How to earn money through Wildlife photography? How about some tips as well to maximize the earnings? Most never openly ask this question. But, Most have this question in their mind. Some even give an excuse like wildlife photography is my passion. I never want to monetize it. Oh! Common… With due respect to the passion which we all have, you are spending a lot on your Wildlife photography equipment and wild travel. Will you say no to get something back? Definitely I won’t… So why can’t we find an answer to it? So in this video I will talk about various options by which you can earn money through Wildlife Photography. I have also given tips to maximize the earnings as well.
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I. Selling Wildlife Photographs through Social Media
Selling Images Through Social Media
Investment $ – Nil (Unless you would like to spend on Paid Ads) I consider this as a good starting point to test yourself on the quality of your work and the willingness of people to pay a price for it. Having said that, you should at-least reach 50,000 people weekly on your social page (2,00,000 monthly). It doesn’t matter how many people have liked it but what matters is how engaged the people for. I sell my wildlife photographs through my social media pages and mostly through Facebook (80%) and Instagram (15%). I have a total of around 200K people connected on my social media pages & website but I get a reach of around 1Million+ monthly with a healthy engagement of 25-30% which is really good. I have given links to my social media pages down in the description of this video and I will also make a separate detailed video on how to create and maintain social media wildlife photography pages to get maximum engagement. Few Tips on this: Work towards engagement of people on your page by (1) posting only quality picture (the best of your work), (2) be engaged by responding back to people, (3) share your experience which may be of help to the visitors and (4) engage the fans by a poll, wildlife question, sharing facts about wildlife, wildlife competition, Few Tips on thiss on wildlife photography etc., Organic way of increasing your fan base is the best way to have a good engagement on your page and exit rate will be very less! But, if you want to see more people in quick time on your page, please go ahead and promote your page through paid Ads. There is nothing wrong in paid ads. Keep in mind, engagement is the key.
II. Selling Wildlife Photographs on Online Photography Market Places
Selling Wildlife Photographs on Online Photography Market Places
Investment $ – Nil (Unless you would like to spend on Paid Ads) There are hundreds of market places where you can sell your wildlife photographs; I’m going to categorize the wildlife photography marketplaces – you can sell wildlife stock images and wildlife prints. There are two main categories: Micro stock photos and Macro stock photos. Micro stock sites sells picture with a non exclusive rights to mulFew Tips on thisle customers (buyers) and Macro stock sells pictures with exclusive rights to the buyers. As a ball park number, each wildlife micro stock photo will earn you around 40 to 60 paise per download and on an average a good image can earn you easily INR 40,000 to INR 60,000 through out it’s life cycle. Wildlife prints and macro stock wildlife photos will sell from a starting fee of around INR 15k and in that the market place fee would vary between 20% to 60% depending on the platform. Few sites are the best in the market as on date: 500px, Getty images, Alamy, Shutterstock, SmugMug Pro and iStockPhoto. I do sell through affiliates in all these platforms and many more. Few Tips on this: The best way to choose the right site for selling is by analyzing their web presence and google ranking. Have a unique style for yourself and only by that you can sell in these platforms. See lot of published images in magazines picked up from these platforms and that would give you an idea as well.
III. Tour Leader in Wildlife Photography Tours
Tour Leader in Wildlife Photography Tours
Investment $ – Nil Another way to enjoy wildlife, teach wildlife photography as well as earn some money is to be a Wildlife Photography tour leader. For this, you have to tie up with a wildlife tour agency who is ready to partner with you. Before you do this, you should have earned a good name in the photographic community; this would be the only value proposition which would motivate an agency to partner with you.
IV. Teach and Coach Wildlife Photography
Teach & Coach in Wildlife Photography
Investment $ – INR 50K (One time cost) and INR 10K per Wildlife Photography Workshop You can start teaching wildlife photography to the Beginners. This may need an initial investment on preparing materials and equipment for training. While conducting the workshop, you may spend around INR 500-700 per person for the place and other workshop needs. Few Tips on this: Master the skills of wildlife photography before you share your knowledge and thereby, people would really love to participate on your workshops. More importantly, be transparent to share the knowledge & key nuances such that it would help the people grow in wildlife photography.
V. Run Wildlife Photography Tours
Run Wildlife Photography Tours
Investment $ – INR 200K (One-time cost for Infra set up) Wildlife Tour operators easily make a margin of 30% and above. Sounds like an easy go but wildlife photography tours are really crowded with very stiff competition. So, you need to have good contacts and a sound marketing skill or a team to get this going. You can also operate as Premium tours or as Budget tours. Even now, we can see Wildlife tours which are priced alarmingly high and you can use this as an opportunity to penetrate market by giving a good value proposition to wildlife travellers. Few Tips on this: Run reliable tours at a Right price and all-inclusive deals (Stay, Food, Safari, Rental etc), I’m sure it will be a Winner! Keep an engaged Naturalist who is the key to a successful tour.
VI. Wildlife Photography Exhibitions
Wildlife Photography Exhibitions
Investment $ – INR 200K This is actually the best way to project your work but there is a callout – make sure your wildlife photography is unique to make the buyers interested in your wildlife photos. You should also need to market your event to get footfalls. The initial effort / investment is high and will give you return only if your wildlife photography is really special. So, I suggest that you should do this only after years of wildlife photography. Few Tips on this: You need to master the post processing skill to take good quality prints. Please keep in mind, the post processing for Instagram / Facebook and for printing are quite different. I will share a series of post processing workflow and step by step explanation in the coming days.
VII. Selling through Your Own Website
Selling images through Your Own Website
Investment $ – INR 100K The risk involved is extremely high if you are hoping to earn through your website. The initial investment needed to drive traffic is high as well. Content is the key (either through your unique photographs or through wildlife photography articles) and it takes a Himalayan effort to get this done. If you have the patience and capital, this route would be a great bet in the longer run. Recent past, I’m doing a lot of sales through my website. I will make a separate video on how to build and maintain a wildlife photography website.
VIII. Print of Demand Wildlife Merchandize
Print on Demand Wildlife Merchandize
Investment $ – INR 500K You can start your own POD business at an initial investment of INR 500k. The hot sellers are mugs and T-Shirts. Then, you can scale up as an aggregator as well. If you can’t invest that amount of money, you can piggyback on an existing Print on Demand business and start selling merchandize using your wildlife images. You can earn up-to INR 50-100 in each sale of merchandize and selling around 1000-5000 merchandize in a month is easily achievable if your work is good.
IX: Selling Post Processing Presets
Wildlife Post Processing Presets
Investment $ – Nil You can start selling presets of post processing software. Though, I will not recommend Presets if you want to excel as a wildlife photographer, Lightroom presets are a hot selling cake. But you need a unique style of processing with a good set of followers for the same. The famous marketing way is showing Before Vs After image and keep the viewers interested to make a sale. There are various platforms including your own social media handles and website in which you can sell presets.
X. Wildlife Photography Editor | Brand Ambassador | Wildlife Photographer in Nat Geo / BBC
Wildlife Photography Editor Brand Ambassador Wildlife Photographer in Nat Geo BBC
Investment $ – Nil This is a real Cherry on the cake and every wildlife photographer’s Dream. The Investment may seem Nil but the amount of effort, dedication and perseverance needed to reach this far is so high. So, to reach here you would be doing a mix of all the things explained above and spend as well. In addition, You have to invest at-least a decade on wildlife photography and contribute well to the Wildlife conservation and related activities. Few Tips on this: Be active and Participate in Photography Forums. I suggest few forums which are recognized at International level – National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, Sanctuary Asia and Nature in Focus. I am sure you got a good understanding now. Using these options, a wildlife photographer can easily earn between INR 100K to 500K per month. But, building your way towards achieving this needs a lot of dedication and focus. All the best! Feel free to comment below if you have any further clarifications on this or if you want to know more on any of these options. I would be glad to share more information on it. Happy clicking and have an awesome Wildlife Photography journey!
