Introduction
Exciting Opportunities at Your Doorstep

Will a Rolls-Royce be sitting in your driveway if you follow the principles set forth in this book? Maybe not. But then again, maybe two of them will. Or maybe a moped will. In other words, you’ll reach whatever goals you set for yourself. Success or failure in publishing your pictures is not determined by the wave of some mysterious wand out in the marketplace. If you have the know-how, you determine how far and how fast you go. This book will give you that know-how.

In more than forty years of selling photographs, I’ve refined a marketing system that works today better than ever, endorsed by scores of stock photographers who have learned the system in my seminars and through my market newsletters.

The components of the system are simple—but the process isn’t easy. It takes effort, energy and perhaps some unlearning of initial misconceptions. That’s all that’s required, and there are compensations.

LIVE ANYWHERE. No need to live in the canyons of Manhattan or downtown Chicago to be close to the markets. They’re as close as your computer or your mailbox. You can work entirely electronically, entirely at home, and still score in the wide world of markets open to you.

PICK YOUR HOURS. You can arrange your own schedule and enjoy the flexibility of being independent. You can work at your stock photography full-time or part-time.

BE YOUR OWN BOSS. Photo buyers don’t care whether you’re an amateur or a professional, a homemaker or a parachutist. They’re concerned about the quality of your picture and whether it meets their current needs.

TAKE PAID VACATIONS. You can pay for your trips through assignments you initiate or by judicious picture-taking and picture-placing, all described in my system.

EARN MORE MONEY. You will sell the same photo over and over again. You’ll choose from hundreds of good-paying markets you never knew existed, and you’ll enjoy working with them because they’re in your interest areas.

SEE YOUR PICTURES IN PRINT. You’ll be seeing your photographs in national circulation. Sometimes your picture will make a tangible social contribution, sometimes it’ll be business as usual. Regardless, it will all be deeply satisfying.

The System: Eight Elements

There are eight elements in my marketing system that I’ll explore with you in detail in the course of this book.

1. You market your photos electronically, and in some cases, by mail. No need to pound the pavement with a portfolio.
2. You distinguish between service photography and stock photography (photo illustration). The service photographer markets his services on schedules that meet the time requirements of ad agencies, businesses, wedding parties and portrait clients. The stock photographer takes and markets his pictures on his own timetable, selling primarily to books, magazines and publishing companies of all kinds all over the world. My marketing system addresses the stock photographer.
3. You distinguish between good pictures and good marketable pictures. The former are the excellent scenics, wildflowers, sunsets, silhouettes of birds in flight, scenic shots of the lake, and pet pictures. These are A-l pictures, but in spite of the fact that we see them everywhere in the marketplace (on greeting cards, record covers, posters, travel brochures, magazine ads), they’re terribly difficult (they can cost you money) to market yourself. I’ll tell you why later in the book. For regular income you sell good marketable pictures: photo illustrations. You continue to take pictures in your interest areas, but you learn how to turn a picture into a highly marketable shot for sale to book and magazine publishers.
4. You look like a professional with photo-identification methods, stationery, labels, packaging, cover and query letters, and your product.
5. You determine your PS/A—your Photographic Strength/Areas—and specialize. Knowing how to do this will give you invaluable insight and irresistible momentum. To my knowledge it is treated nowhere else in the photographic literature.
6. You focus on only a slice of the market pie. You specialize.
7. You determine your Market List, coordinated with your PS/A. You don’t sell your pictures before you understand how to market them. Selling happens naturally after you do your marketing homework. Once you develop a solid Market List, you cultivate the long-term “net worth” of each photo editor on your Market List.
8. You find the market first, then create for that market, not the reverse.

I have tried to present an honest overview. I am a working editorial stock photographer, and I also publish three photomarketing newsletters; my business deals with dozens of photo editors daily. As changes in online publishing and digital photography occur, I’m among the first to know.

My goal in this book is to give you the tools to be able to sell consistently to markets you enjoy working with. This book will help you tap these markets, and you’ll discover the real excitement, the genuine exhilaration, of the venturesome process of producing your pictures and sharing them through publication.

ONWARD. With today’s dramatic increase in the use of photography, and with the number of new markets and special-interest websites, books, CDs and new media, the challenges and satisfactions have never been greater. You can be part of them. The sky is the limit.

Addendum to the Reader:

The above introduction was written by Rohn Engh. As coauthor of this, the sixth and latest revision of Sell & Re-Sell Your Photos, I heartily concur with his wishes for you, the reader.

I’m an independent photographer and for more than three decades have been operating successfully based all over the world and since 1998 in Wilber, Nebraska, using Rohn’s marketing system. I sell to both U.S. and European markets. Over the years I’ve worked closely with Rohn on many projects and contributed to previous editions of Sell & Re-Sell Your Photos. More than a year ago Rohn and I began a major collaboration on this latest update. In the midst of our efforts Rohn’s unexpected death from a sudden pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome shocked and saddened all of us close to him. I took up the standard to complete our work, and you’re holding the result in your hands.

As Ann Guilfoyle, founder and director of AGPix and AGEditions, stated, “Rohn has had an enormous influence on the business of stock photography. Over his long career he did more than anyone to help pry open the doors for new photographers.”

I am privileged to bring you this latest rewrite and update of Rohn’s flagship book, Sell & Re-Sell Your Photos. It is a great pleasure to me, as it was for Rohn, over this long and gratifying course to be part of your photo-marketing adventures.

Mikael Karlsson

Arresting Images