Extra Income Update---Part1

I read a  post the other day from  Tyler Tervooren.  It was a fine motivating piece.  It does not directly relate to large families, but it does relate to finances. Long ago in the dark ages, I studied Entrepreneurship in college, so I have always been interested in starting a side business.  I know many of you are interested in getting a little extra money to help care for your family.  So I am starting a series on earning extra income.  This is the first part in this series.
 
I have taken advice like Tyler's.  I have been working on some extra income options that have low to no start up costs.  This will be my first update.  The concept that Tyler discusses is starting a side business that does not cost more than $100. If it cost more, you don't do it. It is a great little article, you can check out his website here.  The article I am referring to is located here.  I think it is an excellent article.  I highly  recommend read it.  Also, be sure to check out part two.

Photography is  a hobby of mine, so I decided to try to make some money from it.  I already own a digital camera, no cost there, so I really only have my time in this. Here is what I have been doing.

I went out and signed up for accounts on Dreamstime and iStockphoto.  I uploaded several photos and even had some approved.  Here  are my profiles/galleries:

Dreamstime

iStockPhoto



I have actually done better than I expected from these two sites.   If I had the discipline to spend more time taking and submitting photos, I could probably do OK making a few extra bucks.  I decided I would try to go with a theme that  i was interested in.  So I chose football.  Here is my top selling image on both sites:

10 Yard Line

Honestly, I had no idea that this image would sell like it has.  I even sold an extended license to this photo, which resulted in a single $12+ sale.


All in all, I have made at least $200 in microstock photography by only putting half an effort in it. Maybe I should try a little harder at this and see out it works out.  Really when you look at the small amount of time I spent doing this it is not too bad.  The beauty of microstock is that it is residual.  In other words, you can sell the same image over and over again without really doing anything.  Now, you could always go back into the image and add new keywords to keep it fresh in the list, but it is not required. I need to come up with a few more themed ideas.  Do you guys have any ideas?  Please add them to the comments below.

If you wish to get started in microstock selling, I would suggest you start at Dreamstime.  They have a community base that is very helpful with ideas and help.  Also, I think they were a little easier to get accepted.  If you do decide to try it, I would appreciate you using my banner link below using me as a referral.  Also, don't forget, please add me to your Google+ circle....