Ok, So.. When And How Did You Get Your First Sale...

it took 2 weeks, then a day later. jan is almost always slow, followed by feb and tax months.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

My first sale that wasn't from a relative, a friend, or a friend of a friend took about 3 months. The next one came four months after that, but then they just kept coming.

About 6 weeks as I recall, followed by the next about a month after that. Both were the same image, and neither has sold since.

I joined the end of September and had my first sale on Christmas... Still waiting for my second here...

I do not sell to relatives and friends... I print those locally and they get them at cost... I do sell some outside of FAA but mostly through referrals from local blogs...

I joined 5/9/2012. No idea how to market. I sold my first print, a 20X20 on 5/14/2012 and thought, "Man, this is going to be easy!" LOL Sold another one four months later and then sales dried up and I thought, "Crap, this is hard." After finding these forums and reading (at first anyway) and taking the advice here, I have sold better lately. Still trending upward, hopefully.

I joined and then just let my account sit for many months, so I think once I actually got artwork up it took me about 3 months to sell my first two framed images to someone in Kentucky. Thanks, Someone in Kentucky!

I joined in 2012. My first print sale came when I'd been here for two months with no promotional effort whatsoever. Many sales followed in short order, also with no marketing at all. Sales have slowed to a crawl in the past year.

.....

Are you are asking about my very FIRST sale? I was seven years and sold an 8"x10" experimental portrait of Superman (using melted crayons and a brush) to the receptionist at our family doctor's office... I happily accepted one dollar.

Real world, sold some dragonflies to a coworker. I thought 5 bucks for ab 8x10 was a great markup.

My first art show I had raised that price to ten and sold some bee prints to a woman that sells bee pollen.

On Etsy my first sale was to a friend of my wife's that saw my work on FB.

My first sale to a stranger was to someone that saw HIS boat in my art on the weather underground. That was also on Etsy. Sold about 1 print a month there and it was a LOT of work.

I decided to try three PoD stores, one of them being FAA and sold on here after a month. Had 100 images up at that time and sold three prints in what was an under served market at the time and my Abilene Theory was born. Closed one of the other PoDs and stopped uploading at the other and concentrated on FAA and uploading the marketable images I already had. (About 400.)

Sales were hit and miss that first year. One or three a month and had one payday that was a goose egg. That holiday season I broke a grand and got laid off from the day job. I figured hey, what would happen if I did this 40 hours a week? It wad really mote like 60 per but the first goal was to get to a 1K per month average and the goal this year is 2500 per but it is just a side business now too. Art money goes a lot further when you don't need it for pesky things like rent and food and such.

My very first sales were to people in a forum I belonged to.

My first sale here was after I had posted a man's car to Facebook when he asked a town's page if anyone had any photos of it. He bought 2 30x24 framed and matted prints and a 16x24 canvas. That was in 2013, almost 4 years after I first joined.

My art teacher in high school was my first sale. Then there was a long period of maybe 30 years before the next one. ;-)

I joined in March 2014 and had my first sale to a friend in July. It was a surprise that she ordered because she hadn't told me she was planning too. My first sale to a stranger was a framed print in Sept. So far, I have had a couple since then. I keep plugging away at Twitter and Facebook. Hopefully, I will get some more hits after attending some art shows this spring and summer!

My very first sale was August 2014 when I put 3 originals in our local fair. 2 of them sold. After that I was encouraged to put all my art out there and that was when I came across FAA and decided to join.

Since then I have sold 2 more originals and 19 prints through my facebook & etsy accounts and through a showing at a local Starbucks.

Sadly, the only thing I have sold through FAA is a pillow by a family member. Wish I could get most my sales through FAA as it would be much easier. Seem to have a lot of exposure from all around the world with FAA but no sales.

It took around 8 months and 1,000 images. I just happened to add a handful of shots from Hanging Rock state park in NC. There weren't very many from that park, they found one of mine and ordered a huge framed print.

Think I made $65.00 from it. I looked at what they paid for the paper, the frame and mat, and the shipping and decided that if someone would spend $500.00 or so on one of my prints that money wasn't much of a consideration for them.

If the total price was around $500.00 and I was only getting $65.00 then my prices were waaayyyyy to low and they needed to go up so that people were not spending more on the paper and shipping than they were for the image.

Spot on Adam.

I joined FAA in July 2014. I had first sale to my friend in Sept 2014. Since then I had four more sales to the buyers whom I do not know them. So far this year no sales but I am very hopful for the rest of the year.

My first sale was not one, not two, not three but four prints quite large this is quite an amazing sale and all from the same buyer in Texas. I joined December 9, 2012 The giant sales were 25 x 30 April 24, 2014 I was in tears at the coffee shop, tears of joy. I am still happy about it today and have made a couple of smaller sales..


Cheers, Michael Hoard Actor, Artist and Photographer

Well for me been here almost a year and still have 0 sales, thinking it may be time to move on and work more on my website that is selling, I can say I have picked up on good advice here and most of the people are great, just dont understand why I cant get any sales here!

It's cool to read these stories from fellow artists! Mine is similar to many artists here. First large sale came after about two months. Then I averaged about 2 sales a month for about 6 months. Then it was about a sale or two a week for the next year. The second year has been MUCH better than the first. Also...like Adam, I started with low prices, but once I raised them, I started selling more.

My first sale here came just under 3 months after starting to upload images. Someone bought a box of 25 greetings cards based on one of my images. That was Nov 1st- still haven't gotten a second sale.

About three months... And another three until the next sale.

I sold a few pieces in an art fair in 2009. I could have sold a piece when I was 17, but Mom outbid the person.

My first sale was a huge surprise... I had just gotten my FAA account (not paid) and I really didn't know much about promoting and marketing. I was looking in my activity page when I saw a congrats comment on one of my signature shots, called the Watching Eye. I had not received an email, so I went to check the sales tab and found a 16x9 metal print sale there! I was beyond excited! A few days later, a very special someone on FAA posted this thread.... I could not believe it!

http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=2031567

Here is the photo and the sales page:


http://fineartamerica.com/saleannouncement.html?id=ccd767ce6a51014d80188fbbd94296c7

First sale on FAA took 14 weeks and surprised me. Naive start - no off site promotion, poor key words. Great feeling though. :D



- Richard Reeve
ReevePhotos.com

I had been selling at art fairs. However here on FAA my first sale was after 6 mo, then another 6 mo till the next sale, and then sporadically since then. So in 2 yrs I've had 20 sales (including a card swap), but I have sold 6 prints larger than 30" (4 of which were essentially the same image). I'll be getting my biggest paycheck to date in feb, for a 36" canvas, 40" metal print and a phone case. These sales have all been to people I don't know.

My first sales were in high school: hired by the local pro baseball team to take all the individual and group pictures of team players. Never again!

I joined FAA in 2009 and did nothing after uploading a few images and got no sales.

When I started promoting my page and uploading more images, the sales began. Not many, but some.

My last few sales have come from interior designers, which is my target market.

Chuck Staley Concept Art

My first sale was many years ago when I was in first year of art school. My watercolor teacher put a dozen of my paintings for display during the annual open house. To my surprise they were all sold by the end of the night. The second sale was a year later when a gallery offered my first one man show, I sold half of the paintings.
My first sale on FAA was three days after I joined, someone from New York brought three large prints, it took another month for the second sale.

My first sale here was about 3 months after I joined and was still using the free service. I don't think I was really doing anything in the way of promotion. I upgraded right after that and have sold something every 1.5-2 months with very little promotion so it still surprises me when someone buys something.

Joined FAA in Feb 2013. Fist sale, a single greeting card in Nov 2014, since then two prints sold. Had pretty much given up on this site. Sell many more originals through my Facebook page.