Setting Prices For Your Work

Hi Gerald,

First of all, your work is truly exceptional, and your experience and command of the medium shine through. Congrats! I wish I had some discretionary funds to buy a few.



I am not qualified nor knowledgeable enough to speak to sales trends for W/C works, originals or prints. I would like to make one comment, however. That is, you may want to rethink the color scheme and format of your website. The black background is too stark and washes out the impact of the watercolor. You want a site visitor to experience high-end watercolors and the more polished and professional your site the better. Of course, a website nowadays must be fully responsive to mobile devices. When someone lands on the homepage of your site, you want a "wow" factor. Also, you may want to entertain a presence on various social media for posting purposes, and perhaps drop your FAA shop into your website.

Good luck to you... you have created a stellar body of work.

you should never lower your prices. that won't attract people. if anything it will chase them away. unless your selling things that everyone else is selling (like soda or towels), charge what they are worth.

sales stopping may just be a saturated market of photos made to look painterly so if they can do it, they may not buy the real thing. beyond that its marketing. i try to raise my prices each year, the sales vary from year to year. each time i increased i tended to get more sales. it all depend on your demographic you sell too. poor people don't buy art.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Then I guess only poor people visit my site.

I am just starting to offer my work for sale and I enjoy creating. I do it for the sheer joy...this has always been my motivation. I work hard at everything I create, but am doing it for the joy of it, so I do not really know the worth of it. I have sold pieces in the past and it is generally whatever the buyer and I have agreed on. With this site I can retain my originals and sell prints, which is fine with me. How does someone like me, who has such joy in creating, begin to determine an actual price??? For me, my artwork is a reflection of the joy I feel creating it, so therefore I feel like my standards have already been fulfilled at the highest level.

Ted -- Wow!!!! Stunning photos, especially the blue ice ones.



However, I did a double take on your right hand!! Cordially, a Poor Visitor.

Rhonda--Your images on FAA should be your art, not a pic of your art on the carpet propped against a wall.

It makes me wonder how an ARTIST CAN STRUGGLE MAKING LIVING DESPITE ALL THE GIFTS THAT HE HAD:/

artists struggle because:

1. not everyone wants art.
2. many people think they are artists and think they can do it themselves.
3. there are lots and lots of artists out there and all are competing for attention.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Been there and dropped prices in a sales slump. I have now placed my prices within reachable range for what I am willing to sell them for. Dropping prices did not work for me at all.

I also agree with what Mike says!

Gerald, it is not a wise idea to dropping price especially you been painting and selling for a long time: buyers had brought your paintings with the higher price will think they over-paid you and likely won't buy from you again or they will wait for the price go even lower. Art in general, certain style, movement or subject are in and out of fashion so with less sale could be just timing or where you selling them..

Rhonda, you need to re-shot all your works they won't print. Make sure they are straight and not showing, wall, floor.

Gerald,

Welcome on board. You have a lot of great work.

Dave

Rhonda,

You have some nice work, but how you are presenting it here is all wrong. Even if you were only offering them as originals, many people would not take it seriously. But you're putting print prices down. No one is going to buy prints like that.

I started out really low and later raised them. More things sell now than when they were lower and it comes closer to covering expenses.

Rhonda, yeah you need to reshoot your work. As was said, even if you are selling originals this is NOT the presentation you want to give customers.



They most certainly won't make it through QA as prints but believe it or not, I have seen people buy a print that was displayed like this which usually generates a wow, really????

Ted, I have no earthly idea why you aren't selling. Your work is spectacular and I would think covers a good niche though I haven't ever really looked to see what the Alaska art market is like one way or they other but the work is wonderful.

Gerald, yupp, when I first started out online I did exactly that. If I wasn't selling at a low price I might as well not be selling at a higher price and feel better about it. That said, when I raised my prices I started selling..... YMMV

yeah, investing in a scanner really helps here. also rhonda, break your bio with paragraphs that's rather hard to read.

as for price, that's up to you. how much is your time worth? how long did it take? how much were the materials? etc.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com