Selling Prints and Fine Art
“Results 1 - 10 of about 79,800,000 for sell photos online” -- Google Search Result Page
Nearly 80 million results on selling photos online. 80 million.
Most of the first 20 or thirty pages are tools and articles that are designed to help photographers sell their images. So we know that there is interest in the terms ‘sell photos online”. A lot of interest. Now lets find out how much interest there is in purchasing images.
How many searches (Overture look-up tool for November, 2005- only top 6 results of each):
7900 fine art print
892 giclee fine art print
634 fine art photographic print
428 fine art canvas print
363 fine art print and poster
353 fine art photography print
1453 art fine photo
820 art fine nude photo
238 art fine gallery photo
180 art fine nature photo
144 art fine flower photo
84 art fine male nude photo
634 fine art photographic print
221 photographic print
54 photographic print sale
25 artist photographic print
25 large photographic print
I didn’t do the math, but that looks like a lot of interest, and I didn’t dig too deep here to get these results. Point is that there is a considerable interest out there in purchasing images. Not stock, but art for the wall. Prints. Images. (Now, I know that not all of the searches were from people looking to buy prints, but considering that I am only showing 5 or 6 results from 3 search phrases, there is still a lot of interest in buying images.)
Buying images. That is what you do. Make images so people can buy them.
Sell Your Images as Prints Online: (DAP6)
Now find a way to get those images into the hands of people who want to buy them. Many online sharing sites have simple shopping cart tools to allow the photographer to sell individual prints. My-Expressions has image sales tools for instance, and Flickr has online printing as well.
And there are many other sources for selling images, including the PHOTOtool that allow for extensive galleries and sophisticated sales tools that can be very beneficial for the photographer. Having the ability to send the order directly to the lab for printing and fulfillment can help save time as well as keep the process flowing. Carts, tax tools, shipping calculations and most importantly some way to pay with Credit Card are a necessity. Putting a link with your email address and an encouraging “send me an email if you want to buy a print” won’t cut it.
One tool that makes selling images easier is PayPal. With a basic PayPal account a photographer can add a simple shopping cart and allow visitors to buy images right from the site. You will have to be able to access the html code to add the shopping interactivity, and to manage the pricing and shipping information.
Pricing should be conservative, and priced for ‘wall art’ consumption. Unless you are a photographer with a noted reputation, selling images at fine art gallery pricing may not be advisable. One photographer I worked with was disappointed that his 8x10s weren’t selling at his $900 asking price. Nope, they won’t at that price. This is the Internet and there are some price points to consider. Another photographer I know sells images from his Photoblog. 5x7’s go for about $20 and 8x10 for $35. He sells about 12 per month and is seeing a steady rise in interest and sales. Talk about viral. Selling images is a fantastic way to get your name out there.
Let’s not forget EBay. There are several categories on EBay where photographers are selling images at decent prices (considering markup). A photographer I interviewed a few months ago specializes in male nudes and did nearly 40k last year. He kept several Epson’s running day and night, but the profit was nearly 34K.
Of course you have to have images that the public wants. Not all of us have that, but most of us have some images that would be well received by people looking for art for their walls, gifts or momentos.
Think about selling your images as prints. And have fun doing it. People love photographs and keeping the tradition of images as ‘hard copy’ prints that are shared by folks by presenting or displaying them should be important to all of us.
Update: I should have mentioned some great labs that we work with regularly to produce amazing prints for our clients. These labs do work online with photogs, so geography should not be an issue. In Phoenix there is a wonderful little lab specializing in large format prints. Mighty Imaging takes the quality of its prints quite seriously. In Tennessee there is Chromatics, a fantastic lab doing wonderful work. I am sure there are more wonderful labs out there, but these guys come through for us consistantly.
Tomorrow: Finding Inspiration and Subjects
Previous:
Taking Stock of Your Stock (DAP5)
Web Design Options (DAP4)
Flickr… more than just a photoblog. (DAP3)
Show More Pictures (DAP2)
Be Found on the Search Engines. (DAP 1)
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