It’s a strange thing; I joined my local photographic club about six months ago in order to get away from work… but I ended up uncovering yet another cracking business opportunity!

For as much as I love researching and writing about business strategies, it can become all consuming. Hours, which seem like minutes, fly by as I sit in front of my computer… and sometimes you can feel that life is passing you by.

One of the downsides of being self-employed and working from home, is that it’s easy to become disconnected from the hurly-burly of the everyday working world.

You don’t have a chance to catch up on the latest gossip with work colleagues during work breaks, or even a chance to moan about your boss… because, when you’re self-employed, you are the boss!

Sure, there are plenty of benefits when working from a home office, such as planning your own working hours, less commuting and not having to answer to an uncaring employer. But for self-employment to really work, you need to get the work/life balance right.

And that’s exactly why I joined my local photo club – to have the chance to meet new people and to expand my horizons.

Happily I achieved this, but in the process I also discovered this wonderful little money-making opportunity.

This opportunity involves taking photos for pleasure and then putting them up for sale. And once accepted, by one of more of the photo websites I am about to describe, your pictures will be available for sale to customers all around the world, 24 hours a day.

Your images can sell whilst you are at work, or when asleep, and you don’t have to lift a finger to help it all happen… These photo websites take care of everything for you, and then pay you on a regular basis, directly into your bank account.

These photographic sites are called ‘Royalty-Free Stock Photo’ websites…

Effectively, what happens is that a customer who likes one of your photographic images, will pay you an agreed fee – collected by the website – in order to acquire the rights (from you) to use your photo for whatever personal or commercial project which they have in mind.

It’s true to say that I have been aware of these royalty-free stock photo websites for some time, but it wasn’t until I joined my local photo club that I was reminded of exactly how this whole process works – mainly because the steps are very similar to those I take to submit my personal photographs for our club’s digital photo competitions.

Let me assure you at this point that I am not a really professional photographer; in fact I am just a very keen ‘snapper’, but it’s a hobby which has been made even easier with the advent of mobile phones with built-in cameras capable of taking really high-resolution images.

No matter what type of pictures you like to take, be it landscape, buildings, animal or human interest – the list is endless – there will be a category within the major stock photo sites, keen to host and sell your images.

There are lots of stock photo companies to choose from (I’ll let you search for the others), but meanwhile, I want to give you a few of the requirements and rewards stated by my favourite stock photo company – Fotolia: http://en.fotolia.com

By uploading your files to Fotolia, you are presenting your work to millions of image buyers around the world, 24/7. There are no registration or portfolio management fees, and you have the potential to earn thousands of dollars every month.

Selling creative files on Fotolia requires strict adherence to Fotolia’s terms and conditions:

• You must be at least 18 years old.
• You must be the author of all the files you upload.
• You must own, or have authorization for all the rights to the elements represented in your files (products, people, property, etc).
• Image must be in JPEG format.
• Image resolution must not be less than 2400 x 1600 (4 Million pixels).
• Files must be less than 30 megabytes.
• For every file sold, you will receive a royalty payout based on your portfolio exclusivity and ranking:
• From 20% to 63% for content sold via single-image download.
• From 0.25 Credits to 0.40 Credits for content sold via Subscription download.
• Sales from Fotolia resellers via re-licensing will be granted the same royalty payout for single-image or subscription downloads.

Before I close this week’s newsletter, I wanted to let you know that I have just uploaded a brand new business blueprint to my Profit Box website, entitled: How to Profit from DVD and Blu-Ray SteelBooks – I think you’ll love it! Click here for more details.

I’ll speak to you again next week.

Richard.