Selling Photos
This section will help you
make your photographs more attractive for potential buyers and
position them better in the search results.
To jump to a particular section, use links below:
Introduction
You have taken the absolutely outstanding shot. You are deciding
it's worth to be added to your KeenImages online albums, but if
you ignore some of the very basic principles of positioning your photo
properly, it may get lost amongst other photos, never attracting
anyone's attention.
When you are trying to sell your photos, you need to
understand all the possible ways of finding images hosted at our
website. After all, if your photos are not found, they are
definitely not viewed and not purchased. Additionally, you will need to
know which types of photos are in higher demand, and therefore can
sell better. Read all topics on this page and learn
how to improve visibility of your photos, and how to increase chances
of your images being sold.
Search Spy
Search Spy is the feature aimed to help
you understand what photo buyers look for. Our website logs search phrases
actual buyers use to find photos. By exploring the phrases logged by Search
Spy, you can get a better understanding about what the photo buyers'
needs are, as well as see the most popular search phrases.
License Types
There are two types of licenses photo buyers can get when buying photos, which depend on whether a photo will
be used commercially or in the editorial context. Both types are royalty-free, which means that a price is
paid for a photo, not the number of times it can be used.
Commercial use license allows photo buyers to use photos on the commercial basis, and the type of photos
usually sold under the terms of the commercial use license is generally called "stock photos". Stock photos
represent majority of photos on KeenImages, and can be used on the book cover, as a postcard, in the ad, as
part of the web site design, in the magazine, etc. Commercial use license does not explicitly prohibit any
use of photos for the editorial content, and you should assign your images for sale under terms of the
commercial use license whenever possible. Please remember that there are some restrictions to the subject of
photos that may prevent you from using this license type. For example, photos containing recognizable and
uniquely identifiable models or property cannot be sold for commercial use without release forms.
Additionally photos displaying brand names, logos, product names, and other copyrighted or trademarked
imagery cannot be sold for commercial use.
Editorial use license relaxes the restrictions mentioned above, but it also narrows the actual use of the
photos to editorial articles or similar material that can only be used in the editorial context.
Editorial use images are usually different from commercial stock images, they can be photos of celebrities,
politicians, newsworthy events, and many more, however please keep in mind that a photo offered for
editorial use should, first of all, make editors interested - it should be newsworthy.
Finally, marketing photos for editorial use can be quite different. Unlike traditional stock photos
that can be purchased any time and used as needed, a photo of a today's event may be valued by a newspaper
today, but not tomorrow (it is the most extreme case, and some news photos can be just as valuable for
many years after they were taken). When it comes to editorial content, it may be beneficial to make a
contact with your local news publications and use KeenImages to process payments and image delivery
for you.
Resolution
The more pixels your images have, the better quality can be achieved when printing
large sizes. Submitting smaller files having moderate pixel count is similar to saying
"My photo will only look good on the monitor screen, don't bother trying to
print it large", which means that you will be losing many of potential buyers
interested in large format printing. If you are serious about selling your work, submit
high-resolution files, preferably having at least 10 million pixels.
We strongly encourage all members to upload files in the highest resolution
possible, so that buyers are able to download high-resolution photos right
after payment. If you submit small or medium resolution files, and simply
mention that high-resolution files are available, you will greatly
reduce the likelihood or selling them.
Self-Promotion and Basic Marketing
The more people see your photo, the better chances it gets to end up
in a shopping cart. Keeping that in mind, building high visibility of
any particular photo or your albums is extremely important. Below are
just a few simple ways you can help yourself to get noticed:
-
Place a link to your photo (or all photos) to your personal
website or webpage, add it to your business card, to your
signature, post it on online photo discussion forums or newsgroups.
Navigate to your photo or your albums and note the URL where the
page resides - that is where you want people to go.
Format of the URL for a single photo:
http://www.keenimages.com/Photos-ViewPhoto.cfm?id=YOUR_PHOTO_ID
Format of the URL for all your albums and photos:
http://www.keenimages.com/Photos-BrowseUser.cfm?user_id=YOUR_USERNAME
or
http://YOUR_USERNAME.keenimages.com
We are providing several pre-made graphics and text links along with the HTML code
that you can copy & paste into your web pages. Click
here for the link examples and HTML code.
-
Already working with art directors, editors, or have other sources of selling photos? Let them
know of your photos at KeenImages. Let us handle marketing and billing for you, while
you do what you do best - photography.
Assigning Captions
Every photo at KeenImages has a caption. If you do not give
a caption to your photo, it will be shown as "Untitled".
You can have any number of "Untitled" photos,
but it practically ensures that no one will find them. Instead, give
your photos good descriptive captions. The more information you provide,
the easier it will be to find your photos.
Avoid "creative" captions that do not communicate subject of your images.
Assigning Categories
Categories help to organize photos in the logical sections.
Each photo can be assigned to one, two, or maximum three categories.
If you do not assign your photo to any category, it will be automatically
placed into "General" category. Why are these categories
important? Visitors and site members browse categories. Photo buyers
may shop by category. Getting your photos listed within the right
categories puts them in front of the right audience.
Be sure to keep the site well organized and list your images only within those
categories that directly apply to their subject.
Choosing Keywords
Keywords are there to give your photos one more way to be found
in searches. We allow up to 500 characters for keywords, which
should be plenty. Do not use any catchy phrases in the keyword
field, as people most likely will not search for them.
Below are some of the rules about keywords you may need to know:
- keywords should be separated by commas, everything between
commas is treated as a keyword or a key phrase;
- repeating the same keyword multiple times does not add
any more value to it, since our system automatically removes
duplicate keywords, keeping only one occurrence of it;
- try to put most relevant keywords in front of the list;
- there are no predefined keywords, you can use any words
that you believe describe the photo, and most likely could be
used by someone running the search;
- search engine understands plurals, so you can use
either "bird" or "birds" as the keyword.
Bad choice of keywords: "great shot of a bird,winter,bright sun"
Good choice of keywords: "gyrfalcon,falcon,tundra fauna,Northwest Territories bird,bird"
Setting Prices
KeenImages is employing a simple cost-per-pixel system where all images of
the same dimensions are sold for nearly the same price. When you add a new
image, you will be able to accept the default suggested price (based on the
count of pixels in your image), or assign your own price within the 10%
range above or below the suggested price. Ability to alter the default
price lets you vary the prices for most outstanding images and for the
more common ones, while the relatively narrow range of these adjustments
ensures that no price wars between contributors could create unhealthy competition.
The rate for one megapixel of a high resolution image is $21.00, which makes
a standard price for a 6 megapixel image $126 USD, and 12 megapixel image $252 USD
(for reference only, subject to change).
Every image will be made available in several sizes. The highest size is
the size of the original image you submit. After the price for the original
image (highest resolution available) has been assigned, the system will
automatically set prices for lower resolution versions so that the prices
are proportional to the image dimensions chosen by buyers.
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