Royalty free images have uses beyond blogs, websites, brochures, and magazines. Did you know you can make your own product from a royalty free image, and sell it for your own profit? In this article I will show you an easy way to make money using royalty free images.
Making your own greeting card, calendar, t-shirt, coffee mug, etc., has never been easier. There are literally hundreds of online options which can allow you to create your own product in just a few minutes, and even help you set up your own store front. No programming skills necessary!
Some of the best known are Zazzle and Cafepress, but many smaller alternatives do just as good a job and offer higher sales commissions. Check around and you may find that your friendly local printer provides the same services.
Choose the Right Image
All you need is an idea, and the right image. When I create products from images, I like to find abstract and humorous royalty free pictures. But that’s just me. If you have a dark idea which you think is cool, go for it. Just remember that cute sells!
Once we find the right image, the next thing we need to do is make sure we purchase the right license. In order to put an image on a product, we need to purchase an “Extended License.” This costs more than a standard license, but we get the image in its full native resolution and have far more rights related to how we can use the image.
If we create a great product, we should be able to make many times the cost of the license.
Let’s Make Some Money!
Now that we have our cool image, all we have to do is upload it to the website we are using to make our products. This is super simple at Cafepress and Zazzle. A few clicks, and our image is placed on the product just the way we want it. A few more clicks and we can set our selling price, and get the product out there to the public.
Isn’t the power of the internet amazing? Twenty years ago, it would have taken months to put together our own products. Chances are we would have quit before we got started. Now we can get the job done in 5 minutes, and see sales the same evening.
When you use one of our images for a project, don’t hesitate to contact us if you ever have a question about which license you need.
Dan Padavona, Warmpicture.com
