Here are ten passive income ideas for branding photographers.

I’ve dabbled in passive income over the years and even had 25 e-cookbooks on Amazon at one point (when they first started doing kindle) and it was great to see the money come in – once I’d done the initial work.

Don’t get me wrong though. It’s not always a quick thing to do. You have to put the time into creating the product/course etc first. But if you find a little niche and take the time to nurture it on social media there’s no reason why you can’t make money while you sleep.

Sell stock photos

This is probably the most obvious one, and something that any blog offering you advice on passive income is going to suggest. You can create images and then sell them on stock images on websites like Shutterstock or iStock.

However, in my opinion there is a lot of competition so the best way to do it would be to be unbelievably niche – or to go with images that you know people struggle to find.

Here are few ideas that I know from experience are missing from these sites:

• Groups of business women that are older than 20
• Groups of women/men older than 20
• Normal looking people in stock photos (not everyone wants to share a 20 something stood on the edge of a cliff doing a peace sign)
• People who aren’t white, middleclass & young.

Create and sell a photography course

Create and sell a course on brand photography or a related topic, such as photo editing or lighting. I think most of us know far more information than we actually realise and if you chose even a small part of what you do, you could create a course.

And keep it simple.

• Come up with a list of headings for the things you want to cover.
• Flesh out those headings with what you can teach people.
• Look in to hosting the course with someone like Kajabi – or just create the course as a pdf, and sell it from your website.
• Decide whether you want it to be something people read or you’re going to do video (and video can be as simple as a presentation that you talk over).

Sell physical products featuring your brand photos

Create physical products, such as prints or mugs, featuring your brand photos and sell them online or at art fairs or markets.

I’ve seen brand photographers who have created physical products that they sell as props for their branding shoots.

Sell digital products featuring your brand photos

Create digital products, such as phone wallpapers or desktop backgrounds, featuring your brand photos and sell them online.

I’ve seen people do this as a way to organise someone’s screen – like this one I created. You could do them for every month of the year.

Create and sell presets

I love a good preset or action. I use them in both Lightroom and Photoshop and they help me save time and create a consistent look across all my images.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could do the same for your clients? So when they take their own photos they can keep that consistency.

There are an absolute ton of YouTube videos to show how to create a pre-set and I have had a go… honestly it’s no wonder some of these instagrammers and tiktok’ers sell them.

Sell photo templates

Create and sell templates featuring your brand photos that can be easily customized by others for their own use. You could set them up in Canva – so that they can be edited by your clients.

Like this one I created in Canva for a uniform blog post look – your clients could buy your templates with your photos already in it.

Sell a printable brand style guide

Create and sell a printable personal branding style guide or guide to how to have the perfect Branding photoshoot and then obviously feature your brand photos.

Not only will it how you as an expert but it will help your clients with planning their shoot.

Sell a brand photography e-book

Writing and selling an e-book on brand photography or a related topic, such as personal branding or social media marketing, is a great way to earn passive income for branding photographers.

This can be as simple as using Word, creating your book and then selling it on your website or you could look into selling it on Amazon (which is so much easier than you might realise).

Sell brand photo bundles

Create and sell bundles of your brand photos that can be used by businesses for their marketing materials.

I did this for a while during lockdown and found that it was a great way to keep creative and make a little extra money.

Sell a brand photo subscription

Offer a subscription service where businesses can access a selection of your brand photos on a monthly or yearly basis. This is what I do with VISIBILITY SCHOOL (though it’s not exactly passive… but the idea is the same) and it’s a really good way to know that you have regular income. Here are a few ideas for how you could do it?

• Brand Photography
• Video/reels/tiktok
• Product Photography

Overall, there are many passive income opportunities for branding photographers, some of them are a bit less labour intense than others, and some of them might not suit you.

But it’s worth having a think about how you can make income without having to be the one going out of the house to do it (is it just me that doesn’t like leaving the house unless I have a shoot?)

And when you’re ready, here are three ways that I can help you:

1) Visit my blog for tips on VISIBILITY.

Every week I discuss strategies to improve your visibility, get over your fear of visibility and my latest shoots.  Read here

2) Plan a bespoke photoshoot.

We can plan a shoot based on what you actually need (read more) or you could join me at a Branding Day.

3) Join ‘Visibility School’.

Visibility school is a membership group where you get 12 months of photoshoots, a fab little Facebook group and a Visibility Toolkit (new for 2023 members) . Read