Selling stock images isn't just about taking and uploading photographs - marketing yourself and your images is the other important part of the story. Social media such as Twitter and Facebook are free and can be effective in promoting your work. Writing blogs, such as this one, also help to get your name out there.Posts on the site forums (those that have still them) and, of course, the industry leading forum Microstockgroup are another way of getting yourself known - though keep in mind that in these you will be mainly be seen by fellow contributors rather than image buyers (though sometimes they can be both, of course).
Dreamstime offer another useful feature in their Blogs section. Just write about something that interests you and add images to the piece from the Dreamstime library -either your own images or other contributors where appropriate. This is free and all images get properly credited -with a link through to the sales page for that image. Buyers as well as other contributors can see these blogs making it a good marketing tool. I must admit I used to use this feature a lot more but hadn't thought to do so for some time now.
So having just returned from a Greek island what better to blog about than "The Beautiful Small Islands Of Greece" with a selection of six of my various island images. Link here: http://blog.dreamstime.com/2014/07/02/beautiful-small-islands-greece_art40632
Whether or not this results in immediate sales of my images it helps to establish my portfolio as somewhere to seek images of Greek islands (which make up quite a large and growing portion of my work).
And, as I said before, it's free marketing. So if you have a Dreamstime account and haven't made use of the blogs before do give it a try. And if, like me, you haven't used them for a while get on there and get marketing! I'm already planning my next one.
Regards, David.
