Well, consider making money from your passion. The internet offers a number of opportunities for the budding entrepreneurial artist. Here are a few I know of.
Selling your images as Microstock
Web designers, publishers and advertisers all need creative images to help their projects along. They don't always have the budget or time to make their own or commission an artist to create one.
In this case, their option is to go to a website that allows them to search for the images they require and download a copy for use in their project.
Microstock is a term applied to the images that internet based agencies sell and license for use in such a way. The term comes from the fact that the payment is very small compared with other ways of obtaining images.
Microstock or micropayment is a more affordable way of sourcing images than negotiating licenses for images from established, older stock agencies.
Microstock sites allow anyone to contribute their images for inclusion in their libraries. The contributor does not have to pay anything to do this. However, it is expected that the images fullfil the technical and artistic standard set by the Microstock company.
When the image is downloaded the artist receives a percentage of the sale.
Here is a short list of the top micropayment sites:
http://www.shutterstock.com
http://www.fotolia.com
http://www.dreamstime.com
http://www.istockphoto.com
Here is a must read blog on the subject, far more in depth than my knowledge allows:
http://sellinggraphics.com/
http://sellinggraphics.com/4/Best-microstock-sites-selling-photos-illustrations
Print on demand merchandise
If you have a great image that people will relate to, or if you come up with a punchy slogan, you can arrange this to be printed on various sorts of merchandise such as T-shirts, mugs and calendars.
With the technical developments made in printing, there are companies that will “print on demand” onto almost anything you can think of.
They reach their customers through their websites on which you request your requirements and set up a shop. They then only create the thing if a customer buys it, i.e. “print on demand”.
It will cost a set amount to create a t-shirt, for exsample, and you, the artist, who supplied the image can decide how much to charge in excess of this base cost. This will be your reward.
Here is a short list of sites that sell customised merchandise:
http://www.cafepress.com/
http://www.spoonflower.com/welcome
https://www.thegamecrafter.com/
For further information on selling merchandise, here is a great blog:
http://mashable.com/2009/09/05/sell-products-online/
Pay Per Download
(Note Oct 2012) Due to authorities in numerous countries worried about piracy through these kind of sites, I would no longer encourage people to explore this area. I leave this information for archival purposes.
There are companies that will pay you for storing your files on their servers and getting people to download them.
They rely on making money through subscriptions for downloading these files.
People who want to download your files can only have the first couple of files they request. The person then has to wait up to a day to download another file from the company´s server. In this way they encourage the person to subscribe, which allows unlimited and fast access to the files they require.
The number of downloads is high before you make money. However, if you have a lot of images that are larger than 1mb, you can refer your thumbnails from your site to these pay per download files.
You will also make money for referring new subscribers.
Here are some “Pay per download” companies:
http://www.filesonic.com/
http://www.wupload.com/affiliate-program
http://www.fileserve.com/
Here is a great post to get further information on earning from downloads:
http://besthubs.hubpages.com/hub/Earn-money-by-uploading
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