Category: Selling Your Art

How are you supposed to be able to sell prints when you have to compete against low cost substandard sources of prints outside of your own country? I was talking to a business owner who is also an artist and hoping to retire soon. As a supplemental income source he wants to have some of his original paintings reproduced as giclee prints. He is very new to the concept of selling prints of his work and actually is new to the concept of selling his artwork altogether. He has always painted as a hobby for his friends and family but based on his talent and subject matter I told him I could easily see a market for his work. As we got to talking about prints, I defined for him what a giclee print was and some of the advantages, especially for someone trying to generate a demand. He was very interested in getting started but he did have some concerns about how easy or challenging it would be to compete with art prints mass produced in other countries, mainly China.

What are your plans for 2014. With the entrance into January many people like to start their new year with resolutions. For artists I think it is a good time to set goals rather than resolutions. I like the term goals because it implies you have set a finish line that must be crossed to complete. And in many cases you might have a larger goal in mind that may consists of smaller goals. At FinerWorks we always set goals thought the year but January is especially important. The final months of the year are so busy that implementing new solutions seamlessly can be challenging but with the holiday season behind us we have a chance to evaluate ourselves and come up with ideas with the idea of becoming more capable in meeting our customers’ expectations. So what are some ideas that we can offer artists who want to set new goals for themselves? I will name a few that you can either take with you or expand on yourself.

An artist can be like an entertainer. Like someone who performs for a living, they want to enable an emotional yet thoughtful response by the people viewing their work.

A few weeks ago I was meeting with some artists and photographers and the topic came up as how to choose print sizes. What is better, printing your images large or small and how do you know what sizes are in demand by your customers. One young lady there was an artist who initially wasn’t selling her work at shows in the numbers she had expected. She had printed almost everything as an 8×10 or slightly smaller. Many of the other artists at the show were successful at selling smaller sizes so she knew it had to be something she was doing wrong. After trying a larger size instead of what she was offering she found buyers were purchasing prints at a higher rate. When she asked some of the other artists at the show what they thought about this she was told very frankly that the style of the artwork needed to sync up with the sizes she was printing. Unfortunately she had done her initial sizes based on what a friend who was not an experienced artist had suggested rather than what her work called for. Her artwork had so much more appeal and interest than what the small 8x10s could reflect.

Presentation: If you are selling your work direct (face to face) then coming up with a successful presentation should be your first priority.

Getting your work in front of a mobile audience is more crucial then before. More people will be viewing your site on a mobile device as people use their iPhones, iPads and Android powered tablets so why not make their experience as enjoyable and easy as possible. While it may seem easier to pack in more content in a standard website, what good is it if many of your mobile visitors decide it’s too difficult to navigate or view.

If you have a website then it may not be enough. How long has it been since it was designed. Does meet today’s standards? And if you don’t have a website to promote yourself or your work, what’s the deal? Read more about where you need to start if you are serious about getting exposure for you and your work on the web.

Many artists want to sell their work and are looking for ways to promote with little to no budget for marketing. Facebook has a great feature which is independent of member’s profile page. If you are using Facebook, why not create a Facebook fan page devoted to your work.

Did you know you can print high resolution images posted on the Library of Congress website? Not only can you do this but it is free and you can make money from the prints you produce too.

If it is important the print number and signature be visible on your giclee print, placing it on the actual artwork in the right or left corner will probably be the best option. Read this post to learn why.