There are many ways to make money online. While John talks a lot about affiliate marketing and blogging in this space, there is another area of expertise that can serve as a fairly substantial source of income: photography. If you’re a proficient shutterbug, then this ReviewMe review of Photopreneur.com will be right up your alley.
What or Who is a Photopreneur?
I could tell you what makes someone a photopreneur, but why reinvent the wheel? The people behind the Photopreneur blog are more than happy to tell you want that term is all about. Their first post ever says:
A photopreneur could be a photographer with entrepreneurial spirit. A photopreneur might also be an entrepreneur with a passion for photography…. Capturing the spirit of entrepreneurialsm [sic], combining it with a talented eye, and unleashing the result across the globe - that’s a photopreneur.
The idea behind the blog is to provide you with posts on making money online selling your photos and getting hired to take pictures, as well as on photography business marketing. Prefer to arm yourself with a DSLR rather than words through a keyboard? Maybe taking pictures for a living is for you.
The Blog Design
As a whole, I’m quite pleased with the site design of the Photopreneur photo blog. It’s quite clean with a simple, yet effective header image and the post titles are highlighted very well. Navigating through the site’s various sections is also very obvious through the links near the top.
I do have several suggestions, however, that they may want to consider:
- The RSS button would look better either at the top of the sidebar or all the way to the right in the header, next to “archives”.
- The contact link might be better as the last page listed, rather than being in the middle.
- There’s not enough content to currently justify having two sidebars.
- I’m not a fan of the “read the rest” links. Just show the whole post on the main page.
- There are too many posts on the main page, making it far too long (and making for a lot of useless white space in the sidebars).
- For a photography blog, it sure seems text-heavy.
- Why proudly display an Alexa ranking of nearly 500,000? The widget looks funny the way it’s placed too.
Can I Really Make Money Selling Photos?
One thing I have to hand to the people behind the Photopreneur blog is that they know how to create some eye-catching (and SEO friendly) post titles. I’d imagine that if they signed up for BlogRush, they could get a decent click-through rate.
Thankfully, there’s some interesting information behind those post titles too. Here are a few that captured my attention:
- Make 50 Times More for your Photos
- How To Earn $1,000 An Hour As A Photographer
- 11 Signs That Your Photo Is Going To Be A Big Seller
- 3 Steps For A Better Photography Portfolio
- Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Professional Photographer?
I would have liked to see more posts under the Featured Photo category, but sadly there are only two entries in there. The most recent dates all the way back to May 28, 2007. Given that this is a blog about making money selling your photos, a popular area would surely be samples of great pictures… wouldn’t it?
What About the Rest of the Site?
You’ll notice that the URI to the blog is blogs.photopreneur.com. The plural implies that there are multiple blogs(there’s just one, but there are multiple authors) and the sub-domain implies that there is a main part to Photopreneur to accompany the blog. I use a similar system for my own site where michaelkwan.com points to my freelance writing site, whereas btr.michaelkwan.com points to my blog, Beyond the Rhetoric.
Navigating to photopreneur.com, you find a very boring page with basically zero content.
It says that it’s supposed to be a marketplace portal, but the only links provided are to email the Photopreneur staff and to visit the blog. What’s up with that? Where’s the community that you’re promising?
Take Pictures, Make Money
The content is pretty solid at Photopreneur and I love the concept of blogging about making money selling photos. The blog layout is clean, but there is definitely room for improvement. I’m also curious about monetization, because the only advertising I see are bla.st cards. The blog has been live for about more than half a year; maybe it’s time to make some money by talking about making money with photography.
Find out what I am doing right now by following me on Twitter! If you like this post then please consider subscribing to my full feed RSS. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.
(5 votes, average: 3.2 out of 5)
Loading ...
Here's A Few More Related Posts
Hmm my cousin is a photographer, I’ll send her this link.. thx!
Photography is an easy money if you are known and can market your work well, I have sold and published several of photographs in the last a few years. I find it that publications and others search Flickr for a good shot and approach you to purchase it.
Freelance photography is not new. Glad to see another site out there pushing it forwards
I agree with Tyson that Flickr is a great place to showcase your portfolio. Offering your services in your local classifieds for weddings/special events is also a great way to pull in some extra income!
TIP: If you get a gig at at wedding don’t show up with a point and shoot camera
Flickr is great, but buyers searching there are not so common. Put them on microstock sites where all photos buyers are going these days and they can just buy the photos without having to contact you and negotiate. A good photo can earn you upwards of a dollar a month across a few agencies, so if you have a few hundred good photos you can make some good money.
Of course there are superstar images that earn hundreds of dollars a month, so if you’re good you can live from microstock alone, as many do.
Great review Michael.
I think you have some valid points and with some TLC Photopreneur could definitely be a great resource for every amateur photographer.
The blog is more popular that the website itself. Isn’t it more like “make money online by advertising your business trough a blog” ?
Perhaps so…
Indeed, but the website represents nothing itself… there is only the link inviting to visit their blog.
I must agree with You.
But after all, in this same blog (johnchow.com) you will find a post that it teaches about using the Blog as a presale page? Maybe thats the whole point of this review request?
According to their alexa ranking the site doesn’t have much traffic (probably 30-70 daily visitors with not more than 150 pageviews, I just presume) hence it would make not sense to open a empty marketplace. What I think the whole idea is great, and starting to build the community first in the blog and than make the grand opening to the marketplace.
I would like to think thats one of the reasons why the marketplace is not open yet, and another reason i would like to think is that they are working and testing the whole program before they launch (unlike BlogRush that keeps sending emails on shocking news
).
A pitty my dad doesn’t know english because he is appasaionate in photography since he was student (yeah, he has loads of albums which my mom would love to make sure they end up in the garbage).
Hope it succeeds for them.
Yeah, those BlogRush updates crack me up. I keep thinking, “why do they keep trying to sell me something?”, because the copy is so geared toward it.
You mentioned that it has a Alexa rating of nearly 500,000. But take a look now and it is below 400,000. Did it receive the John Chow effect? Not can’t this post is still new, no more than 5 people made comments.
But I have to admit that the home page of the website is supper boring. If I hadn’t read your review, I wouldn’t have even know what the site was about! Another service that pays you money to share photos is Shareapic.
Alexa means nothing. My blogs Alexa ranking in higher than my main website yet my website gets 1500% more traffic. Unless you are talking about a very broad interest website then Alexa stats can not be trusted.
Great review Michael.
I’ve been thinking about selling some of my photos online. It’s not that I think I’ll get rich doing it, but just to see if they’re purchase-worthy, I guess. At least now I have a couple more resources.
It is a fun way to get some extra cash
True. But it’s also very hard to earn anything on this, competition is big.
Yes, there’s a lot of competition, but your photos don’t have to be spectacular to earn you some money (though it helps). I have some pretty average photos and I post my earnings on my blog each month. You can see my online portfolios via my About page, so if your images are better quality than mine (highly likely - I’m a hobbyist) you’ll earn more than me (currently around US$500/month). Don’t hold yourself back because you think it’s difficult. It’s not!
now everybody can make extra money..
You could also do this with AGLOCO
Good luck! One question: when AGLOCO will start paying?
Try BlogSoc.com
How could you make as much with agloco as you could selling pictures. You’d have to have a heck of a lot of referrals.
Yep, another way to make that extra cash to buy your domain.
Yeah I noticed photopreneur.com rank 388,559
Alexa rank means nothing. You could get 388 if you had 5 people that have the toolbar and visit the site daily
You are right in a way but lets be serious here, you can’t really get 388 with only 5 people who have the Alexa Toolbar visiting daily. At least over 100 or 200.
Wanna bet ? I’ve seen it happen many times. Sites (mine) that had only one visitor (me) and 500k Alexa
I’m the only visitor to my site and my Alexa is 200K.
I’m hoping in the next two weeks it will break the 100,000 mark.
ops! how about this http://www.persetankan.com
it is malaysian photo blog but it is not for making money just for art
My first impression of that website wasn’t that good when I finished reading review, Michael, but eventually I clicked on the link and noticed about nice-looking design and fresh content… Anyway, I think I should consider purchasing new camera.
so sad i do not have my own digital camera, miss the chance~
Moral of the story, dont mess with John Chow!
Why is this the moral of the story? I don’t understand?
Life should be so simple. I suspect that I understand squaretan. I get the impression that the article is entirely tongue in cheek. I am not a photographer whose work can be marketed but my interest was aroused nevertheless - why not make a few bucks? I shall however look forward to squaretan’s response to michael.
It’s a new IDEA to make money online !!
–blog for dream–
[...] you ever heard about Photopreneur.com? I noticed it on JohnChow dot Com.Do you know that now we can make money not only from make reviews, sell links, and selling products [...]
Main point is that there are no good pics on the site at all.
The few that are there are so small you cant see them properly. Before preaching to people how to make money with their photos they might want to try doing it themselves first.
This reaks of all the ‘make money online’ blogs that dont make any money. It’s all guess work as they have no real experience in the field so can’t be an authority on the subject.
Nice Post Michael
They’re trying to boost their Alexa rank with that widget, they’re now at 388,000…still not worth showing off, lol. I also don’t like site hompage, its more like a bad landing page for a product that doesn’t exist. They could use some kind of CMS homepage like ProBlogger.
The site itself is an interesting idea, but do they have proof that they’re a “Photopreneur” or are they just talkin out of their ass?
I would rather have a blank page instead of a page that doesn’t properly work…I believe they are still in early stages of the marketing and they are still trying to build the audience. Anyway I am curious to see how things will be from now to a month of time.
The widget helps boost rank?
Yeah, it pretty much is a landing page, but it got the job done. The blog looks good imo.
David. Alexa rank widget on a page does not help boost Alexa rank.
It’s stated in Alexa’s FAQ page that only Alexa Toolbar or plugins such as Alexa’s Sparky (Firefox extension) contributes to rank boosting.
The widget is just a mere display of Alexa ranking.
The idea is great. photos is one of my hobbys! i think i can make a few dollars with my photos
Awesome design, clean, professional looking, don’t know what else to say. Perfect job!
I don’t have a creative photography bone in me.
I’m good at photography, but my camera kind of sucks. Maybe when I get an SLR.
LOL> good one.
Cool idea, cool domain, I hope they do well.
Good luck.