Making Money Thru Micro Stock Photography, The Second Income Stream While You Improve Your Photo Quality

So you submitted all your best photos to each microstock site for them to be reviewed. So what happens if they are rejected? What happens if only one of two sites only approve your photos? So what do you do when you are only a novice photographer starting out? You do not have the right equipment to start out with. (That was my problem) I going to tell you how to make a second income stream through affilaite marketing, while you save up for that digital SRL!

Start Out With Micro Stock Affilate Marketing
I feel your pain! I going through it right now. I have the photography skills, but I do not have the right equipment. All I have right now for a digital cam is a cobra DC8500 and it has a f stop range of 5.8-17.4mm. Not good at all for the close up details or far off clarity. Now that I am in a catch 22, I tried several different methods of breaking it:

Borrowing the camera from my mother: She does not have a digital SRL.

Borrowing one from a neighbor:No one is going to lead me that!! DUH!!

Saving up money to buy one-Have to wait on Income Taxes for that to happen!!

Ok not all is in vain. I have manage to break the cycle by signing up for Photo Stock Affiliate Marketing Programs.

Affiliate Marketing Programs?
Yes affiliate marketing programs, they do wonders for you if you work hard and post as many sites as you can (Your blog, your website, and they even have email templates you can send to people! Wow!)

What are you are doing is your referring potential photographers and/or buyers to different micro stock websites. When you sign up for them, you give your an unique affiliate id. If that person is interested, and clicks on your link to the website under your id, you will get a percentage of commission every time that particular photographer sells a photo or if that buyer buys a photo package.
Professional photographers do it all the time, and this is what is call their downtime income, and it is almost 50% of a photographer's income in some cases.

Signing up for micro stock photography affiliate program are easy. Usually they are at the bottom on the web page under "affiliate" or referral programs". When you sign under a referral program, you will get a URL locator address of their website and an id number like this:

For Example:
http://www.123rf.com/src/gtaylor0406/profile_gtaylor0406. (They are not usually this long!)

Why do agencies use referral programs? It increases sales for agencies. If you want to have a long duration of income, it is your best bet to refer a photographer. They will be your best sources of making affilate income for a long time. Buyers can just stop buying after the first package!

A good referral program is one that pays for a long time. If the referral program only lasts for a couple of months, you can forget it.

Referral Programs to get started with:

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/Shuttershock

(20% Designer/Buyer-only 1 sale)
(10% Seller-permanent)

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/Fotolia

(15% Designer/Buyer-5 years)
(10% Photographer/Seller-5 years)

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/Dreamstime

(10% Designer/Buyer-3 years)
(10% Photographer/Seller-3 years)

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/123-RF

(15% Designer/Buyer-1 year)
(10% Photographer/Seller-6 months)

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/Luckey-Oliver

(5.00 for first sellers Buyers none for the first sale)

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/Big-Stock-Photo

(35% for Designer/Seller
($5.00 for 15 approved photos-Photographers)
(Duration for 60 days, but is really worth it)

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/CanstockPhoto

(10% Designers/Buyers-6 months)
($15.00 for every photo sold/Sellers-6 months)

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/Albumo

(10% Designers/Buyers-1 year)
(10% Photographers-1 year)

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/fotomind

(25% photographers-permanent)

Here is some other sites that have referral programs, but I really have not been with them long enough to have any real results.

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/Istock
I Stock Photo

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/new-dark-room
New Darkroom

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/Photostock-Plus
Photo Stock Plus

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/Stockxpert
Stockxpert

http://viralurl.com/Gina-Taylor/Zymmetrical
Zymmetrical

Cookies and Testing Links

Be sure to test your links to make sure that they are working properly! You never know when the referral id will break. Cookies are small pieces of information stored on a computer that is used by a website to hold data. The longer a cookie is active, the more time a buyer or photographer has to take your advice and sign up with the agency. Cookies usually expire around 2-3 months.

You can install FireFox to test your referral links.

To do this( Drum Roll Please)

1)Install Fire Fox
2)Use fire fox to track down a plugin called
"Live Headers" Live headers will give you a look
of what is going on behind your web page.
Go to http://liveheaders.mozdev.org/installation.html

3) Open Fire Fox, go to the website/blog where your
referral link is active.
4) Open Live Headers in the tools menu and move the
window to the side.
5) Click the banner or the other link and wait for
the agency page to load.
6) Alot of information in the Live Headers window
will come up, but what you want to look for
is a line that starts with "Sets cookie and has
your referral code in it.

And there you go!

Where to look for referrals, well hook as many affilates to your My space pages, Hi five pages,
etc. etc.
If you have photographer friends, use some of the email templates that each micro stock site has. Send them out to any photographer rings you maybe a member of. Be creative! The possibilities are endless.

If you have any questions regarding this lens,
feel free to email me at eternaldimensions@gmail.com.

Please feel free to visit my other sites:
http://eternaldimensions1976.wordpress.com/


or my poetry at Helium:
http://www.helium.com/tm/758510/frozen-dragons-beneath-brimstone

Thank you for your support!