In a world where every dollar is important, making some extra money every month is highly desirable. A concept that is quickly spreading is photo-selling or, in other words, selling your pictures on stock photos websites, for a commission.

The concept this kind of programs work on is not so hard to understand. Regular people who are interested in photography and have a digital camera choose to submit their photos to huge directories. Other people, site owners, magazines or designers, who are looking for original pictures, browse through these databases, choose the photo(s) they like and pay for it.

When someone buys one of your photos, you get a commission of about 60% -- 80%, depending on the website you choose to work with.

Usually, the price such photos are sold for varies between $1 and $10, but can drastically increase, depending on the buyer, the quality and uniqueness of the photo and the website you work with.

Getting a commission of $2 -- $3 per photo may not seem that much, but imagine what you could earn if you upload 20 -- 30 photos a day. I am actually drawing a full time income by taking photos and selling them and I can honestly admit it is one of those "dream jobs" people talk about.

A great part of this job is that you can work from whatever place you go to. Last year, for instance, I went on a trip to Thailand, and the next 2 months I broke the $5000 per month mark, simply because photos from Thailand are quite rare. And all I did was to take photos of the places I visited, as every tourist does. Well, kind of...

What you will get to understand when entering this "business" is that not every photo sells and you cannot simply upload a photo a day and expect the money to roll in. As I said, submitting 20 -- 30 good photos a day can really have an impact on your earnings, and can get you in touch with private buyers that are willing to pay you for photographing specific places (just a couple of weeks ago I got $120 for taking pictures of a house a realtor wanted to sell -- $120 for a hour's work, not so bad).




When it comes to complete beginners trying to make money selling photos online (maybe you can identify), I can mention my friend Jessica and her quest to making $3000 per month. She started a few months ago and already managed to make a little more than $2000 a month, so her journey is coming to an end. At Sell Your Photos, you can find a report of her progress and learn a lot from her experience. Make sure you check it out!

Gilbert Robinson is a professional photographer making a living out of his passion.