It is now easier than ever to sell your pictures online, regardless of whether you are a professional photographer, or an everyday person armed with your camera-phone. In fact, the latter is increasingly desirable in the fast-paced, wait-for-no-man world of news content.
Citizen journalists have already set about redefining how news is published, and where it is sourced from. Just as traditional journalism has slipped from the hands of an elite few, and into the hands of the many, thanks to the empowering, networked nature of the Internet, now the same is happening in the world of news photography.

The news industry has an insatiable appetite for fresh material, and if you happen to snap an exclusive image using your mobile phone's camera, it could well earn you a tidy profit. News agencies, publishers and broadcasters are all tapping into the power the millions of people out there on the scene, armed with their ultra-mobile camera-phones. Their pictures are often rare gems which no amount of pro-photographers or press crews could have gotten by being sent on the news spot after the fact.

Dispatching a photographer to the scene takes time, and in the world of news, immediacy and getting an exclusive scoop are everything. If there are already people right where you need them, taking snaps of celebrities, disasters, freak weather and police car chases, it makes sense to use what they have to offer.

But how do news publishers track these citizen journalists down, and how do the citizen journalists themselves monetize their exclusive photographs?

How can you sell your photos online without having to reach out and contact all of your local major media outlets?

A range of online services offer solutions to this problem, and in this mini-guide, I talk you through the features that each has to offer. To find out how also you can start making money by selling your photos online while using only your mobile camera phone and some street smarts.

Buyer-Seller Relationship: Buyers can either browse the Citizen Image database, or else directly request images via the assignment board. In both cases, Citizen Image serves as an intermediary between buyer and seller.

Image gallery: Images can be searched directly from the Citizen Image frontpage, and random, categorized images can be displayed within the broad fields of 'creative', 'travel and daily life', 'sports and entertainment' and 'news'.

Your Share of the profits: 50 / 50. Anything you sell or license via the service is split down the middle, and you receive 50% of the proceeds.

Terms and licensing: Newsworthy images are licensed to Citizen Image on 3 month exclusive terms, meaning that these images cannot be published (on or offline) or sold elsewhere for the duration of this time.

Uploading: Images can be uploaded directly to the members area of the Citizen Image site, via your browser, or else you can send them in using MMS from your camera phone. Time critical images can be emailed directly to newsalert@citizenimage.com.

There are in depth details about the requirements of your images, including the image format and resolutions required.

Overall: Citizen Image offers a very well rounded experience for both buyers and sellers. By making their needs, requirements and terms detailed and explicit, there is little room for confusion, which cannot be said for some of the other services working in this expanding field.

Overall, there is a much greater air of professionalism about the service than several others, and along with Scoopt the service stands out as one that might appeal to both professional photographers looking to get involved in new ways of selling their images, and the camera-phone toting citizen journalists rising up from the Web 2.0 landscape.

Sign up: Join Citizen Image

Additional resources for selling your photos online

If you would like to learn more about how to sell your photographs and pictures online, about the web services detailed in this mini-guide, or about additional ways in which to monetize your photographic efforts, you might want to check out the following websites:

• Pete Cashmore's review of Scooplive and Cell Journalist


• Mark Glaser on visual citizen journalism


• Robin Good's review of StockXpert, another popular destination for those looking to sell stock images


• Cyber Journalist's list of citizen media initiatives

Other Useful Tools and Resources

Web site offers a marketplace for royalty free stock images: Fotolia



Fotolia is an online marketplace for royalty free stock images, allowing individuals and professionals to legally buy and share stock images and illustrations. Fotolia offers one of the largest image bank of free and affordable royalty free photos and illustrations suitable for any medium, web or print. Photographers and designers receive commission from each photo sold and revenue from advertising on the free section. Free sign up.

http://www.fotolia.com/

Share your photos and videos directly from your camera phone: PixSense



PixSense is a web-based service that lets you share your photos and videos with your friends and family directly from your camera phone, from the web, via email or SMS. You can publish photos and videos from your phone for public viewing. Once your pictures are uploaded, viewers can see them in slideshows. Free to use.

http://beta.pixsense.com/main.ps

Create your own photoblog and upload pictures via email and mobile phones: Fotopages



Fotopages is a website that allows you to create your own photoblog. You are enabled to create entries via email, from a mobile phone equipped with a camera or any email program. Each Fotopage has its own subdomain: [link] and viewers can post comments to your entries. Free to use.

http://www.fotopages.com

Service that enables photographers to showcase their photos and publishers to use them for free by linking them to each other: PlinkMe



PlinkMe is an online service that enables photographers to upload and get their pictures used across the internet with links back to their site, enabling them to check how their photos are being used. In the meantime, publishers can pick free photos and get a link to their pages from the PlinkMe users gallery. This way, both photographers and publishers can help each other for free. Joining PlinkMe is completely free.

http://plinkme.com

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Thanks to =summaro for all the help