Selling own prints on own site

[pbryld]

I see so many members/photographers selling their prints on their own website, usually a few hundred bucks depending on the format.

I can't help but wonder, does this actually work? If it does, how frequently do you sell a print?

[vinny]

No.
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?91549-FS-silver-gelatin-print-100&highlight=vinnywalsh.com

[ypres.bass]

I try sell my prints too, but it's awfull!!!
People want not originals, they want bullsh*ts from IKEA!

In this moment, I need to sell at least one... Only one ...
I try it through my own website (http://www.stanislavkolarik.cz/aktual.html), through ebay (http://www.ebay.com/sch/ypres.bass/m.html), through aukro (Czech equivalent of ebay)

[Bill McMannis]

If you wish to sell prints, you need to be in a high traffic gallery. If you are in the gallery, then have your images on their website. They earn their fee by handling this for you. Frees you up to be a photographer.

Atleast in my experience, ready to hang prints sell much quicker than simply matted prints and In my case, I make money on the frame as well as the image.

[dsphotog]

I've sold prints at club group shows, gallery contests, and by showing at local businesses that I asked to hang prints in their lobbies. Haven't tried on line, it seems like the hard part is getting found.

[polyglot]

The only (not-famous) people I know who successfully sell prints do so from exhibitions in galleries. I've only sold prints by word of mouth and gave up on selling them on the web.

[David Higgs]

I sell around 4 prints a month through my site, but only from people who have seen the real thing in local art shows/galleries/coffee houses/restaurants/foyers or whereever else I can pimp them. The web presence is useful for people to make contact with me, and for customers to get a feel for what else I do. Of interest I have only ever sold framed prints (apart from images sent abroad).

Not enough sales to feed my family ;-)

[Brian Ellis]

I've never made a major effort to sell prints, it seems like a good way to turn a great hobby into a miserable business. But I've sold a few in diverse ways - once from a group show at a gallery, once through a juried contest sponsored by a university that wanted prints to hang in a new dorm, and few others in even more oddball ways (e.g. once to a lady who was in a frame shop at the same time I was, saw something I was having framed, liked it, bought it). I had gallery representation in Tampa for a few years but sold nothing through them (and when the gallery closed someone ran off with my prints). I made one sale from my web site in the five or so years I had it and that was just a coincidence (to a friend of my daughter).

But to try to answer your question -I doubt that you really see many people here selling prints through their web sites. I think you see many people here with web sites. I'd guess that most photographers who actually sell enough photographs to make it worthwhile are out there promoting, hustling, networking, marketing,etc., not posting messages on photography forums.

[welly]

Are many people getting traffic to their site? Without that, they might as well not be online. Getting visitors to your site is probably the biggest challenge before actually selling a print. I suspect there are better ways of selling prints than through your own personal website.

[Drew Bedo]

I sell my work through public exhibitions, gallery, business or juried shows. My best venue has been a trade show, Abilities Expo, in Houstopn every August.

My prints are available through my website at www.quietlightphoto.com or hrough an online gallery www.artsyhome.com

Only the public, in-person venues seem to work out with a sale or two. I know a few photographers who do an art fair or two each year. They do well—sometimes—but it is spotty. Seems to be a LOT of work setting up and shutting down.

[ROL]

Other than the obvious self promotions, I agree with everything already posted. I would just add that work for sale on-line, even if simultaneously presented in some sort of physical gallery environment, may be perceived as cut-rate, unless you are already very well known – possibly because it shares the same electronic image venue as other types of photography and art. In other words, the lowest common denominator point-of-sale that is now the internet as well as the glut of imagery, seems to affect worth, be it classically hand or machine made prints. When I have had individual enquiries, and it's been awhile since I don't stress print sales on my site, they invariably want to know how much better I can do for them than for galleries.

[Henry Larson]

I see so many members/photographers selling their prints on their own website, usually a few hundred bucks depending on the format.

I can't help but wonder, does this actually work? If it does, how frequently do you sell a print?

I have had a web presence for about 9 years. In that time I have sold 0 prints from a web search.
However I have sold to people to whom I have given business cards or other advertizing material which sent them to the website to purchase.
I use the web as a help tool and not as a primary means of generating sales.

[Moopheus]

The web and photographer's web sites and blogs and so on have allowed me to find out about a lot of artists I would not have known about otherwise. But if I were in a position to spend some money on a print, I'd still want to be able to see something besides a low-res jpg before I buy.

[Darin Boville]

Way way back at the dawn of time, somewhere around 1996 or so, I had a web page that used to get a fair amount of traffic. I also sold a fair number of prints and for good money, too. But that all faded away as the Internet developed and the poor buyers were overwhelmed with online photographers.

--Darin

[QT Luong]

To have an idea of the numbers required to make this work, read http://www.terragalleria.com/blog/2011/11/02/my-internet-based-photography-business/

[Andrew O'Neill]

nnnnnnope.

[Bruce Pollock]

Andy Warhol said: "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." I think everyone will be a photographer and the future is now. Everyone with a cell phone is a photographer and the number of photographs produced every day is beyond counting. Photographs have become worthless - it's simple economics when the supply approaches infinity.

I just give my stuff away to people who seem to appreciate it.

[Leigh]

Have you considered a hosting site that has the e-commerce stuff built in, like Zenfolio?

- Leigh

[jon.oman]

I used SmugMug Pro for five years. During that time, I sold about 10 images.......

[QT Luong]

Just read this confession from a former Peter Lik salesperson ("art consultant" is the title). It's not about selling on websites but I thought it was an interesting and unusual perspective on print sales: http://scottreither.com/blogwp/2012/06/11/peter-lik-gallery-photographer-my-story/

[mdm]

Much left to be read between the lines. Full of good ideas too.

[David Higgs]

thanks for that QT - very interesting article

I've been in the LV gallery and the one in Noosa (Aus) - impressive places

I remember Lik from working in Cairns in the mid 1990s, he was selling post cards at the time - boy done well!

[Ken Lee]

Just read this confession from a former Peter Lik salesperson ("art consultant" is the title). It's not about selling on websites but I thought it was an interesting and unusual perspective on print sales: http://scottreither.com/blogwp/2012/06/11/peter-lik-gallery-photographer-my-story/

Wow - Thanks for sharing that.

There's something for everyone in this world.

[Jim Michael]

1. Get folks who visit your site to sign up for your newsletter.
2. Start writing a newsletter and send it out to your subscribers. Tell them about all the great things you are working on.
3. In your newsletter each month feature your "print of the month". Make an offer like "buy all 12 print of the month images and get a free portfolio, plus the special price".
4. Profit.

Converting a visitor to a sale is difficult, but making a sale when there is a relationship makes it easier.

[Jody_S]

Selling own prints on own site? Never tried. I rarely make prints, for that matter. My wife complains she has no idea what I photograph. I like the suggestions of doing the art show circuit, I know there are a few around here as well as the usual 'photo club' exhibitions and such.

I sold a bit back in the 90s, when I was doing tiny-format nature photography, off a website I put together myself one afternoon. But at the time, if you were looking for a picture of a great grey owl or a female caribou, for a book on native American cuisine or mythology, you didn't have that many places to go.

[ROL]

I rarely make prints, for that matter. My wife complains she has no idea what I photograph.

Boy, that's a mouthful, by itself. When I started, pre–D, if you didn't make prints (or had them made for you), there was simply no point in photography. Whatcha gonna do, show your negatives around? The "fine art" process was a complete craftsman–like enterprise, from the "taking" of a photo to the "giving" of a final print. It still is for me.

The comment about your wife's complaint seems somewhat ambiguous. Did she mean why photograph if you don't make pictures, why bother at all, or something else? By way of comparison, my wife is always after me to make more prints, but I find it harder and harder to even bother shooting at all anymore. with so much imagery easily and cheaply available, and my print files filled to overflowing.

[Jody_S]

I have something like 750GB in digital files, and I haven't scanned any of the nature photos I took in the 90s. But I haven't had a darkroom in several years now, so the only way I can print is to have a digital file printed by a lab or run one off on my Epson. I can do that whenever I want, but since I almost never show these, and when I do it's usually low-res on the 'net, I usually don't bother making a print.

[photobymike]

A lot of smut sells on ebay.... mostly original slides or negatives....

[ROL]

I have something like 750GB in digital files... I usually don't bother making a print.

I see – lots of pixels in search of meaningful expression.

[cdholden]

Selling own prints on own site? Never tried. I rarely make prints, for that matter. My wife complains she has no idea what I photograph.

Tell your other half that you're doing her a favor. If she doesn't know, it less that she has to complain about.
Up until recently, I rarely printed my work. It was more of a therapeutic way for me to relax and tune out the rest of the world. Since recently introducing my daughter the process, and seeing her positive reaction to it, I've been motivated to put my past work behind me and start fresh. I've been working with her to teach her to compose and expose, develop and print. I'm finding that teaching her to pre-visualize has helped her artwork in school.
She's even had one of her pastels shown in The Frist Center (http://fristcenter.org/calendar-exhibitions/detail/wilson-county-schools-art-show) in a collective student show. How many 8 year olds can say that? I know professional artists that would do anything to have a piece displayed there.
So I've started to print more to encourage her artist work. Even if she chooses another medium besides photography, it's still a good thing.

[ROL]

Even if she chooses another medium besides photography, it's still a good thing.

Probably a great thing. If not the the medium of photography, her artwork has the possibility of being both rare and well done.;)

[printisnotdead]

I really don't think so. It's a bad idea. Besides, printed works would just get destroyed over time if they don't sell right away. I would rather go for the soft copy and have it printed elsewhere.