Spending money to make money

A couple of days ago, I did an article on making money via stock photography, and one of my eagle-eyed readers pointed out that you had to pay for the service I recommended.
I had a bit of a think, and was trying to make up my mind if I should write something more about the topic, ‘if it is worth investing money into trying to make money off photography’. Obviously, in most business, you are dependent on making an investment in order to start earning anything, but can the same be said to be true for photography?
Before I had time to formulate my thoughts, one of my regular readers who is also an old friend dropped me an e-mail which pretty much sums up my opinions on the matter – I’m sure he doesn’t mind if I reproduce it here:
Yeah, you do have to pay, but the thing is, if you manage to sell a couple of images, you can make that money back easily. They seem to have one of the best systems out there, and it’s all about having faith in your product.
If you don’t think your photos are good enough that you will be able to sell them, then paying for the service is not for you. If you believe your pictures are good enough to compete, then you’ve got yourself a winner.
I’ve been able to make a profit from this website over the past 3 months, and I’ve had my account for about 7 months. In total, I’m running at a loss, but if the last 3 months are anything to go by, I’ll be running a profit overall from next month onwards.
I’m really excited, actually, it’s the first time I’m making money off my photos. Even if I end up not making much from this, I can say I’m making money of photography, which has been a life-long dream for me.
YMMV, of course, but I’ll stick with Photostockplus for as long as they’ll have me.
Thanks a lot for that, Tim.
Agree? Disagree? First, have a look at the original post, and let us know, below!
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Comments
I agree with spending money .. unless of cos there is a free alternative. There are many free stock sites available to sell your images .. so why pay ?
I haven’t tried any site to sell my images, but I imagine that the “review” simply states that this site has the best overall deal for the photographer.
I am really interested in a further, detailed article where you compare different sites and states their respective pros. and con’s.
You could also have a poll at the end of the article where the users can vote on what they think is the best overall deal for them.
Thanks for a good blog.
i am curious to know if people are still making a decent living with stock photography. seems like there are a few really big houses that have just about everything and price gouge the photographers. do you know many that have been successful
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