Making a Profit with Your Art

There can be a world of difference between making a sale and making a profit. Do you know if your small business is profitable?

by Carolyn Edlund

There can be a world of difference between making a sale and making a profit. Do you know if your small business is profitable?

I recently talked to a friend who was having images of her paintings reproduced in miniature to create a line of jewelry. She was ecstatic. Another way to sell her work! But once we took apart her costs and how she planned to sell wholesale to stores, it became apparent that she actually wouldn’t make any money at all with her current plan. She needed to rethink everything.

Wholesaling is a model that can work for artists who are able to put their work into production and create multiples. The formula for pricing at wholesale is:

Materials + Overhead + Labor + Cost of Sale + Profit = Wholesale Price

Profit is an essential part of this formula, and normally should be about 20% – 30% of the wholesale price. But what is profit anyway?

Read the Complete Article