Selling Fine Art Photos
Paul Furman
need to start selling them. I think I've posed most of this to the
groups before but it's on my mind again.
For framed stuff I think I just need to find an agent, I don't have the
motivation to scmooze galleries, I'm just not a networking kind of guy.
I can submit my images to one or more stock agencies, most of my work is
nature shots which is probably low demand, some urban scenes & scenic
postcard type stuff in san francisco. I'm not sure it'd be worth the
effort if these aren't marketable but even a little dribble of royalties
would be nice. I have thousands of images on my web site, mostly
annotated & I could figure out a way to automate the keywording process
but still that would be a big project. Should I exclude the fine art
images from that because it would cheapen the value of them as original
art? I don't currently do numbered sets... I guess that's a question for
my art dealer... if I can find one.
Some of my shots are suitable for post cards or calendars. Again, I
don't have it in me to market those. Any idea how to get that rolling?
Again, this could be just a nice little dribble of royalties. I guess I
could go to some gift shops & ask the owners where they buy their post
cards. When I looked into it, I found one photographer had a 'book' of
post cards published... lots of them floating around on ebay, so I guess
a book publisher might be another route but I don't know if he actually
made any money from that.
I could do a coffee table book... I suspect that's a tough market. I
could collborate with a writer & publish a book on California Native
Plants, which is sort of a narrow market but at least it's something
useful versus a coffee table type book. My other business is a native
plant nursery so I use the images with short descriptions, so it's
almost as simple as recompiling that like a catalog. Actually my
business partner in that is a writer. I don't think he really wants to
put the time needed into actually publishing a book though, he has other
things going. And people can see it all for free on our web site so I'm
not sure anyone would pay for it :-) I suppose I should make the photos
on our nursery web site for sale since that one does get great google
ranking and it's hitting the target market of nature enthusiasts. But
then I'd have to split the proceeds with my partner :-) and roll all my
expenses into that too... lenses are expensive & I don't charge anything
to that business for my photography. Hmph. I did write into the business
agreement that I retain FULL rights to my images. If he wants to buy me
out, we negotiate a price and I would ask a lot because IMO those pics
are a huge part of the success of the web site. That's advertising and
that's one place where photography should pay well.
At the moment, a couple people are wanting to use some of my photos, one
for a web site, I know she's on a very tight budget & the pics aren't
that valuable to me but really for a web site, that's not a one time use
but should properly be a yearly liscensing fee. Realistically I think
she only intends to pay maybe $25 or $50 one time. She's also a writer &
that's about what she paid photogs for her little newsletter. This web
site is promoting one of her books. Should I ask for something like
$10/year instead? Sounds like a hassle.
The other person is giving a lecture on native plants and wants to use
some of my photos in this one slide show promoting her book and native
seed business. She had asked about using my pics for her web site seed
catalogue before but when I explained it would need to be a liscensing
fee arrangement, she backed out. She's also a starving artist type.
She's probably thinking $30 or something... I have no clue. I said just
let me come to the presentation with some framed prints & business
cards, it's an interesting little artist colony town with some wealthy
people, a bunch of old hippies & artists so maybe a good chance to try
my hand at schmoozing art dealers or sell a print or two.
I've sold a few shots to a local nature magazine but it's just
ridiculous, they only pay $50 & they send out a very picky detailed
photo needs email to a bunch of people who are obviously just doing
photography as a hobby. Basically you need to go do a custom shoot for
them to meet their needs and apparently lots of people do just for fun.
They do put together a nice looking publication so at least it looks
good on my 'resume' but it frankly pisses me off. Last time they were
desperate & I did go out & do a custom shoot for them. 8 hours of work &
they only chose one photo... they agreed to pay me more ($100) since I
worked so hard for them but crap that should have cost them $400 as an
hourly shoot. I've heard national publication magazine work pays well
but I don't see how california nature scenes would be of any use in a
national magazine. Back to the stock photography idea where they might
want a pretty flower in some advertisement...
My web site gets very poor google rankings, I think there are some
technical issues I can address but I doubt it'll ever attract much
attention and I wouldn't want to put ads on it. Would it be worthwhile
to upload a bunch to some place like Flickr? That whole scene really
just seems like a hobby type thing. Who cares if more hobby photogs see
my work? I want money. I need to eat & pay rent. I can't imagine many
people buy prints from those sites or art dealers look at them, there
are just too many photos, it gets lost in an ocean of pretty pics.
Oh, and if you aren't completely exhausted & bored yet, the writing on
the following web page is all I've got right now as far as published
prices: http://www.edgehill.net/1/?SC=go.php&DIR=framed-exhibit
I recently rewrote that for the purpose of emailing to an art dealer
that a friend refered me to.
Walter Banks
The first thing you have done is identify your strengths and weakness and
likes and dislikes. You have intellectual property that you want to publish
for profit. That is the business you seek to be in.
The second thing you have done is identify a commercial operation, any
commercial operation is a lot of work doing things that are not part of the
apparent primary purpose even when as much work as possible is delegated.
Let me illustrate the point from one of your comments.
> For framed stuff I think I just need to find an agent, I don't have
> the motivation to scmooze galleries, I'm just not a networking
> kind of guy.
What role is the agent going to play? Marketing manager or salesman?
Salesmen are extremely skilled at optimizing the rules in their favor.
Marketing managers write the rules so that when a salesman wins so does the
company. (That is why most salesmen of the year are a disaster as the new
marketing manager)
Either way you are the new marketing manager. Prices, terms and conditions
and discounts all you are doing is marketing to a different customer base.
Selling to a stock image house is the same thing, you are discount selling
to a customer with less effort on your part.
Market research: Some or your comments are about potential markets for your
product
> I've sold a few shots to a local nature magazine but it's just
> ridiculous, they only pay $50 & they send out a very picky
> detailed photo needs email to a bunch of people who are
> obviously just doing photography as a hobby.
There are two things in this comment.
1) A local consumer who has clear details on their requirements and what
they are prepared to pay with a clear idea of their potential suppliers.
Start biding.
2) Look at it from their perspective. They need editorial content to keep
the ads from sticking together (and a bunch of postal rate issues) and to
attract customers to pay the cover costs and attract advertisers to pay for
the privilege of being associated with the editorial content
Post cards, calendars or coffee table book. Three different types of
publications (and politics). All of these need market research, find out who
is publishing the post cards in the market yours would fit into. Almost
certainly on the display stand with the current cards. Contact them , talk.
The same is true for calendars, and coffee table books. Books start out as
concepts that gets pitched to publishers. (Contact me off line I have been
on both sides of that negotiation)
Parting comments. You are selling intellectual property make absolutely sure
it is yours to sell. This isn't an accusation of dishonesty it is make sure
that it isn't encumbered with some other commitment. For example, when you
got $100 for an image to a magazine did you also sell the copyright or was
it a one time use? Were you paid to do some work or was it part of your
normal job, who has a claim on copyright of that work. I am not a lawyer but
I can assure you that it is far less expensive now than later to resolve
these kind of issues. Now often with a simple letter clarifying the IP
ownership.
Publishing is an exponential business. Ansel Adams found the market to buy
the images he created (or was it the other way round) . Exponential because
there are very few Ansel Adams and a lot of the rest of us
> My web site gets very poor google rankings,
The single biggest way to boost Google rankings is to add your web site
address to your signature.
This may be worth what you paid for it.
Walter..
sws
Paul Furman
Hmm, interesting, thanks, it seems mostly Euro based but they do have a
Gallery in NY, I'll put it on my list.
Paul Furman
> Paul all the questions of running a small business.
Ugh, yeah, this is the third business I've taken on. Dropped the first,
hopes that the second will continue to grow and become viable and hopes
that this could fill in a bit of royalties & such without too much
business on my end beyond supplying the images.
> The first thing you have done is identify your strengths and weakness and
> likes and dislikes. You have intellectual property that you want to publish
> for profit. That is the business you seek to be in.
>
> The second thing you have done is identify a commercial operation, any
> commercial operation is a lot of work doing things that are not part of the
> apparent primary purpose even when as much work as possible is delegated.
> Let me illustrate the point from one of your comments.
>
>>For framed stuff I think I just need to find an agent, I don't have
>>the motivation to scmooze galleries, I'm just not a networking
>>kind of guy.
>
> What role is the agent going to play? Marketing manager or salesman?
> Salesmen are extremely skilled at optimizing the rules in their favor.
> Marketing managers write the rules so that when a salesman wins so does the
> company. (That is why most salesmen of the year are a disaster as the new
> marketing manager)
>
> Either way you are the new marketing manager. Prices, terms and conditions
> and discounts all you are doing is marketing to a different customer base.
> Selling to a stock image house is the same thing, you are discount selling
> to a customer with less effort on your part.
I've heard others say I should be wary of a saleseman working for
commission but if I have to do the sales it's just not going to happen.
I suppose this whole discussion is the act of me learning to be
amarketing manager. I'm going to have to do some schmoozing at art
openings & such to get an idea of how the business works I guess...
though it doesn't appeal to me, perhaps I can work at it long enough to
at least know how to choose a salesman who won't rip me off.
> Market research: Some or your comments are about potential markets for your
> product
Oh yeah, just like any business :-(
>>I've sold a few shots to a local nature magazine but it's just
>>ridiculous, they only pay $50 & they send out a very picky
>>detailed photo needs email to a bunch of people who are
>>obviously just doing photography as a hobby.
>
> There are two things in this comment.
> 1) A local consumer who has clear details on their requirements and what
> they are prepared to pay with a clear idea of their potential suppliers.
> Start biding.
In other words I should simply ask for more money from them?
> 2) Look at it from their perspective. They need editorial content to keep
> the ads from sticking together (and a bunch of postal rate issues) and to
> attract customers to pay the cover costs and attract advertisers to pay for
> the privilege of being associated with the editorial content
I'm not sure I can ask for more. They apparently have plenty of cheap
suppliers. I'm just counting it for resume value.
> Post cards, calendars or coffee table book. Three different types of
> publications (and politics). All of these need market research, find out who
> is publishing the post cards in the market yours would fit into. Almost
> certainly on the display stand with the current cards. Contact them , talk.
> The same is true for calendars, and coffee table books. Books start out as
> concepts that gets pitched to publishers. (Contact me off line I have been
> on both sides of that negotiation)
Here's an interesting reply from the one buyer I mentioned:
"...I've decided not to try to get a digital slide show together by
Friday - too much on my plate, and I want to relax and enjoy spring at
least a bit. But I would like to be able to include your images
sometime, if I can afford it, when you have decided how you want to do it.
Saxon Holt, who makes a living at this kind of photography, might be a
model for you. I paid for him to make duplicates of a bunch of slides
of his native plant images and I have the right to use them in a talk,
but not to publish them. Then we included some of these images in my
book, for which he was well paid by the publisher. I've also hired him
to supply images for articles I've written. Not infrequently, the
photographer is paid better than the author. Just some thoughts..."
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Saxon+Holt
-looks like he is doing pretty well
> Parting comments. You are selling intellectual property make absolutely sure
> it is yours to sell. This isn't an accusation of dishonesty it is make sure
> that it isn't encumbered with some other commitment. <snip>
Thanks, yes I am pretty careful about these issues.
>
> Publishing is an exponential business. Ansel Adams found the market to buy
> the images he created (or was it the other way round) . Exponential because
> there are very few Ansel Adams and a lot of the rest of us
>
>
>>My web site gets very poor google rankings,
>
> The single biggest way to boost Google rankings is to add your web site
> address to your signature.
Yeah, I just dropped that last time my computer crashed... there are
other issues as well though.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments,
--
Paul Furman
Bay Natives Nursery
http://www.baynatives.com
Photography
http://www.edgehill.net/1
Walter Banks
Paul Furman wrote:
> Walter Banks wrote:
>
> >
> > There are two things in this comment.
> > 1) A local consumer who has clear details on their requirements and what
> > they are prepared to pay with a clear idea of their potential suppliers.
> > Start biding.
>
> In other words I should simply ask for more money from them?
You have at least once and been successful by asking for more. One approach is ask for more. As you say elsewhere you can use it as resume material (and personal advertising from the credits) If no one will supply them at their price they need to increase
their price or not use that form of editorial material. A friend of mine ( http://www.ethanmeleg.com/ ) who does a lot of spectacular wildlife and landscape photos supplies a lot of material to local small run publications. I doubt he is well paid for
these images. You might want to look at Ethan's website for idea's on how images can be promoted. (Bret he uses Canon)
Periodic publications usually don't pay much but the promotional value can be quite valuable.
Authors spend a lot of time contacting acquisitions editors. Material close to the publications consumers have a high probability of publication.
Currently email is a good approach.
Short, clear messages.
You have 10 seconds of their time.
White space is import in presenting the message (Think composition).
w..
David Geissler
http://www.photoconnect.net/sell2a.htm
He is furtherly recommending alamy.com
maybe you find this article interesting too:
http://www.dphotojournal.com/sell-photos-online/
I further recommend Napoleon Hill: Think and Grow Rich (bestseller since
1937, you might find it as a free ebook here or there)
Now I have a question myself, forgive me if I will ask it once again in
a new post as well:
Is there an offeror (I'm actually sure there is a many, but which one is
really good in terms of quality and conditions) that uses a photobridge
through which an artist / photographer can sell his own pictures as
prints? What is required is a system where the prices can be set from
the offering photographer's site. In Europe there is f.ex. pixaco (but
doesn't allow customized prices) or bilderplanet.de which allows an
artist to define his own prices and they just charge the seller/the
artist their regular price as commission so to speak and he can keep the
difference.
As I'm not sure what you might understand under the term photobridge:
A shopping cart system which can be linked from the artist's gallery and
which allows the visitor of that gallery to order prints from a photolab
which gets the original print size models from the artit's websites and
gives the artist commission or control over price / transaction.
The photolab that is prospected for should ideally be willing to ship to
whole US, maybe Canada as well, take care of the whole order/payment
process and transfer the artist's earnings oversea or by electronic
means like paypal.
Any ideas what companies to check out?
Thanks a lot.
Paul Furman
> I liked the idea of this photographer:
> http://www.photoconnect.net/sell2a.htm
> He is furtherly recommending alamy.com
> maybe you find this article interesting too:
> http://www.dphotojournal.com/sell-photos-online/
>
> I further recommend Napoleon Hill: Think and Grow Rich (bestseller since
> 1937, you might find it as a free ebook here or there)
>
> Now I have a question myself, forgive me if I will ask it once again in
> a new post as well:
> Is there an offeror (I'm actually sure there is a many, but which one is
> really good in terms of quality and conditions) that uses a photobridge
> through which an artist / photographer can sell his own pictures as
> prints? What is required is a system where the prices can be set from
> the offering photographer's site. In Europe there is f.ex. pixaco (but
> doesn't allow customized prices) or bilderplanet.de which allows an
> artist to define his own prices and they just charge the seller/the
> artist their regular price as commission so to speak and he can keep the
> difference.
The one suggested above looked respectable http://eu.lumas.com/
http://lumas.com/ All I could tell is it was not for super expensive
established artists but seemed to have some standards.
There are many here like smugmug.com but totally unfiltered, just
everybody's snapshots of grandma & the dog with a "Buy now" button in
the corner seems ridiculous.
I find it hard to believe many fine art wall hanging photos are
purchased online, I think it's just a scam for extracting extra service
fees from photographers. At least lumas does have physical galleries and
only accepts work thru a review process somehow. Other examples, with
more established artists, who can show a resume of ongoing fine art
sales might sell a few off web pages.
Stock photo catalogs seem more for commercial work like advertising &
corporate brochures & web sites. Here's a brief useful review of some of
those: http://www.aioponline.org/stock_photo2.htm
> As I'm not sure what you might understand under the term photobridge:
> A shopping cart system which can be linked from the artist's gallery and
> which allows the visitor of that gallery to order prints from a photolab
> which gets the original print size models from the artit's websites and
> gives the artist commission or control over price / transaction.
> The photolab that is prospected for should ideally be willing to ship to
> whole US, maybe Canada as well, take care of the whole order/payment
> process and transfer the artist's earnings oversea or by electronic
> means like paypal.
>
> Any ideas what companies to check out?
>
> Thanks a lot.
>
--
Paul Furman Photography
http://www.edgehill.net/1
Paul Furman
> David Geissler wrote:
>
>> I liked the idea of this photographer:
>> http://www.photoconnect.net/sell2a.htm
I'm a bit skeptical of their claims and the color scheme is hard on my
eyes. One way to test these google search claims is like this:
<http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&um=1&q=bird+site%3Aphotoconnect.net&btnG=Search+Images>
The results are not relevant in this case.
I'm also personally not a fan of paypal. I find them to be a royal pain
to deal with. I just finished setting up a credit card payment service
for my other online business with authorize.net which seems pretty good
so far. That's not a simple thing but what I'm saying is use a service
that uses a regular credit card processing system, not paypal. You might
as well use ebay as some system that relies on paypal. Just my opinion.
>> He is furtherly recommending alamy.com
>> maybe you find this article interesting too:
>> http://www.dphotojournal.com/sell-photos-online/
Thanks, useful reading there! :-)
>> I further recommend Napoleon Hill: Think and Grow Rich (bestseller
>> since 1937, you might find it as a free ebook here or there)
>>
>> Now I have a question myself, forgive me if I will ask it once again
>> in a new post as well:
>> Is there an offeror (I'm actually sure there is a many, but which one
>> is really good in terms of quality and conditions) that uses a
>> photobridge through which an artist / photographer can sell his own
>> pictures as prints? What is required is a system where the prices can
>> be set from the offering photographer's site. In Europe there is f.ex.
>> pixaco (but doesn't allow customized prices) or bilderplanet.de which
>> allows an artist to define his own prices and they just charge the
>> seller/the artist their regular price as commission so to speak and he
>> can keep the difference.
>
> The one suggested above looked respectable http://eu.lumas.com/
> http://lumas.com/ All I could tell is it was not for super expensive
> established artists but seemed to have some standards.
>
> There are many here like smugmug.com but totally unfiltered, just
> everybody's snapshots of grandma & the dog with a "Buy now" button in
> the corner seems ridiculous.
>
> <snip>
>
>> As I'm not sure what you might understand under the term photobridge:
>> A shopping cart system which can be linked from the artist's gallery
I re-read your question, now I see what you mean. I do not know the
answer except I noticed some successful photographers do also post their
work on photo sharing sites as duplicates so if nothing else you could
point your own private web site to the same image on one of those sites
to provide printing, payment and delivery service.
Paul Furman
in...@johnkenneyink.com
Paul,
Your photos look great - my only critique would be that I think you
could increase your prices! As a fellow artist, I find it hard to
price any work I've done, but in the dealings I've had with galleries
and buyers, oftentimes I am urged to ask for much more than I think an
image is worth. Kind of a professional standard, I guess. An
unfortunate side effect of higher prices can be greater respect -
sounds a bit backwards, doesn't it? Much like wine, I still hold onto
the belief that price isn't a reflection of quality, but again, I
don't think this is the standard.
Anyway, keep up the good work. Feel free to check out this link where
I sell some of my photos - www.johnkenneyink.com If you are
interested in using a more permanent site to display and sell your
works, the fellow who did mine is very reasonable and has a great
artistic eye. Let me know what you think.
Frank ess
> On Apr 21, 6:05 pm, Paul Furman <p...@-edgehill.net> wrote:
>> I don't expect to make a full living from fine art photography but
>> I
>> need to start selling them. I think I've posed most of this to the
>> groups before but it's on my mind again.
>>
[ ... ]
I was in a seminar a few years back, one designed to give a
perspective to new arts-crafts marketers. I remember an example of
how-to-think involved a jewelry-maker who did fine, original work that
sat consigned in a shop where it had few sales at $75-$85 per item, a
price that gave the artist a comfotable profit, but seldom.
The shop hired a clerk who misinterpreted some re-marking instructions
and tripled the affixed prices, rather than marking them down to a
"clearance" 30%.
Over the course of the following two weeks all the jewelry sold at the
higher prices, and the shop owner was clamoring for more.
By some lucky combination of circumstances, the mistaken prices were
within a perceived value range that struck a chord with shoppers'
perceptions of the items; lower prices set by the maker inhibited an
evaluation in the frame of buyers' ideas of "worthwhileness", which
ideas were apparently congruent with the new prices.
Trick is in finding a person with the right kind of eye to evaluate
your products (or a clerk who will make the correct mistakes).
--
Frank ess
Paul Furman
Sounds like the story I heard on the radio about the waitress who was
polite & got crappy tips then tried being more abrupt & got much better
tips. What I did compiling cost estimates for architectural work is make
my best asessment, then double it.
BTW thanks for your comments John, I remember your web site, with the
manhole covers, nicely done, I've got a gallery named 'gritty' with
dirty urban stuff too :-)
I'm also considering rolling my photography business into the nursery
business. For example, just add a "buy a print or license this image"
link to these pages:
http://www.baynatives.com/plants/Chlorogalum-pomeridianum/
So I'm not sure yet where to go with the web site yet.
C J Campbell
> I don't expect to make a full living from fine art photography but I
> need to start selling them. I think I've posed most of this to the
> groups before but it's on my mind again.
>
> For framed stuff I think I just need to find an agent, I don't have the
> motivation to scmooze galleries, I'm just not a networking kind of guy.
Ultimately, that is what you need to be. You can learn.
Your pictures are good. Seems to me what you really need is the
confidence to put some effort into selling them.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor