The title is more of a question than a statement. But happy to share my experience in the pursuit.

My photography and video hobby are just that. Perhaps an expensive pastime but it keeps me out of the casinos. I never really thought about earning any serios money from the efforts but thought I could pick up a few dollars along the way. Perhaps enough to pay for some equipment upgrades or additions each year?

We have likely seen the videos promoting things like, “Make $1000.00 a month selling stock photography”. Perhaps some very few people have accomplished that but I put that in the same category as “Learn Chinese while you sleep”? My results have been somewhat lacking with both of those endeavors.

At last count I have over 200 images on Shutterstock, Pond5 and Adobe. Admittedly, some images not great. My lifetime earnings in total are 10 cents from the sale of one picture.

Moving on to Kindle Books which I did mostly as a learning experience. I published one very small book about 6 years ago from which I earned about $20.00. Average commission of 35 cents. The trend is up!

Pixabay and Pexels are platforms where you can upload your photos or video and make them available for free. The idea being that you can get exposure by sending people to your web page or even accept donations via PayPal. I have about 30 submissions in this format and received 2 donations totaling $8.00.

My YouTube Channel, “Timothy Kieper Photography” at last count has 25 short videos uploaded and 9 subscribers. The content is the same as Locals which features photography and video discussion. Each video may get about 100 views and lifetime revenue of ZERO $$.

Now for the good part! “Black Box.Global” is a platform that handles video sales only. Submit your content to Black Box and they will send it out to 4 different agencies for posting. They get a percentage of the sale and the creator has their content available on 4 different sites with one submission. Most of my content there is from my collection of drone videos filmed on vacation with Southwest travel themes. In just over 2 years I have earned a little over $400.00.

Seems there is not really enough data points to focus on a more targeted effort. To make a business model using a drone requires special FAA licensing. Flying the drone as a hobby is simply a $5.00 registration fee. Unfortunately, there seems to be more restricted flight areas each year.

So, the business plan going forward is to stay creative, take more regional vacations and stay out of casinos. Perhaps not a bad way to spent retirement in the Las Vegas area?

Track: Sonhe
Music composed and recorded by Oak Studios
Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0
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