Giveaway

Yes, it is beautiful!

Thank you. And what abou some flower macro?


http://imgur.com/kx6O8WD

Martin,

You are very talented artist.

The first image wont fit in my living room no matter how beautiful it actually is.

The second image is great and anyone in the market could buy it easily.

Are you using Twitter? ah yep.... https://twitter.com/MartinCapekArt

You are actually partially successful on Twitter.

You have the followers.

You can sell the second image easily. You can find the buyers
for the second image easily.

Artists change focus as they exhaust one genre. Just a thought.

Every week I have wonder how you were doing. You are the most talented
artist on here with bad luck in the sales category. At least the one I know of.
You've been quieter since the last round of critiquing. I dont blame you.

You can focus a camera for a great image and crop it to perfection. Change what
you want to sell, focus on something else............????? Find the customer's take on what fits
in their living room????

Dave

Thank you David.
Yes I was quitet and off this site for a while. I have tried to push my work more via twitter, with better hashtags and without image every tweet. Of course no result in sales.
So I decided to give up my premium here (ends in about a month) And I have started to upload more on my shutterstock( and others microstock) profile. I am creating new stuff for it and transfering some of my work from here. Good thing is, this is working for me. my sales are growing there as I am uploading more.

That reminds me that my prices at pixels
http://licensing.pixels.com/profiles/martin-capek.html
are similar to microstock on-demand prices now !

Martin,

You are welcome. I am very new. What is shutterstock?

How does it work?

Dave

It is a microstock agency. Microstock is for licensing only. They sell it as royalty-free. And it is called microstock, because the basic license is really cheap and you will recive only few cents for it. BUT the point is in number, you can have hundreds of sales per month. And you can have some extra licencing sales for more money, it depends on agency. For example I had one sale for 60USD this month.

Nice sale on SS. Must be going in a publication. That pays for two years of premium.

Its sad to see artist throw in the towel before the fruits of their labor come in. Try new things - yes but why get rid of the old? Microstock is a different market - professional image buyers for commercial purposes. Fine art is entirely different - individuals buying for their enjoyment.

That's a beautiful mandala image, Martin -- I've snagged it as wallpaper. Thank you!

Don't give up too soon. Mandala / kaleidoscope / fractal images will never be my best sellers, but I've had much better luck with them on other sites, and in the real world. They usually sell to younger clients (teens to 40-ish demographic). Just last week, I sold three pieces from my 'Natural Attributes' collection. They went to a local buyer, who spotted the collection through this blog post:

http://art166.blogspot.com/2014/01/introducing-natural-attributes.html

I posted the blog entry, and distributed an accompanying press release and video, back in January; it took this long to bear fruit. Now, those pieces are out in the world, with the potential to be seen and appreciated by people I wouldn't know how to reach, otherwise. Showing them in frames made it easier for the buyer to visualize them in an actual real world setting and, I believe, helped to seal the deal.

Sometimes, all you can do is hang in there -- and if that doesn't work, hang in there a little longer. ;-)

As I mentioned in another thread, I'm scaling back my direct-to-FAA/AW marketing, choosing to put more effort into pushing my more successful sites and marketing to real world clients. However, I'll keep my premium FAA account for the chance to have those two unlimited portfolios as part of my overall Internet presence. I've put too much time, energy, and artwork into my FAA presence to go back to showing only 25 images here.

Whatever you decide, best of luck, Martin!

PS -- I'm shooting you a pm.

Martin your work is really very good. I especially like your christmas cards and am surpised that these are not a big seeler for you

I think I understand what David is saying, The real world person thinks of art as wall decor and the average person is likely going to have a more subdued living space. I guess that means we need to consider there point of view. Perhaps just reduce some of the color via photoshop.

it's definitely not a matter of color; if that were the case there would never be a Warhol hanging anywhere in the world! Or a Van Gogh. The entire Fauvism movement would never have existed! I would never have sold a piece of work in my life, either. ;-)

Martin's first image, above, couldn't be more neutral and earth-toned, imo. An autumn-themed landscape in those colors would certainly not raise any eyebrows. Reducing color on that piece would turn it into a murky 'nothing'.

Color's not the problem -- finding buyers for digital work is a HUGE problem. They're out there, for sure, but you have to be in the right place, at the right time, to stumble across them. Or, you have to go find them.

It's important to hang in there -- keeping your work and name highly visible until you gain some recognition and momentum. Combining real world shows with online efforts has been a tremendous help to me, as a digital artist. Still, it's taken more than a decade to get to a place where I'm selling obviously-digital work regularly, on multiple sites.

It's a long, lonely, marathon event, for sure.

Edward :I am not leaving old for new with micro. I am on micro for much longer than on POD. Actually I neglected my micro this year because of my unsuccessful effort here.

LC:Thanks. I have sold one pack of 10 cards. And thatīs all.


Wendy:Nice, I am glad you like it: )

My suggestion is not to mix your markets. Sell fine art to fine art buyers. Sell stock to stock buyers. I sell in a variety of channels from fine art to boutique stock agency to microstock.

My time and effort aims for the areas that lead to the highest payback. Micro gets the leftovers.

LC,

Not specifically color. I mean that I am more conventional in my living room. I am in my early 50s, not that I have a fat wallet, but you want
buyers in their 50s and 60s who do have big wallets. They would buy plenty of art from Martin, but not fractals etc.....

I am not saying match art to someone's couch at all either. I do not believe personally in being an interior designer. But if you
were hanging an art work in a gallery you would be careful how you presented the work. So why not be careful from the very genesis
of the work's creation?

Dave

David: haha, there are no fat wallet guys buiyng my work, actually there is no one buying print of my work.

Martin,

You have probably heard this ringing in your ears for years. But here goes anyway:

"Form follows function" Louis Sullivan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Sullivan

If you were presenting in a gallery....or taking a commission...etc......

I could really careless if someone's couch is blue with dots.....

But.....there are audiences for everything you do....unless you narrow it
down to an audience of one.

Great art for one person is not going to sell well as POD.

I respect Picasso a great deal because he was studying how his audience would
view his art. Art is not a one side proposition.

Not if you want to work people into viewing your art. Note: I did not say buying the art.

People who view and come to respect an individual artist's work will buy later.

Dave

I don't know how long you've been trying to sell your art Martin, but at least give it three years, and you'll start seeing some sales, and then by 5-7 years you'll have a nice business going.

Stick with it, you got some talent!

and if what you make now doesn't sell - try something new. try new colors, new shapes, new methods, new programs. maybe what your making now just doesn't interest people to have that type of art in their house. always experiment trying new things and ideas. if you keep doing the same things over and over again, it may never do anything.

stop posting pictures in your twitter stream. no one has any reason to look at your work here and may not even know its for sale.


this is nice, this will sell, but the keywords are a downer, outline candy, christmas, spiral, science fiction is spelled wrong, droste, your name. i chose this one because it was one of the only bright one that wasn't a strange color. dark muddy colors, weird color combos, etc - may not sell. you should be making them in pastel, i think it would match more places. but still the location of these are key. its still hard to say where this would be hung up in my room.

---Mike Savad

actually it also reminds me of meat and salami, so maybe a deli?

---Mike Savad