Recently I read a story on a forum about how someone noted an artist selling a print (a copy of the print) for a very large price. He then examined the fact that he was selling his own work at a fraction of that price, and began to wonder. Public galleries are definitely a way you can market your photos, if you want to do all of the work. Make the prints up, book a gallery, spend time promoting the heck out of the event, hire a caterer. In the end, how much are you really making? You can’t make gallery sales all over the world, any time of day or night – even while you’re asleep. Sure, there are buyers for that type of thing – prints, or even RM licenses.
Just the fact that a product is priced higher, many times that will make it more desirable to a potential buyer. Sometimes when products cost more, people think they’re getting a superior product or service when in actuality they might be getting the same thing Joe Smith down the street sells at 1/10th of the cost.
Is this luxury sports coupe any more functional or reliable than a car that costs half the price? Sometimes expensive sportscars like these even share the same exact engines as other “economy” cars, but at a much higher cost.
In the end, you can’t look at microstock as 38 cents here, 50 cents there. You need to look at your income as a whole. People moan about how they don’t want to sell EL’s just to get $20-$30 after their cut. Some feel they are giving away too much. Someone buys an enhance license, slaps it on a T shirt or a large print run of a book cover, and makes thousands while the artist is left with a measly $20-30. This is how I see it. If I sell 5-10 a month there’s my electricity and phone bill paid for. I look at any type of sales as progress, or earnings toward my gross combined sales.
I personally look at Alamy as my “gallery” site. Every few months I might make a larger sale or two and that, to me, equates to the same thing as taking the time to set up a gallery exhibition to market my work at a higher price. What it all comes down to, is are you able to create images that buyers need in this market? If not, you might want to corner another segment of this huge creative market. Stock is a very small part of the big picture. Some can do it full time, others like the extra side income, and then others just want to keep it as a hobby. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, whatsoever. Some hobbyists might take home more in revenues than those that exhibit their artwork in public galleries constantly. Someone else might make money in their gallery sales selling 10 images a year than someone with thousands of images on a microstock site could take home.
In the end, which is the best route? That is for you to decide. If you don’t take a chance, then you’ll never know. Test the waters!
Have any experiences with marketing your own work in different ways that you’d like to share? Successes? Failures? We’d all love to hear them – feel free to post your comments.
