[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

[JCFindley]

In general, more quality images of more subjects/places leads to more exposure when talking about the net.

If an image meets my standards, I put it up BUT will only put the best of a single subject or composition. I know a girl that has 23 images of a single ferris wheel with very slightly different angles and really only two compositions. That will confuse, bore or turn off potential clients. Now, I will put up different compositions of the same subject and sometimes BW and color, but as a pro, we should be able to choose the best if they are only slightly different.

I just went through all 1500 + of my images last weekend and removed about 30 that I felt didn’t meet my standards anymore. One of those had even sold but was a grungy HDR and I am not a fan of the grunge look and not even sure what kind of drugs I was on when I put it up.

I do know people that do quite well with fewer images but they market them hard. One friend of mine has about 100 but every single one is different within it’s genre and every one of them has that WOW factor. I probably have 100 or so that are on par with that, but find that for me, not every image has to be absolutely jaw dropping but if there is a good market for the piece it may well sell and even sell well.

[JCFindley]

Thank you clicker….

OK, back to the OP.

 

IHF, your work is both high quality and marketable. IMO you should NOT start out with low prices as you build your name. The thing with art photography is you have to sell a LOT to get a name and many, if not most will never get there. But, as I said in the other thread, the art market is funny in its pricing. If people with money find your art, they will buy it so long as you are neither way under or way over priced. Yes, seriously, being under priced can hurt you as much or more than being overpriced. Along with that is a LOT of large wall art will go to interior design clients. These IDs or sometimes art consultants often have large budgets and will swoop in and buy a LOT of art in a single purchase. I saw one sale last week that was 29 large images and another that bought 80. Now, within both groups there were artists that made 25 bucks on a 48 inch print and others that made 350 on the same size. One of them can buy a few fufu coffees at Starbucks while the other is making a car payment. One artist sold 8 in the 80 image buy and he is not cheap.

Now, what you will have to do is work on getting people to see your art. That comes down to good keywords and descriptions for internet searching and then anything you can think of to lead people to it. (Twitter, business cards, perhaps hanging work in a local gallery or show or even a coffee shop etc..) There is a lot of good art on the net so you have to come up with a way to get seen. I tend to shoot a lot of subjects or places that are not overly done. For instance, I have a quite a few Brooklyn Bridge images but every photographer that has ever been in NYC shoots it and there are a gazillion of them online. I have sold a handful of cards with by Brooklyn Bridge images. Now, some of the lesser known NYC bridges make me MUCH more money because I don’t have nearly as many other images to compete with. That leads to a couple things. 1. it is easier to get them seen. 2. They have fewer choices. That is really how I built my name.

JC

[JCFindley]

OK, I will come back when I have more time, but you have very nice and very marketable work. You can certainly turn that into an income flow that will at least pay for some new toys and turn photography into an inexpensive hobby.

[JCFindley]

I don’t know a thing about portrait work. The 5D classic though is an extension of my subconscious.

Not sure what glass you are using now, but you can get a Canon 50mmf1.8 for around 100 bucks. It is cheap. It is plastic and does not look pretty. It is not weather proof. And it shoots absolutely tack sharp images on a 5D so I would highly recommend it for anyone on a budget. (it is NOT tack sharp wide open but gets pretty close at f2.8 and is period by f4 or f5.6….

[JCFindley]

http://www.JCFindley.com

There is a contact artist link on there you can use to email direct if you like, but I will find the thread and talk there too…..

[JCFindley]

You can email me if you want to show me your work behind the scenes and I will give you an honest opinion but the fact that you have sold more than a few to friends indicates to me you have good potential.

I am NOT a fan of Redbubble because of how they do their pricing structure with a % basis. If you price your 8x10ish prints in the 30 range then large prints are in the thousands. If you market price your large works then your 8x10s are around 7 bucks and you get less than a buck.

I am a big fan of pricing within the bell curve right off the bat. You may have simply outstanding work but people see a low price and think something is wrong. That and people that buy a large framed work are going to pay hundreds to have it shipped at my main sales site and hundreds to have it printed matted and framed regardless what the artist charges so the only thing cheap about selling a large print is the profit low priced artists get.  (When I say bell curve I mean somewhere in the area the majority charge)

Business cards are a must. A license may or may not be depending on how you sell. Online, the standard PoD does the selling so you simply get a royalty for them being allowed to sell your images. The right finishing can be had at many PoDs without any effort on your part. Marketing IS up to the individual artist though on most all of them. I have my own URL but it simply links to a PoD site that prints the majority of my sales. (PoD is print on demand btw)

Not sure if you can PM here but feel free to do that if you can and want to discus anything in private.

 

[JCFindley]

Out freak’n standing on the niche!

 

[JCFindley]

What I have seen of this forum, the posters tend to be blunt but they put a lot of effort typing things that are helpful critiques if people are willing to listen.

[JCFindley]

Obviously it is late, I lucked into a few good images not looked, and not good at it instead of god at it….

[JCFindley]

I do not shoot people except for fun, and I am not particularly god at it either.

I did “start” my career doing the art tent. I looked into a few good images but it was mostly your standard “everybody” shoots things without much of a markup. I was lucky enough to have three very good mentors and one is my pricing guru. When I started selling on the net, I listed my pricing inline with my shooting mentor, who is very very good. Instead o lowering my prices I worked on my skills until I was in his general neighborhood but with my subjects and style….

Interesting thing about art photography, people that can afford large wall art often equate price with quality. You still need to have the quality to sell, but people are willing to pay well for it. Those that aren’t can get a 36 inch “canvas” at Wallyworld.

[JCFindley]

Film is overrated….. :o)

That actually isn’t true, and I shot film as a hobbiest for 20 years. The thing is, it takes a lot of time and or money to improve with film. I shot more and improved more in six months of shooting digital than I did in 20 shooting film.

 

[JCFindley]

FWIW Bole, most of the people on that thread were actually defending you from the initial attacker…..

Personally, I find the site hilarious and if you want to put yourself on the market as a pro, you should be able to take critique and or even some of what this site does.

The reason the “pros” get irritated is because people see the cheap photographers then expect a disc full of copyright free images for the same price but better quality from them…  Yeah, you are doing fine frankly, but then, your images are not on the main page here. You just had some idiot with an over-inflated  self image of her own work try and make herself feel better with a personal attack on you. And yeah, that would piss me off too….

[JCFindley]

I only do “art photography” whatever that is….

 

As WCS says the images are not bad but if you do want to sell art you have to something different… Meaning

You can do an everyday or common subject but you better do it really well and better than the thousands of others shooting the same thing.

Find subjects/places that will have good mass appeal that are not shot to death and shoot them well.

Nothing wrong with where you are right now, you just have to step it up to sell often and well.

(I don’t do people so have no clue on that.)

[JCFindley]

FWIW I have literally thousands of images of my dog. Most go on FB (home site not portfolio) but only four have made it to my art site…. Nothing wrong with shooting what you have available and love anyway.

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