Category: Selling Your Art

One of the beauties of prints versus originals works of art is the simple fact it has the potential to pay dividends in the form of ongoing revenue that only stops when you decide it has to stop. If you sold a painting that took you 50 hours to complete and then turned around and sold it for for $1000, later prints have the potential to allow you to continue to resell the concept behind that original work over and over again. Let us assume that over the course of a few years you sold a hundred prints at $100 each, your total gross from that one painting would be $11,000. That is $220 per hour. Not bad! But in the real world it is not quite so simple. It may have taken you 50 hours to complete the painting but what about all the time devoted to placing those prints for sale, not to mention time it takes to fulfill or have the orders fulfilled.

For many of our customers, we are getting into the season where print sales start to take off. This is true for those that create commissioned one of a kind prints for their clients just as much as for artists selling open edition prints online or even at various art festivals. For some of us, this is their first time around the block when it comes to making some substantial sales during the holidays. It can even be intimidating at first because we as artists want everything to run smoothly. And if we are not new to this maybe we are trying to coordinate a number of different orders. What also happens to some of us is the realization that our creations, whether it be photography or something else, actually has potential to be collected outside our immediate circle of friends and family. Real buyers want to buy our work! But while that may be so, its not uncommon for us to loose focus on on the big picture and ignore some new opportunities in front of us that will promote more sales later on.

So you sell canvas or giclee prints on Etsy right? Or maybe you are thinking of doing so or just got started. Well, this post is for you. People fitting this profile come to us all the time with questions since they want to use FinerWorks to process and ship many of their print orders. Usually the questions center around such things as how many of our own customers use Etsy as their Manufacturing Partner and what info can we provide them to be sure they are abiding by Etsy’s policies. They also wonder how successful are the current Etsy users who use us. And, some even ask us if we know what sells best when it comes to artwork.

Producing a video on YouTube has never been easier. Create a YouTube account, upload your video and even use the YouTube video editor to publish it. That’s all there is too it at it’s most basic level. I know for some of you producing a video, if you have not done so before, sounds kind of intimidating. The reality is it is quite simple to do as long as you have a good outline to follow.

Occasionally we are asked what is our advice on how to find some success as a print seller. A print seller can entail anything from an artist selling on Etsy to a web based art gallery with an online store. One thing that they have in common if they come to FinerWorks is they are usually working hard to increase the number of prints they sell. I would love to tell them how to wave a magick wand which will create immediate sales. But most successful businesses get to where they are by engaging in tactics that are slow and steady. In the case of print sales I would like to discuss 5 business essentials which will improve the chances of success in the long term. They are having a clear vision of how you are going to scale your business, keep a positive outlook as the challenges increase, stay in communication with your customer base, know what you are selling, and don’t overstate and under-deliver.

In the art world there are always going to be those that seem to disparage photography by implying it is not art. Some of those would instead label it more as a technology to capture imagery. Case in point is an article that recently posted to the Guardian in which Jonathan Jones an art critic made the statement that a photograph which sold for 6.5 million was merely like a “posh poster you might find framed in a pretentious hotel room”. His premise stems from a reaction to a previous article he wrote in which he implied that photography does not belong in galleries. To be fair he does not exactly state that photography is not something to be appreciated, but he definately does not appear as if he holds if to the same esteem. His implication is that photography is lifeless and flat as an art form. While I don’t agree with his premise, after speaking with photographers over the years I believe he is not alone in his sentiment. Professional critics rarely set the standard in my book, but I suspect the mainstream art market tends to lean in his direction. I base this from talking with photographers who tell me it seems to be challenging to locate galleries willing to carry their work even when they know from their successes that their work does sell. I tell them, its not easy for traditional artists either. Far be it for me to not encourage any photographer working toward entering into the art market but be prepared to knock on the doors of a few more galleries until you find those that do see photography as art.

Providing good customer service is an integral part of any business. This includes small single person art and photography based businesses. If you fit within one of these categories like most of our own customers, then consider taking advantage of ways that can help you improve your relationships with your own art buyers both offline or online.

Are you keeping track of your fans. I am not simply talking about general social media type friends, fans or whatever they will be called next. I am talking about creating a list of people who are excited about you as an artist and your work. As artists we should have two primary goals. One is to create art and the other is to acquire fans of our art. I have talked previously about the importance of finding buyers but one important step in creating buyers is to turn those people into fans of your art.

Having your orders drop shipped makes the process of printing and shipping your art to your customers easier than before. It eliminates some of the time and stress associated with doing it all yourself. When you consider the expense of materials to make a print, cost of shipping, shipping supplies, not to mention the time spent actually making the order and possibly time waiting in line at the post office to ship it, a service like ours is perfect if you are getting started in the art print market. With your printing and shipping infrastructure taken care you can spend more time on your art and your customers. Attracting new buyers and making them happy customers should be a top priority. Making them happy buyers is one of the best things you can do for yourself if you are building a successful art based business.

Just the other day we had a new customer inquire about the safety of her images which she has loaded in her account. While I did not talk to her direct I saw the transcript from her live chat session with one of our customer service people and I thought that this is a topic worth bringing up, especially for those a little tentative about uploading their artwork to a website which they may not be familiar with.