Has anyone here had experience selling prints?

Fenster

Its something I've resisted until now, but I'm starting to feel the financial pinch - of my travels to America and plans to move and so I've decided to start selling prints of some of my photos. I figure someone here might have had experience with this.

Avertising - do I do it online or offline?
Printing - what's the best size?
Framing - cheap, expensive or none at all?
Pricing - expensive or cheap?

And so on, I'm wondering where I should be starting on this...

masteroftherealm

DeviantART tbh is the best way to sell prints.
THey handle 90% of the work.

mervifwdc

photobox.ie are another option. I'm trying them out, but not sold anything through it yet.
Merv.

mtracey

Photobox are definitely a site you should take a look at.

You might also look at stock photography sites ?

Fenster

I refuse to sell to stock sites on point of principal - I know a fair few people who run stock sites/sell to them and I find them all @rseholes.

mtracey

You find stock sites aholes or photographers who sell to stock sites aholes ?

rymus

Seems as if photobox will only sell prints via their UK website and so deposit into a UK bank account. Maybe I've got that wrong but from reading both the Irish and UK website, it seems as if thats the way it works.

Had a look at http://www.clikpic.com/ too, looks very good if a bit limited on the old designs and styles you can use. Might try that one out for a year...

Fenster

mtracey wrote:

You find stock sites aholes or photographers who sell to stock sites aholes ?

Both, although I hasten to point out I can only speak for those with whom I've actually dealt with. There's a prevailing attitude of, "I sell my photos, which makes me better than you" that irks me a lot, when the bulk of them are no better or worse than you or I or most of the fine people on this board.

mervifwdc

True on the photobox comment about the sterling bank account but they seem to be changing that so that you can be paid into a paypal account.

Also, you can use the cash they owe you to get prints done that you can then get cash for (I've made a few sales to folks that would never buy from the web).

Merv.

Morlar

The devart print service is only open to subscribers - and then they take something like 90 - 95% of the money for the print unless you sign up for an additional print subscribtion where it drops to 50%.

I think you would have to sell a large number that way to make it worth while. I have a subscribers account but havent actually sold any (shock ! ! ) - but some people seem to do a roaring trade in them.

FYI I did read one recently where a girl in east europe was selling her prints on dev art and a shop in austrailia was buying them for say $20 and selling them on for $120.

rymus

I've spent a few productive hours setting up Gallery 2 with a PayPal plugin for my website which seems to be the proper job. I'll set about adding galleries of images later on but from testing with a paypal developer account it looks pretty damn good; just what I was looking for.

There are still charges related to the PayPal premium account but they can easily be absorbed into the print price. May be a viable option for anyone out there with a bit of know-how in the web dev side of things...

Greysoul

(yep, I'm still around, sorry I haven't posted here in so long!)

I've been selling my prints myself through my site for a couple of years now (not since I've moved here to Dublin though, for lack of a printer, but that'll soon be rectified)... I did 8.5 x 11, 11 x 17 and 13 x 19, no frames (shipped the prints in sturdy cardboard tubes), accepting payment through Paypal or check. I'm going to be moving to more of a gallery market/pricing structure, but for the past few years selling prints to my website visitors became my main source of income, and there was no feeling like holding a quality archival self-produced print of my work in my hands. For whatever that's worth

Fenster

Greysoul wrote:

(yep, I'm still around, sorry I haven't posted here in so long!)

I've been selling my prints myself through my site for a couple of years now (not since I've moved here to Dublin though, for lack of a printer, but that'll soon be rectified)... I did 8.5 x 11, 11 x 17 and 13 x 19, no frames (shipped the prints in sturdy cardboard tubes), accepting payment through Paypal or check. I'm going to be moving to more of a gallery market/pricing structure, but for the past few years selling prints to my website visitors became my main source of income, and there was no feeling like holding a quality archival self-produced print of my work in my hands. For whatever that's worth

Hah, in your case you've an excellent and professional portfolio. I have...photos of grass. I really need to sit down and attend a proper photography course at some point.

Ah well, more power to you for making your living from it.

picture

I've set up a website to sell both prints and stock photography at:
http://archive.nophotography.com
Using paypal for payments at the moment and sending prints via post ...
It's early days yet, as I've lots of images to get on to the site, slow enough work!