How To Sell Art

the search on the forum will give many results

Marketing 101 by Mike Savad
Why Your Work May Not Be Selling - By Mike Savad
Evaluating Your Own Work To Sell – By Mike Savad
How To Critique And Edit Your Own Work For Better Sales

1. you want more than 19 images
2. you want better more creative titles.
3. you want images that are in focus


is this something you would buy and hang on your own wall? a locked statue of a dog that is out of focus and kind of blue? this also has practically no keywords or a description. it only has 2 views which means your not telling anyone about your work


the first rule to selling art is to know how to use the equipment, soft images, or blue snow, doesn't look professional. to sell you need good sellable work.


its a bit fuzzy up close, but its a good shot overall. where is it? no description, no keywords. nothing that will help anyway. you have to describe what we are looking at and why. google and buyers need this. and one nit though, while you didn't ask for a critique, selling is about presentation and this is a bit crooked.


i can see this selling - what kind of flower is it? it makes a difference. there are millions of flowers out there, and for the person looking - they may want this particular breed.

you have a total of 38 visitors since last year. uploading and leaving won't help you sell anything. a constant stream of sharp work, that has descriptions and keywords is what you need, beyond that follow the guides above. also be sure your galleries all have logos

also your bio - should be about your work. its not a life history from birth to present. nor is the medical history of conferences you went too. focus on what you shoot and tell people why they should buy from you.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Start here:

https://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=3565122



The short answer is:

1. Know who you are as an artist. What do you create and why do you create it? What void are you filling in the art/photography print market? What problem or need are you solving? What is your mission as an artist? If you can't answer those, you're not ready to sell.

2. Build a portfolio of images that are high quality, interesting, and suited for the home decor market. Many photographers here have portfolios of thousands of images. If you have a style, or a specific niche you specialize in that may help you, but you had better be skilled at it. High quality means high resolution images, composed and cropped well, appropriately adjusted and saved for upload and print.

3. Determine who your buyer is. Who wants your images? Age group? Economic group? Professions? Do you want to sell worldwide or just in the US?

4. Where are your buyers? Are they on social media? Are they in real life galleries? Do they read blogs or art magazines? How do you reach them?

5. Get your work in front of your buyers and build an audience. Build an email list, build a following. Then you must send potential buyers to your sales page. This can be done in real life, through email, through social media, in groups, at trade shows.... this part of the process can take years, but it's the most important part.

6. Keep making high quality work and building your audience and showing them what you do.


If it sounds like a lot of work, it is. It's a very competitive market. For many of us, it's a full time job and then some. If you expect just to upload and sell you'll be sorely disappointed.

Mike and Cynthia have given you a great overview of marketing and critique. In drilling down to selling on here in particular, your images run on the smallish side, and some have a frosty looking filter or cast on them when viewing through the green box/loupe. I can't tell if this was done in Photoshop, or occurred in the camera.

Also, whatever products you are selling, in my opinion, the image needs to be optimally adjusted on the products (pillows, duvets, etc). Look at how the duvet covers are presented and you'll see what I mean... a tiny postage stamp-sized image in the center of the cover. If your image doesn't look or fit well on a product, then don't have that product for sale (remove prices and leave blank, no zero), as it takes away from the overall look of your offerings.

You have some nice images, but they need to be scrutinized for details that take away from the composition. Editing in post-production is as important as the actual photograph-taking. My opinions only :), but I think they are valid.

What I have learned, and still learn from.. is others... always, always look at others works.. look at what sells.. learn from others. There is never a day that I don't look at my peers works. I learn so much, and I can judge my own work by the standards that they set for me to live up to.

Cynthia has a lot of success and is fabulous to follow.

I like her advice especially the one about building an audience. If there is no audience for your work, there are no buyers. Also be confident with your buyers and try to get art into their homes.

Mike also has great advice and I've taken in all his ideas for making artwork look professional. It takes awhile so be patient with yourself.

Cynthia and Mike already offered lots of great marketing advice.

I really like this one of yours:



The image seems to be very small though and I don't know if they will print it because of your watermark. But you might try to do more photos with this style. Use the best resolution your camera has to offer. Think about editing them so the colors are a bit more vibrant but this is completely up to you.

Pinterest Marketing for Artists

usually you know your work is good when your friends go from - you should sell that.... to i want to buy that from you.

post work that you would buy for yourself if you saw it in another store.

keep in mind your up against thousands of other artists who have a lot of experience and art. your work should be up to the same level as those that sell and are on the front page. that level takes a while to get to. learning the basic functions of the camera is the first step. then knowing what crop and edit works best. and most importantly, being able to critique your own work, and removing any image that is less than your other best images.

coming back to a thread you started is always nice too, interaction helps. and now your a sticky.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

The first step is the hardest and you have done that by asking for advice. When you get a chance to come back to the discussion it would be nice to know what you have done yourself to get visitors to your page here on FAA.

Jeffery Johnson | Photo Captures by Jeffery
http://www.PhotoCapturesbyJeffery.com

I usually leave how to sell art questions to the professionals, here are two of my favorite at the moment. I've learned much form them to tweak my own marketing and selling plan

https://pixels.com/profiles/barney-davey.html?tab=blog


https://theabundantartist.com

Every time I sign onto Pixels/FAA, I look at the Recently Sold page. Even if you don't know from that page if any have passed the Quality Control process yet for actual printing, you can at least get a snapshot of what the public is buying. You will see that people buy all sorts of images. Everything here on this thread is helpful information :)

Also to add to Joy comment look at the buyer reviews

https://fineartamerica.com/buyercomments.html

Jeffery Johnson | Photo Captures by Jeffery
http://www.PhotoCapturesbyJeffery.com

i guess you didn't get a chance to see this thread to reply to, so i'm bumping it up for you.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com