MicrostockGroup

Well Flickr is not use to sell stock pics that's why....
just about sharing pics and if you are lucky  someone can ask u to use one for free

very nice, got contacted few times but no $$
do u put your stock pictures on Flickr ?

LOL Flickr is not a stock agency. Never put your stock images on Flickr!!! Why somebody will buy your images If they are free on Flickr.

Interested to see what Getty goes with their partnership...

And if someone wants to capture a max 400x400 screenshot to use for free, I'm not complaining.  If someone really wanted to steal your stuff from any of the stock sites, they will.  It's not that hard to remove those overlays that SS, StockXpert, DT, etc.. put on images.

It's like locking your car or house...  Kind of useless, if a thief wants in, they're gonna get in.  The purpose of the lock is just to keep honest people honest.

that's an interesting comparison.  how many other people are on flickr and have had requests from people to license their content?

I just can't believe that a stock photographer can put his stock images on Flickr... downsized or anything else

I agree!

LOL... But then continue uploading to the real stock agencies, because I'm amazed that anybody could have made some money with Flickr. If you have made money there, you will surely get something pretty quickly to micros

I opened my Flickr account because it was highly recommended on several VERY popular microstock blogs as a method of driving people to your photos on the stock sites.

The more people upload to microstock sites, the more YOUR exposure on those sites erodes unless you keep up by constantly uploading enough content every single day to maintain the percentage of your portfolio size ratio to the total images on each site.

The days of just uploading a bunch of images to each site and collecting massive checks is coming to an end (if it hasn't ended already).  Too many new people are signing up every single day and adding their images to the total which dilutes the exposure your images get.

If clients can't see your images, they won't buy them.  And the sites don't care (for the most part) about YOUR images, only that clients are continuously buying ANY images, no matter who's they are.  So YOU have to do something to make buyers more aware of your images.  You have to do whatever it takes to get them in front of the eyes of clients.

If you want to be successful then you need to do your own marketing.  You need to do everything you can to drive buyers to YOUR images.  Whether that's creating your own web site, starting a blog, buying advertising, joining sites like Flickr or other social networking sites, etc...

I want to do well and make some money in microstock, but I'm not anywhere near the caliber of artist or photographer that most of you on this site are.  I've seen your work and most of you are simply amazing.  So I'm not gonna be able to compete on quality until I've had a chance to learn all that you have learned.  So, I have to do what I know how to do which is market my work.

I got started over a year ago doing footage.  Motion graphics animations.  I went from nothing when I got started to making a few hundred dollars a month now and climbing.  Part of my growing income is due to getting better at doing animation, but a bigger part is that when I was out of work for a few months I got aggressive on marketing my footage.  On eBay, on YouTube, on Vimeo, on my own web site, every where I could find to do marketing for free and it has paid off.  Anything I could do to either drive traffic to my footage on the sites I sell it or sell it direct.

I've uploaded a VERY small number of images to stock photo sites.  And I've been on those sites a very short time.  And in that time I have had very little in the way of sales or views on those sites.  I joined Flickr after I had already started uploading to the stock sites.  So my stuff has been there less time than on the stock sites.  Yet, I've had a LOT more interest in my stuff.  Including people who have paid me for some of those images. 

Scoff if you want, but I count that as a Win.  Anything that gets me some spending money and doesn't violate the law or my principles is a good thing in my opinion (I'm less concerned about violating the law than my principles).

So, Vonkara...  Tomorrow night when I'm sitting in a nice restaurant with my family eating a steak I've been craving for a week now and then spending a nice evening at the movies with them paid for by the money I got from Flickr this week, I will think of you and I promise to feel bad for at least 3 or 4 seconds about having put my stuff up on Flickr if that will make you happy.

If you have HIGH quality images and you have been on an established site for some time, the current search algorithms will continue to favor you and your images.  When that is messed with (ISP or SS I think) then you see a decline as your stuff is shuffled into the masses.

On DT the day after I joined, my brother-in-law joined and his member number was almost 1000 higher than mine.  Granted, a lot of those could be buyers and not sellers, but that is still a significant number.

And with some sites recording many thousands of new images a day, increasing the overall size of the pool, your own portfolio starts to look smaller and smaller.

You can test this yourself by tracking your best image.  Using the keywords you've supplied, put in a keyword or combination that gives you the highest success in finding that image.  Track where it is.  Do it again in a week, in a couple weeks, in a month, etc.. and see if it falls.

In any case, because of the search bias towards images (and/or contributors) that have already sold on most sites it is extremely difficult for a new contributor today to "break in" and start making lots of money.  The best way to get your images noticed is to market them in some fashion yourself.  Drive traffic to them in whatever way you can or are willing.

Totally agree! It is quite surprising to see how many holes there are to be filled in the existing collections. I've found quite a few in the few short months I've been uploading.

I was on Flickr for a year plus before some kind Flickr user suggested I submit some of my better stuff to microstock.....

Over the last 18 months I've sold over $2000 worth of prints, digital files, and limited licenses etc. to people who have contacted me because they saw my work on Flickr and sent me an email.

Just last month I sold two images to a regional calendar company for $150 each because of Flickr.

So, I'm an example that shows that Flickr can lead to quite a bit of extra cash - and for comparison, during the last year I've made about $2000 off of microstock .... so Flickr is producing almost half of my photo revenue.

Neither is gonna replace the income of my day job, but it is enough to buy a couple of lenses and a trip for my wife and myself.

Have I had some of my photos ripped off?  Probably so, but then again I've had a lot of contacts come out of the blue because of Flickr.