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| Welcome Professionals! |
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dotPhoto works with thousands of professional photographers. Many shoot events, games or races; others shoot weddings, pageants and portraits.
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Your customers can buy from your own web site, which can link to dotPhoto or to your free dotPhoto Web Site - or they can simply sign onto dotPhoto with a guest password for their particular album.
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Selling photos on dotPhoto.com is simple:
- dotPhoto is free to join
- It is free to store your photos on dotPhoto.
- dotPhoto is rated the #1 Photo Sharing Site at TopTenREVIEWS and also received 5 of 5 stars at About.com, where dotPhoto is listed as one of the web's top 9 photo sites.
- You get more money at dotPhoto. For instance, if you sell a 4x6 for $5, dotPhoto is paid 12 cents for production, 3% (15 cents) for the credit card, and 15% of the markup. You will earn $4.29 on this sale.
- You can set your own prices. To set your own prices, go to the My Account section, tell us how to pay you, and set prices on about 100 items (or use the suggested prices.) Then apply the plans to your albums - you can have multiple plans that apply to different albums.
- dotPhoto pays you twice a month if you are on direct deposit and you earn over $10 for that period - we put money directly into your bank account.
- You can organize your photos in albums and sub-albums - and even sub-sub-albums. dotPhoto gives you more ways to organize.
- You get a free web site that you can make on dotPhoto's My Web Site tab in about 5 minutes. If you would like help setting that up, we'll help you at no charge. You can use your dotPhoto web site either as your primary web site or as an adjunct site for selling photos. (You do not have to use the web site feature.)
- You have lots of privacy options. You can password protect each album so that when your guests sign in, they will only see the album(s) that you want them to see. If multiple albums share the same passwords, your guests will see those albums.
- You can link everything on dotPhoto to your web site and even embed dotPhoto Shows in your web site or blog. See this mySpace page to see how you can use dotPhoto Shows elsewhere on the web to promote your images, or review this blog entry to find out how to do it.
- You can use the dotPhoto Show to tell multimedia stories that you can sell as DVDs in addition to prints. The dotPhoto Show includes your choice of music, dramatic "Ken Burns" effects, transitions and even narration. You can embed dotPhoto Shows in your web site to augment your newspaper's stories.
- You can use dotPhoto's invitation system to invite your customers to see images, and you can track the results of those visits.
- You can sell all or some of dotPhoto's products, and you determine which ones to sell.
- Guaranteed workmanship. We take pride in our work. If you're not satisfied with the quality of our products, please let us know!
- Fast turnaround: Most dotPhoto print orders ship within 24 hours!
- Great customer service. Write or call us, and we'll take care of you.
- No advertising! Nothing in your professional account will distract from the beauty of your photos.
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To recap: dotPhoto is free to join, free to use, and we put money in your bank account!
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Once you have joined, click on the My Account link, tell us how you want to be paid, and set your prices.
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More information...
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Everything you need is in the My Account link
At the top of every page on dotPhoto, you will find the My Account link, which leads to all kinds of information about your account including "Selling Your Photos".
Click on the links in "Selling Your Photos" to establish price plans, track orders, upload your own logo to your dotPhoto account or tell dotPhoto how to pay you.
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Free Storage
dotPhoto will continue to store photos free as long as you are actively engaged with your pictures. We define "active engagement" as visiting your account every 90 days. This should not be a problem for most photographers, but, if for some reason you cannot visit your photos and want to maintain them, you may purchase a dotPhoto Membership Plan for $24.95 that guarantees your storage without your participation. dotPhoto terms may change from time to time; for full details, please click on the "Terms" link at the bottom of the dotPhoto home page.
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Tax Reporting
Because the federal government requires that we report payment information, you must enter your social security number or your company's federal tax ID number in the payment section in order to be paid. If you earn more than $600 in a calendar year, you will receive a 1099 form from dotPhoto at the beginning of the next calendar year.
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Monitoring Your Sales
You can see your photo sales and orders under Order Tracking in the My Account section.
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Can I be paid by check?
Yes, but we would prefer that you use the direct deposit. People lose their checks, and we have to rely on the mail to get your money to you. Direct deposit is faster, and everyone is happy. However, if you prefer to receive a check, dotPhoto pays check customers on the first of each month. There is a one dollar charge per check, which is deducted from your account.
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When will I be paid?
dotPhoto pays 30 days after sales are made to allow for credit card collections and potential charge-backs by purchasers. For instance, your earnings for the month of October will be paid on December 1 or the first weekday thereafter. If you are a direct deposit customer, your earnings are paid on the first weekday after the 1st and the 15th. Your earnings from October 1 to 15 would be paid on November 15, and your earnings from October 16-31 would be paid on December 1. dotPhoto pays when you have accrued at least $10 in earnings.
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Who handles customer service?
dotPhoto guarantees that your customers will be satisfied with our workmanship. dotPhoto handles quality issues directly with the purchaser.
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What should I tell my customers about cropping?
Photos are sometimes cropped for a specific space that is not well suited for standard print sizes. For instance, suppose you want to print a square image on the popular 4" by 6" photo paper: if the square photo fills up the photo paper space, then the customer will not see the top and bottom inch of the photo. To see the whole photo, the customer must order the photo "uncropped," which, in this case, would put the square image in the middle of the 4x6 print with an inch of white space on either side. We suggest that you crop your photos so that, when cropped, faces and bodies appear on the major print types: 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10.
If you do not crop your prints, we suggest adding this language for ordering photos to your web site or:
We recommend that you order photos "uncropped" to ensure that you see your entire photo, though you may want to trim some white space off each side of the photo. Ordering photos "cropped" may cut off part of the photo in order to fit the image onto the photo paper.
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How can I protect my images from theft by copying?
You can be protected in three ways. First, your original image is never available to viewers who see only a screen-sized image; the full-sized image is parked on our servers and only used when someone prints a photo. Second, you can turn off "right-click copy" in your account by clicking on My Account and Privacy Settings in Account Information. Third, when using dotPhoto's Upload Tool, choose the Advanced Upload Style and set up a watermark that adds the word "Proof" in the middle of every photo. Even if someone manages to copy the photo from the screen, they will only capture a picture that says "Proof" in the middle. The watermark will only appear to a guest of your account; you will not see "Proof" when you look at you images as the owner of the account.
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I want to print posters and photo merchandise. What are the image sizes required?
Complete details about the products we sell are available in the store section.
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Can I display nudes?
dotPhoto is a family-friendly web site, but is not prudish. Anything that you would put on your family coffee table may appear in public albums. You can store, share and sell other images in private albums that are password protected. To add a password to an album, click on Album Settings. Once you establish the password, you will have to share that password with guests in order for them to see the password-protected album. Public images that are inappropriate for public spaces will be deleted. dotPhoto will not print vulgar images.
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Can I sell downloads of my images?
Yes. Users can search for your photos and buy them as either high or low resolution downloads for whatever price you set. Learn more about selling your images for digital download here.
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