http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk 33
Creative Market
Creative Market is one of the lesser-known
options here and is primarily a website for
selling digital design downloads such as
graphics, fonts, design templates, Photoshop
Actions and much more, with photo
downloads and licensing being one of the
options. Physical print options are, however,
not available because the emphasis here is
digital downloads so it’s not as
comprehensive as other options covered here.
With this website, you create a store,
upload your images, set the prices and you’re
now selling your images online. Creative
Market then offers three licenses to buyers –
Personal Only, Commercial and Extended
Commercial with the ability for buyers to
contact Creative Market for additional
premium usage options. These licenses
provide a sliding scale of cost, with
Extended Commercial being the most
expensive if not counting premium usage
where prices aren’t listed.
The beauty of this site is that it takes care of
payments and sales tax for you, which can be
a headache when selling digital products to
EU countries because of the different rates of
VAT in member states. But since the website
is based in the United States, you need to fill
in a tax form to avoid paying unnecessary US
taxes if based outside of the country and this
can be done through the website itself. You
are, of course, still liable for income tax in the
UK and must declare your earnings as with all
of the options we’ve covered here.
Payments are available to be requested once
you’ve reached the minimum threshold of
$20, and payments are made on a set date
each month to your nominated PayPal
account. Use of Creative Market is free, but
each sale you make is subject to a 30%
commission that goes to the website and is
automatically deducted from your sales. This
can be offset against the amount you sell
your images for, but prices here are generally
lower than Picfair, for instance, so you
wouldn’t want to make your prices too high
to remain competitive.
Fine ArtAmerica
http://www.fineartamerica.com
Throwing something of a curveball into the
mix, Fine Art America is a website that’s
primarily aimed at selling a wide range of
physical products featuring your photos.
These range from traditional print options
such as canvases and framed prints, to
products such as bags and phone cases
featuring your images – the full range of
products is simply too large to list. Plus, you
can also license royalty-free and rights-
managed digital downloads of your images,
although the website is best known for its
print-based offerings.
Creating an account, uploading your
images and setting your profit on top of the
production costs of the products is quick and
easy, and with the free account you can
upload up to 25 images. The Premium
Membership only costs $30 per year and
provides unlimited uploads, the ability to sell
your Fine Art America products on your
website, provides a personal website if you
don’t have one and you can send up to
10,000 marketing emails at a time. It’s a small
price to pay for unlimited uploads and being
able to copy and paste code into your existing
website to sell products.
For physical products, Fine Art America has
16 manufacturing facilities in five countries
around the world, meaning your work is
accessible to the global market. When it
comes to digital downloads and licensing,
you can set any of your images to be sold this
way with the ability to sell royalty-free and
rights-managed digital downloads, as well as
being able to set up custom licenses for more
specific uses with time limitations. For
downloads, you set the price and Fine Art
America adds a 30% commission on top.
The website is also a little like Flickr in that
you can join groups, enter challenges and
comment on other photographers’ images. So
while it’s primarily a platform for selling
photography products, there’s also a vibrant
community that you can take part in.JargonbusterRights managed
In stock photography, this is a
licence that allows a single use
of an image as outlined by the
licence. The buyer can choose an
exclusive licence which means
additional licences won’t be sold
within a set timeframe, but this is
more expensive. Non-exclusive
means that further licences can
be sold.Royalty-free
Royalty-free images are anything
but free – the buyer still has to
pay for a licence to use, but
usage is much more open than
rights managed. With this
non-exclusive licence, that the
image can be used multiple
times for different uses for
the initial price that’s paid for
the licence.Commercial use
Commercial use refers to images
that are used to sell a product or
service. These images require
model and property releases,
while logos, brand names and
recognisable products should be
avoided when shooting because
these can be problematic and
could lead to lost sales or hours
of retouching.Editorial use
Images depicting people or
private property that don’t have
model releases can be used
editorially in magazines,
newspapers and textbooks etc.
to illustrate a story or idea, but
they can’t be used commercially
to sell a product or service, for
instance.Releases
For images depicting people or
private property, you must have a
model release or property
release for images to be used
commercially to sell a product or
service. Even if you photograph a
friend or family member with the
intention of using the images
commercially, you still need a
model release.