How To: Make Passive
Income with Photography
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| Throwing out the Net - My best selling micro-stock photo. |
Ok, so your first question
is probably "What is passive income?" Good question. Let's turn to
our resident economist, businessman, and co-author, James Furlo.
- James, what is passive income?
"Passive income is
income you receive on a regular basis with little effort to maintain it. This
income comes from owning assets - assets where others are willing to pay for
the privilege to use it."
- What's so great about
that?
"Passive income is
awesome! The cool part, for me anyways, is that the income you earn is not
directly tied to the amount of time you contribute (trading time for money).
Instead, it's tied to making smart buying choices ,or you can build an asset,
like a picture with photography. The key idea: you own an asset and people pay
you to use it. You get to keep the asset and sell its use over and over with,
hopefully, little effort to maintain it."
"So, besides the
obvious 'earn more money for a similar effort,' what is the root benefit of
passive income? The popular term is 'Time Freedom,' but I like to think of
it even more fundamentally: 'Choice'."
- Don't you need a
Delorean for "Time Freedom"? What is it?
"When you have
passive income, you have the ability to make choices on how to spend your time
and energy because you don't need to earn money. You'll have the magical
feeling in life called 'stability'."
- Hmm.. stability... won't a Manfrotto
carbon fiber tripod with ball head cover that? How does that affect me as a
photographer?
"In the context of
photography, this means you can say NO to gigs you're not interested in. You
can afford to SPECIALIZE because you don't need to take every job.
Instead, you can make friends by referring people to other specialists. They,
in turn, return the favor, and you get to charge more because you've
specialized and honed your craft. Choice means you don't NEED to do something
for money. You can find contentment knowing you made the choice to do what
it is you're doing at that moment. Here's a cool side effect: chances are
you'll actually do a better job knowing you have made the conscious choice
to be there instead of being forced to do something else in order to pay
your rent that month. That's powerful!"
- So, ongoing income with little to no effort,
sounds too good to be true? As a non-photographer, what does that look like for
you?
"Classic examples of assets that
produce passive income are dividend paying stocks and investment property. For
me, this is true in the form of a duplex. In order to buy the duplex, my wife
& I had to save our money. That meant no fancy vacations, no new cars,
little eating out. We sacrificed. When we finally bought it, we put in many
hours of work and more money. We gave up our evenings and weekends for 1 month.
Again, we sacrificed. Though, let's be honest, it was only a month and it was
time spent hanging out with my wife - tough life. :-) Now we have a place to
live on one side and we get rent payments out of the other."
"We are just about ready to celebrate owning
it for 3 years. Care to guess how much time we've put into maintaining it? 3
months worth of evenings and weekends. TOTAL. That's my definition of 'little
effort on my part to maintain it'."
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| Parakeet on a Branch - Another good seller. |
So, How Do I Make Passive Income as a
Photographer
If you are anything like me, you have tens
of thousands of images sitting in external storage devices that never see the
light of day. Here is your chance to put this massive portfolio of images to
work. Sell them.
The easiest way to get started in this is
micro-stock. Agencies like iStockphoto and Shutterstock connect you the
photographer with clients looking for images. Before you know it, that amazing turtle
shot is on a party invitation. Last year's beach shot that you forgot about is
now on a travel website. And the best part? You get paid. Every time your
background photo of a field of daisies gets downloaded, you get paid! Every
time! All you did was upload the image once. There is your passive income.
But, like I said, this is a great way to
start. It takes a while to generate a steady stream of income. You must put in
the upfront time of uploading images. However, the cost/benefit scale is in
your favor. Once your portfolio reaches critical mass, there is the distinct
possibility of seeing a great return. Besides, it gets you have a huge
portfolio just waiting for something like this. You can also continue to build
over time.
There is a vetting process when you first
sign up. This is to make sure that you actually know how to shoot - which should
be easy for you to pass. They will ask you to upload several images, review them,
then let you know if the images are the type and quality they are looking for. Be sure to check the requirements for the agency you choose, and have your model releases ready.
So, there it is. Go get that passive
income. And have fun with it.
Try microstock? How is going? Let me know
in the comments. Got other ways to earn passive income as a photographer? Would
love to hear them. Put it in the comments.
James Furlo is a market analyst, Oregon
property investor/manager and wannabe pizza connoisseur. He also has a keen
interest in technology. If you want to learn more about investment property,
DIY home projects, theories on investing in index funds, or his dog Vinnie, you
can follow him on Twitter, read
his blog, and learn even more at JamesFurlo.com.
Brad Kehr is photographer specializing in events, portraits, and landscape. As a recent Georgetown Law graduate he enjoys exploring DC with his new found free time and sharing what he finds through pictures. You can follow him on Instagram at @bradkehrphoto, catch his website at www.bradkehrphotography.com, catch him on Twitter, or find him on Facebook.
