and then wait for prospective customers

...and wait, and waait, annnd waaaaaait, annnnnd....

I think that advertising your images is against Flickr's rules.

Its not. If you look into the fine print, they are cool with you linking to direct sales sites for prints, etc.. of your images. BUT. All microstock agencies are blocked - if you make a hyperlink to any, it won't work.... I'd suggest taking advantage of the getty flickr collection. I got accepted and its pretty good, I know a few people on flickr are making sizable incomes off it, but it takes TIME. Trad stock always takes TIME. Lots of it.... I kinda hate that.

cardmaverick: would you mind sending a link to the terms and conditions that you referred to in your reply?

What I see is in disagreement with cardmaverick's post.

http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne

Quote

Don�t use Flickr to sell.
If we find you engaging in commercial activity, we will warn you or delete your account. Some examples include selling products, services, or yourself through your photostream or in a group, using your account solely as a product catalog, or linking to commercial sites in your photostream.

Thats new to me... When I signed up PRIOR to Flickr getting into bed with Getty, they said linking to sites to sell prints was just peachy... Must be the Getty connection. I guess my best advice is this: be discrete, and think outside the box.

Would it be legal to put up all your stock photos on Flickr with a watermark - and then wait for prospective customers to contact you?

My paying Flickr membership was canceled without any explanation (except a reference to the TOS) a few years ago by just doing that.

I understand that Flickr doesn't want us to advertise directly to sellers. That is, we can not say "buy this image at http:..." or "this image is available as posters at http:....". Now, if you have a link to your own website, in which there are links for agencies, that should be ok, unless (I believe) this is all your website is about.

Quote from: cardmaverick on October 23, 2011, 23:30

Quote from: AttilaTheNun on October 23, 2011, 20:05

Quote from: gejam on October 21, 2011, 05:48

Would it be legal to put up all your stock photos on Flickr with a watermark - and then wait for prospective customers to contact you?

My paying Flickr membership was canceled without any explanation (except a reference to the TOS) a few years ago by just doing that.

What did your watermark look like?

It was a very light repeated (x,y) mark all over the image. I don't think that was the issue, but the direct link in the description to the sales page on a microstock site. According to Madelaide, that should not be possible any more. As what I read (here or elsewhere, forgot), you can still link in your profile to your site (that can contain links to your port on microstocks).

Ahhh. Yeah, the links make sense. Flickr is now setup to be "self policing" when it comes to what sites you can and can't link to. All microstock sites (the major ones) are blocked by default, but smaller trad agencies are not I suggest a page on your own site that has portfolio links. All in all, I still think the getty flickr collection is worth more of your time and energy.

I used to put some of my stuff on Flickr and put a link in the description to purchase the image at my site or GL (if it's an image not available at my site), but Flickr yanked all of the links.

Edit: They yanked all of the agency links. The links to my site remain.