Between the years of 2009 and 2012, there was always a DSLR camera in my bag. I was constantly looking for colorful and interesting things to photograph while walking around in nature. I love nature as a photography subject because unlike people, nature doesn’t have opinions. Nature doesn’t ask you to retake it 15 times because of its “double chin”. Nature doesn’t say “oh you can just photoshop that truck out of the background and turn it into a beach, right?”
In 2010, I started selling prints of some of my work on Etsy. I still sell some photography because it’s all passive income at this point, but my focus is mostly on creating graphic designs for my other digital and print-on-demand brands.
If you’re a photographer looking for ways to make money online, this post will go over my experience selling photography on Etsy, what I learned about the process, and my best tips for anyone looking to try it out for themselves.
(This post contains affiliate links)
Selling Physical vs. Digital Photography on Etsy
My resistance to selling digital downloads is hands-down the decision that cost me the most money. When I first started selling photography in 2010, Etsy didn’t allow digital product sales so my only option was to print and mail them to my customers. I printed some smaller sizes at home but wanted to offer a larger size variety than what my home printer could create, so I searched for a quality online printer and discovered MPix. Not only do they print gorgeous quality prints in a variety of finishes, but they also provide a dropshipping service where you can order the print once a sale is made and have it shipped directly to your customer at no extra charge. I immediately switched to exclusively using MPix because it made the process as hands-off for me as possible.
I made a handful of print sales a month on Etsy, but nothing close to the “quit your job” number of sales I was hoping to make. At some point during the time I was doing this, Etsy started allowing the sale of digital products. I would get the occasional message from someone who wanted to buy the digital file so they could use print their own artwork at home or even use it for something like a book cover, but I was afraid to sell people the original files to my work. It didn’t help that I was reading a lot of photography forums at the time, and anytime someone would ask about selling digital, the response was generally something like “I would never do that, they’d have to pay me $10,000 for original files of my work.” It was mostly a guy who sold pictures of airplanes who took his work very seriously and for whatever reason I felt that I needed to listen to him. So every time someone asked, I dismissed the idea outright because that’s what airplane guy told me to do.
It wasn’t until 2016 that I realized how ridiculous I was being. By this point, I was a freelance writer and all I wanted was more passive income. The print shop was pretty passive since I didn’t have to print or mail anything myself, but it only made a few sales a month. The idea of selling digital products where I didn’t have to do anything was tempting, not to mention people were already asking about buying digitals so I knew there was a demand out there. I was leaving money on the table and turning a lot of people away who were willing to give me money for an even lower maintenance transaction than what I was offering. I had a come to Jesus moment with myself that basically went like this:
“Listen. Do you honestly feel that attached to a picture of bikes that you took in 2011? Do you still feel so territorial that you’ll leave money on the table just to avoid the (virtually nonexistent) risk of someone printing and selling it themselves? No? OK then, it’s time to get off your high horse and try digital products.”
The bike picture in question. Never forget my obsession with cross-process vintage effects at the time. This was taken in Venice Beach, CA in 2011. There was a guy behind me holding a sign that said “smile if you masturbate”.
I opened a separate shop and listed every photo I’d ever tried to sell in my print shop as a $5-$8 digital download. I even listed the photos I stopped selling because I thought they were “bad” just to see what happened. Within the next 3 months, I was making considerably more digital sales than print sales, so this told me my focus needed to be on the digital side rather than the print side.
There is no right or wrong answer as to whether you should sell physical or digital prints. It’s entirely up to you, what you’re comfortable with as far as selling your files, and how passive you want your store to be. In my experience, you’ll make more money if you just let people buy the files. If you want to sell prints without printing them at home, I recommend MPix over other dropshipping and POD suppliers because they specialize in photography.
Use Diverse and Descriptive Keywords
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of keywords and search engine optimization (SEO) for any Etsy shop, but especially for a photography shop because there is so much competition out there. When I started listing my landscapes and nature photos for sale, I quickly realized that people weren’t necessarily finding my products because they saw it and thought “that’s cute.” They were finding them because of the location where I took the photo or because they were looking for a specific type of stock image for a product they were creating.
Take this photo of the Huntington Beach Pier for example:
Most of my sales and views on this image were because people specifically wanted a picture of the Huntington Beach Pier. Maybe it’s their hometown, or maybe they got engaged at this spot and it’s a highly memorable place. Regardless, it’s important for visibility to use as many relevant and diverse keywords in your titles, tags, and descriptions as possible.
I also made a lot of food and still life photography because much like nature, food doesn’t have opinions.
I had a whole line of black and white coffee photographs like this one, and I used my titles, tags, and descriptions to attract customers with keywords like “coffee wall art” “coffee shop decor” “restaurant art” “black and white photography” “food photography” and “coffee bean art”.
Put yourself in the position of the type of person who might buy your image. Who would hang this in their house? What kind of business would be looking for a photo like yours to hang in their office or seating area? Would it make a great housewarming gift? Using a variety of keywords like these will help bring in traffic from all directions.
Want to learn more about Etsy SEO? Check out my full blog post about how Etsy SEO works here.
Write Detailed Product Descriptions
Your Etsy description helps with SEO and is also where you can outline the copyright rules of what can be done with your digital products. Many sellers do not allow commercial use of their digital files, so if you only want them used for printing personal artwork, make sure you specify that files cannot be used commercially or resold in any form. You can also offer the option to buy a commercial license for an extra fee if you have lots of customers who are asking about it.
Your title and description are also where you’ll “cover your ass” in the event that someone thinks they’re buying what’s pictured in the image rather than the actual image. For example, someone thought they were buying the sprinkles for this listing and not a picture:
Thankfully my title had the words “digital photography” and “printable wall art” and my description literally said it’s a printable food photography image perfect for an ice cream shop or bakery (those keywords also helped my search results significantly) and that no physical item would be shipped to the customer. Unfortunately, some customers just… don’t read and there’s not much you can do to prevent that reality.
Display Your Products in Picture Frame Mockups
You can create a display image for your photography using digital frame mockups. If you’re a good designer you can create them yourself in Illustrator or another design program, or you can save time and buy mockups made by someone else (while supporting another digital seller). This also helps people better understand that they are buying a photo, not a product, which could have prevented the sprinkle situation mentioned above.
Here are some of my favorite places to find or buy mockups:
Canva
I use Canva Pro to create a lot of graphics for my business. Their stock photo selection includes picture frame mockups in a variety of styles and sizes that you can format to your needs.
Etsy
Search “frame mockups” on Etsy and thousands of results will come up from other digital sellers.
Creative Fabrica
Creative Fabrica is another great place to find mockups and digital elements of all kinds. If you do any sort of digital design work where you need mockups or graphics, I highly recommend their unlimited monthly subscription.
PlaceIt.Net
I mostly use PlaceIt for apparel mockups for my print-on-demand products, but they have a lot of great picture frame and poster options as well.
Watermark Your Display Images
The best way to prevent people from stealing the image from your listing is by watermarking your display images. I also recommend putting your store name or logo somewhere on the image so that if it gets shared without a link, people know where to find the original for sale. It really sucks to have a picture of your product shared in a Facebook group of hundreds of thousands of people with no link or reference to where they can purchase it. Doing this ensures they will know where to go and you won’t miss the sales opportunity. Using a mockup and watermark also makes it difficult for anyone to screenshot and save the file to print themselves because it’s small and low print quality.
I hope this helps you sell your photography on Etsy with clarity and confidence! Ready to open your shop? Use my referral link and your first 40 listings are free.
Feel free to leave any questions you have in the comments and make sure to check out my other online business posts:
How to Sell Digital Products on Etsy
20 Types of Digital Products You Can Sell on Etsy
Massively helpful, thank you! I have tons of nature photography stored in LR and now I want to do an Etsy dump. I never thought of selling my own photography 🙌🏼
You definitely should! That’s what I did, dumped them all into a digital shop to see how it went. If they’re sitting on your computer they might as well be sitting for sale somewhere too 🙂
Does it have to be taken with a DSLR camera or can it simply be with a phone? Also, how do you do a watermark?
Thanks so much!
You can use any camera as long as it produces files that are high-quality enough for printing. Phone cameras are great now, although I tend to use my DSLR when creating something with the intention to sell.
You can do a watermark in PicMonkey, add some text to your design (like the name of your store) and turn it transparent to get the desired effect.
This is a wonderful guide. I used it to start my Etsy shop. Thank you!
Do you worry about copyrighting your photos? Or is listing your shop name or your name enough to label it as yours?
I’ve never officially registered a copyright or anything, but I try to prevent people from stealing by using watermarks and creating listing mockups that do not include a high enough resolution photo for anyone to steal (the photo displayed in a frame works well for this). Unfortunately theft can be an inevitable part of selling online, but these are ways you can make it more difficult for people to do anything useful with your images.
Very useful, informative article. Provides great inspiration for those that wish/want to turn years of Photographic images into currency. Thank you so much for sharing.
Theo [Cape Town – South Africa]
Thank you! This by far has been the most helpful and simplistic article that I’ve found.
There is an enormous amount of useless information out there!