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PAUL50

PAUL50

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I'm looking for advice concerning the best way to market and sell my photos. Not really interested in making money, but I've got quality shots just rotting in my computer and thought this would be a good way to get them out there. Frankly, I don't have any idea how to do it successfully. So, I thought I'd create a web page and perhaps try to post photos with a company like Smugmug, etc. or try with a stock company. Your thoughts and advice concerning the best way to do it would be sincerely appreciated. Thanks.
 
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I've given this one a lot of thought because I might want to sell some pictures as well to keep myself busy in retirement. Here's what I came up with:
It may be best to sell the picture already framed. I have always had trouble finding the best size frame for an image that I want to hang on a wall since I always have to print a custom size to fit the aspect ratio of the frame and the matting that comes with it. So I bought a mat cutting tool. Now I can print the picture the way I want it, find a frame that would be the appropriate size, and then cut a custom sized mat that fits both the frame and the picture. The neat thing is that the parts of the mat that provide the border between the edges of the image and the inner edge of the frame do not have to be the same size top and bottom edges versus left and right edges. As long as the opposing edges are the same size (left and right the same, top and bottom the same) the entire picture in the frame will look symmetrical.

This way I can keep myself busy printing and framing images the way I want them. You can, of course, print any image in different sizes and frame it in different sized frames. Next for me would be to open an account with Etsy and sell my framed images on the Etsy website. See https://www.etsy.com
 
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I doubt there is any "best way" to market and sell your photos. It will depend on how you personally wish to proceed and how much effort to put into it.

Setting up your own web site/blog or using one of the hosting sites like Smugmug is one option that gives you mostly complete control. But you are responsible for all aspects of marketing and order fulfillment.

Or join a POD Print on Demand web site such as Fine Art America. Upload your image files, set your pricing, you have to do all the marketing of your portfolio, and any sales are fulfilled by the POD site.

Licensing your images for stock using a stock agency is another avenue. Note that stock licensing prices have plummeted in recent years due to the rise of microstock agencies offering cheap image licensing. There's a learning curve for stock - license types and releases, image file requirements, keywording and metadata, images curated or not, etc.

In stock and POD you will be competing with hundreds of thousands of other photogs/agencies/etc. and many millions of other images. Large and/or unique portfolios needed for better results. More great pictures of pretty flowers, sunrises/sunsets, cute pets, etc. are already in great over-abundance in both stock and POD. Stock in particular is a quantity and long term game. It takes considerable time for results to happen.

If you like face-face interaction and meeting people there are Art Fairs around the country where you setup your awning to display and sell photo art prints to the public.

I've done both stock licensing and POD in my retirement as you appear to be interested. My stock portfolio is larger than my POD portfolio so stock for me has had better results but YMMV.
 
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Another way to get started is calendars etc. knock up a yearly calendar and offer them to followers on instagram (If you have it) for a reasonable price... or, if you have a favourite cafe, small store you frequent, ask if you can throw a handful on the counter etc. for sale and slip any profit. Same there with framed shots, see if they would throw them up on the wall with FS note in the corner etc.
 
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PAUL50 said:
I'm looking for advice concerning the best way to market and sell my photos. Not really interested in making money, but I've got quality shots just rotting in my computer and thought this would be a good way to get them out there. Frankly, I don't have any idea how to do it successfully. So, I thought I'd create a web page and perhaps try to post photos with a company like Smugmug, etc. or try with a stock company. Your thoughts and advice concerning the best way to do it would be sincerely appreciated. Thanks.
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Firstly great post. I to will be traveling down this road next year. I intend to travel in the camper and set up shop where ever there's a fair or a local market, of which there are many at this end of the world. I will display the prints in and out of frames and have my printer on board, so if folk make a run on one photo and can print more or of course different sizes. Which means we still get to travel and up top the stock and earn some petrol money on the way. I have sold a few photos over the web, people contacted me asking so I sent them a copy via We share, and they print them, them selves then paid me on Paypal.
 
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NA4M said:
I doubt there is any "best way" to market and sell your photos. It will depend on how you personally wish to proceed and how much effort to put into it.

Setting up your own web site/blog or using one of the hosting sites like Smugmug is one option that gives you mostly complete control. But you are responsible for all aspects of marketing and order fulfillment.

Or join a POD Print on Demand web site such as Fine Art America. Upload your image files, set your pricing, you have to do all the marketing of your portfolio, and any sales are fulfilled by the POD site.

Licensing your images for stock using a stock agency is another avenue. Note that stock licensing prices have plummeted in recent years due to the rise of microstock agencies offering cheap image licensing. There's a learning curve for stock - license types and releases, image file requirements, keywording and metadata, images curated or not, etc.

In stock and POD you will be competing with hundreds of thousands of other photogs/agencies/etc. and many millions of other images. Large and/or unique portfolios needed for better results. More great pictures of pretty flowers, sunrises/sunsets, cute pets, etc. are already in great over-abundance in both stock and POD. Stock in particular is a quantity and long term game. It takes considerable time for results to happen.

If you like face-face interaction and meeting people there are Art Fairs around the country where you setup your awning to display and sell photo art prints to the public.

I've done both stock licensing and POD in my retirement as you appear to be interested. My stock portfolio is larger than my POD portfolio so stock for me has had better results but YMMV.
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I completely agree with your view on stock - I gave up unless I get a hint from an agency that a client is looking for something they are having a hard time finding. Then I may do a dedicated series on that topic to put it with the agency and see what happens. I got lucky last summer, agency looking for pollinators of Indiana... pretty specific and not that easy to find apparently. So having 3 pollinator gardens around the house and being in Indiana it was a matter of a week to create a series of 50 shots, thirty of them sold with global exclusive rights. It's not easy to create those relationships and trust, and i am rarely that lucky. I did hit jackpot 20+ years ago with a shot of a black Milan that was acquired by a edge fund as their corporate image - this paid for my hobby for the following two decades :) it was sheer dum luck though.

With fine arts, I suspect that I will also head to POD once I retire although I used to do all my large prints myself so I might choose to go down that road again - I'll probably end-up sinking more money in the equipment needed than I'll ever make though :)
 
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NA4M said:
Setting up your own web site/blog or using one of the hosting sites like Smugmug is one option that gives you mostly complete control. But you are responsible for all aspects of marketing and order fulfillment.
Click to expand...

Marketing, yes, but order fulfillment is all taken care of with Smugmug. I have the Portfolio plan and that gives you the turnkey storefront and fulfillment front end. There's a level above that with customized pricelists and your branding on shipments, which I might move to if I ever get decent enough sales (hrrumph).

Chris
 
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I agree with the thoughts of letting someone else do the fulfillment for you. I did the retail, farmers market, coffee shop gallery etc., wild birds unilimited etc.. gig and ended up getting busier with the whole thing than planned. One fine day when I was busy on the computer with inventory spread sheets, tax stuff etc. and she had just gotten back from delivering a metal print to a customer waiting for a particular size at one of our retail locations "I thought we were retired" we have not been birding or shooting in two weeks ... message received we re-retired. So far I have not even used my Fine Art America account just have not taken time to do it and may or may not down the road.
 
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NA4M said:
Along this thread I happened by chance to come across this video by a photographer who also has a public store-front gallery in UK's photogenic and tourist laden Lake District. I found his comments on landscape photo print sales interesting:

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Thank you. Appreciate it.
 
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