Reply To: Selling Art?

[JCFindley]

I sell primarily on FineArtAmerica.com and this is from a thread I made titled, “So I only made one sale today.” It basically lays out what I think I do to make sales. The toughest part about selling if you have quality work is getting it seen by potential buyers. At FAA and quite a few other sites proven sellers get pushed to the front of the search. The reason has a lot to do with the premise of this site and fauxtogs. There are more than enough of them in the art world as well and many can do vote and favorite and comment trading quite well so the only thing that generally shows marketability unfiltered is a sales record. Which can be a catch 22 when you need sales to be seen but you can’t sell well without sales, but that is only true if you are solely relying on internet searches for your marketing.

heh

OK, now that you came in to tell me to jump off a bridge or something and I have your attention…

A while back I posted what I think I do to make sales. I say think because it is strictly theory as anything I have actively done has produced virtually nothing where as the passive things I do seem to work. Since I have had a few people ask via PM I thought I would just do it here so anyone interested can read it. Much will be a repeat from the “I bought a car” thread.

Generally speaking I do not announce individual sales. Bear Bryant used to tell his football players he didn’t ever want to see a touchdown celebration because they should act as if they had been there before and fully expect to be there again.

That said, perhaps it is time for a little touchdown dance because the negativity is getting to me a little on here. I do get the frustration level, I really do. I have been there done that and when I get frustrated I adjust and adapt. I look inward to what “I” can do to change things. Change is not always in the right direction but if what you are doing isn’t working then change is required even if that change leads to more frustration you simply change again until you get it right. You continually adapt. You get better at your craft AND you get better at getting yourself seen. You need both quality AND visibility to sell.

Now, if I simply came on here to say the last few year has been beddy beddy good to me then I would be doing nothing more than a hollow TD dance in front of an audience so lets talk just a bit about HOW I sell enough to pay this month’s rent with one month’s worth of FAA royalties.

First of all, QUIT UNDERVALUING YOURSELF AS AN ARTIST! Was that loud enough or do I need to say it again? Seriously, that was the first change I made and it does not effect your number of sales one way or the other but it has a HUGE effect on your bottom line. Hey, my smaller prints are “market” priced with a 20 dollar markup. But my large prints are NOT cheap. People can buy cheap art at Walmart or Ikea. They do not come here for that. Art.com has cheap art. My grandma sells cheap art! Quit selling cheap art!

Second; You NEED quality. There are ten ZILLION artists on here and if you are playing in a popular category you had better be bringing something special to the game. You need to be at least as good as your competitors. It helps if you have some Heisman hopeful level talent in your backfield but a good solid team will work just as well or better than a solid player or two.

Third; You HAVE to be seen. And this really is the key once you get steps one and two down. There are infinitely many ways to get “found” on here and that is limited by nothing except your imagination and time. You have a full time job and have no time for marketing? Bull $hit! You mean you don’t know how and don’t want to learn or you mean that just isn’t you thing. Not all marketing takes loads of time but some does take a little imagination OR takes some research to learn how others do it.

Personally, I don’t spend a lot of time marketing but I do find my niches and it works well for me. I have spelled it out before but will rehash my Abilene theory once again. Go run a search for Abilene Texas on FAA. You get 21 results. (There were 7 when I came up with my theory) Five of those are animals that could be ANYWHERE so 17 images for Abilene. Now, do a search for the Brooklyn Bridge. I’ll wait……. OK, today there are 2113 shots of the Brooklyn Bridge. Even if you have the VERY BEST shot of the Brooklyn Bridge EVER shot, painted or drawn you will be LOST in a sea of anonymity. If you are seen you STILL have to be picked out of around 2100 images. Good luck! The same can be said for virtually ANY popular category; Flowers, eagles, various monuments, dogs, cats, cars, barns, general sunrises or sunsets and the list goes ON and ON!

Now, lets go back to Abilene. It is a city of 110K and they want art; they NEED art. what they REALLY want and need is local art. You make a connection with the buyer and the quality is there you WILL make sales. I am not saying drive to the middle of Texas and shoot Abilene for a week but find your own Abilene. Find YOUR niche. Find something YOU enjoy shooting/painting that is not shot to death and make it your BIT@#!!!!! (Note, Do not think of “Abilene” as a town; Abilene can be anything you want it to be so long as it is not done to death on here.)

Oh, and one last thing VOLUME of QUALITY INVENTORY. I have sold one image as related to Abilene itself but I have a LOT of Abilenes. They accounted for the VAST majority of my early sales. With those sales comes more recognition both on your local internal search AND the population at large. Having a large quantity of subjects that are underrepresented was my key early on. Once you have name recognition/your own “brand” and you fair well in the searches and by word of mouth in the real world, THEN you also start selling in the more saturated categories and the next thing you know, you are paying rent.

JC