffed down the throat of everyone in Internet marketing circles since 2005. Without this hype they would have been less people wanting to own their own article directory.

With all that unmoderated, duplicate, «spammy» content filling up the article directories, the «Big G» had to do something. So they stopped passing link authority from all but a handful of article directory sites. You can no longer use Article Marketing alone to increase your Google Page Rank and SERP's.

But that does not mean that you cannot get traffic from traditional article marketing or that it does not have it's place in your overall online marketing strategy you just need to be more selective about where you submit your content and more importantly, the content that you submit.

Dan Blackburn is the owner of the popular article directory article content king.

(c) Dan Blackburn. This article may be republished as long as all links are left in tack.

Categories: Article Marketing, Internet Business.
Tags: Article Marketing, online marketing, social media, web 2.0.

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