There was a great question about how to use thousands of flower photographs posted on my Virtual Assistant group on Facebook recently and it lead me to write a quick post in order to help. And as you can see, members of the group quickly offered up some helpful advice.

Many of your hobbies can be turned into business ideas that can make you money. As a digital photographer you can sell those beautiful photographs online.

Here are some ways to do that.

Digital photography allows you to capture a variety of images in a variety of formats. For instance, remember when you used to visit the carnival or amusement park and they took those old-fashioned pictures of people? The pictures looked faded but that was simply a sepia tone. You can create the same effect on your digital camera when you edit a photo.

Stock photography is one of the best ways to break into the online digital photography market. You can sell your photos to others who need pictures for websites, newsletters, magazines and e-zines and other media.

First, be sure to research how the stock photography business works. On some sites, customers can purchase pictures or lease them for a certain amount of time. On some sites, photos are free to use when signing an agreement of use and including a link back to the site. Find the ones that offers the best option for you and also has an easy-to-navigate site. Easy navigation is important because people simply don’t have the patience to have to click and click to get where they want to be. And you want them to EASILY find your work.

As a photographer, you will make more money if your photos are leased as opposed to being sold. The one time sale may net you some cash but the lease will provide a continuous source of income off of that one photograph. And, many people can pay to lease the photograph at one time. Through the leasing process, your work will be viewed by a large audience.

Here are some websites where you can sell your photos.

• Fotolia
• Shutterstock
• Istock
• Alamy

Now, all you need to do is produce some quality work. Look at other stock photographs. What do they have in common? Are the pictures clear? Can you make out all of the features of the photo? At the least, your photographs need to be clear with the subjects in the foreground.

Another consideration is the type of digital photos you are trying to sell. More of the same that already exists won’t be received well. The stock photography companies are out to make money too. Don’t be afraid to try some new ideas for holiday photos or for everyday photos. They will let you know what does and does not sell.

In the meantime, create a website or blog with links to the stock photography sites featuring your work. This will send more people to view your photographs and may lead to other opportunities in the future. And of course, I strongly suggest that your website is built on the WordPress platform!

As a highly technical Virtual Assistant you are more than likely working in WordPress for your clients. While the visual pane in WordPress has those wonderful buttons to automatically format your HTML code, working in the widgets requires at least some basic knowledge of HTML.

Here is a handy reference list of very basic HTML commands. To learn more about HTML, I recommend that you utilize the many resources available on the web.

Making text bold
To make text appear bold, use <b> and </b> around the text.
For example: Make <b>this bold</b> will look like: Make this bold

Making text italic
To make text appear italic, use <i> and </i> around the text.
For example: Make <i>this italic</i> will look like: Make this italic

Making text underlined
To make text appear underlined (without being an actual link), use <u> and </u> around the text. For example:
Make <u>this underlined</u> will look like: Make this underlined

Creating line breaks
There are two basic line breaks in HTML. Use <br> to break to the next line or <p> to skip a line. For example:
1<br>2<p>3 will look like:
1
2
3

I read a timely and brilliant article this morning on Rosalind Gardner’s Net Profits Today blog and wanted to share it with all of you who are skilled in WordPress and are looking for additional sources of business.

by Rosalind Gardner

You already know how to install a blog.

You also know which plugins to use to make it functional and how to make it look great with a pretty professional WordPress theme.

You know which pages are must-haves on any blog.

AND you understand the benefits of blogging in terms of getting free traffic, as well as how to use PPC at the local level to reduce advertising costs.

So, why not make money using your knowledge to help businesses in your local area either set up a new blog, or improve an existing web site?

Surely, you’ve come across a few local businesses that could benefit greatly from your blogging knowledge.

I run across awful local business sites all the time.

For example, most of the small resort, motel and private RV park/campground sites I find when doing travel research are just downright ugly. Most of them look like they were designed in 1997 and haven’t been updated since.

Here are two examples…

Read the rest of the article here:  Rosalind Gardner’s Net Profits Today

If you want to brush up on your WordPress skills and be able to increase the professional fees you command take a look at these two programs.

Go For Your Dream WordPress Training. The next live WordPress Website Workshop begins next month, October, 2010. Be sure to register for the case study replays from their last workshop and get on the list to be notified when the new course starts. I work closely with Ben Cope and Kimberly Bohannan on many projects and highly recommendtheir WordPress trainings!

WordPress Mastery. They offer 3 free brief, but powerful videos that will let you find out more about the complete, step-by-step, multi-video training series. This course is perfect for people who are fairly new to WordPress and need to get the basics down pat.

My web development company, Your Office On The Web builds WordPress sites for clients each month. In fact, we may have as many as 8 -11 in production at any given time. Once you are confident that your WordPress skills can be considered “expert” I would love to see your portfolio!

I talk a lot about membership sites and my absolute favorite membership solution is WishList Member. They are currently running a really interesting promotion where they have teamed up with the co-founder of WooThemes Adii Pienaar.

If you or one of your virtual assistance clients is planning on building a membership or continuity website you may want to take a good look at this WordPress plugin. If you purchase WishList Member between now and August 27th, you’ll get Adii’s new book, Rockstar Business absolutely free. They will also be conducting an exclusive video interview with Adii that will only be available for customers.

What’s the catch?

No catch other than the promotion ends August 27th, 2010. So if you don’t order between now and then, you won’t get the book and video for free.

All the details are located here.

Be sure to come back and share your new membership site (yours or a client’s) here with us!

Enjoy!

Denise

P.S  You can also ask Adii questions ahead of time before the video interview – they are going to try and incorporate as many into the interview as they can.