art marketing

E-Book Suggests Ways to Price Fine Art Prints

Cover of How to Price Digital Fine Art Prints by Barney DaveyARTISTS. A new 46-page e-book from art-print expert Barney Davey can help you determine the “sweet spot” price range for your art prints. Once you find the “sweet spot,” you won’t lose sales because your work is overpriced or lose revenues because your work is underpriced. In other words, you will get fair value for each art print you sell.

Entitled “How to Price Digital Fine Art Prints: Tips from Top Art Marketing Minds,” the e-book offers useful information on how to price digital reproductions of original art (giclées) , fine-art photography prints, and digital fine-art prints (prints of digitally created art). The book offers insights, advice and experiences from a variety of experts in art marketing, digital printmaking, art-print publishing, and digital arts.

Their insights reinforce the fact that pricing giclees and digital fine art prints is a subjective undertaking. Although you won’t find a magic pricing formula that works equally well for all artists, you can read a range of viewpoints and ideas that can guide you in creating a pricing strategy that works for you. Below are some of the questions addressed in the book:

  • Is pricing by the square inch the best method?
  • What are some other ways to price prints besides per square inch?
  • How important is consistency in pricing art prints across different distribution channels? For instance, does it harm an artist to have different prices on an artist website or blog, galleries, juried shows, online venues, art fairs and so forth?
  • Should pricing for sale through galleries and dealer always be considered? In other words, if an artist is not in a gallery now, should her art prices include the markup to galleries? Or, only if there are plans to include galleries for distribution.
  • Is there a range or formula for pricing open edition prints versus limited edition prints? In other words, if an open edition print from an artist sells for $200, should a limited edition print of the same size sell for $500, or 25% more?
  • Does it do any harm for artists to create limited editions in different sizes?
  • Can an artist number open editions?
  • Should artists give galleries exclusives on certain images?

In the introduction to “How to Price Art Prints,” Davey admits that “Lining up your work and making decisions about what they are worth is a daunting task, especially at first.” But he says, it can become easier over time, especially when you start working with established criteria to facilitate the process.

“To be successful at pricing your work, you have to learn to remove your personal feelings about your work from your actual observations of its current market value,” states Davey. While this can be difficult to do, developing a system for pricing your prints can help you be more objective. Many of the ideas in the book can not only help you make smarter decisions about pricing your fine-art prints, but also your originals as well.

Barney Davey publishes the popular Art Print Issues blog and the online magazine Giclée Business News. A previous post on this blog discusses the recently updated version of  Davey’s popular book: “How to Profit from the Art Print Market.”

LINKS

E-Book: How to Price Digital Fine Art Prints

Book: How to Profit from The Art Print Market

RELATED POST

Learn How to Profit from the Art Print Market

 

Gallery Owners and Reps Can Show Your Art on an iPad

ARTISTS. If your work is currently represented by a gallery, here is some news that might make their job of selling art a bit easier. With a custom iPad App from Collectrium, a gallery owner or rerpresentative will be able to showcase the gallery’s entire inventory wherever they meet potential clients, whether it’s at an art fair, in a sales office, or in a restaurant.

Collectrium Custom iPad App for Arr GalleriesEach Custom iPad App for Art Galleries and Dealers is an intuitive and comprehensive mobile inventory and art presentation solution backed up by Collectrium’s next-generation cloud-based inventory system. Each gallery can fully customize its app, work the app both online and offline, and easily manage the app through Collectrium’s iCloud artwork upload and management portal.

“Anywhere you can take your iPad, your entire art inventory is now with you,” explains Anna Ortt, Director at Mike Weiss Gallery. “We use our iPad app every day with clients at the gallery, and I can’t even imagine doing an art fair without it. It’s a great sales tool, and it looks beautiful.”

Every custom gallery iPad app incorporates Collectrium’s ArtCapture™ technology, which allows a collector visiting the participating gallery to point her iPhone or iPad camera at any artwork and instantly receive the information about the artwork, the gallery, and the artist. ArtCapture technology makes the experience of visiting a gallery opening more interactive for the art lover — enhancing the on-site visit, while also allowing visitors to “virtually” take the art home with them and share with friends. ArtCapture also includes an augmented reality feature that lets a collector virtually place any artwork image from the gallery onto the actual wall in the collector’s home.

“The Amstel Gallery iPad app has proven to be a great marketing tool,” said Petra Leene, owner and director, Amstel Gallery. “It is more effective than our website, because it is more interactive, allowing our customers to get more information about artworks through the amazing ArtCapture technology. It is also more engaging, incorporating social networking in an ingenious way.”

Named one of ‘America’s Most Promising Start-ups’ by Bloomberg BusinessWeek (4/15/11), Collectrium is the fastest-growing cloud-based artwork management platform and the world’s largest publisher of art fair mobile apps. Collectrium’s mobile and cloud-based technology is currently used at more than 50 international art fairs.

“With the introduction of Custom iPad Apps for Galleries, we are extending our art technology platform throughout the art market,” said Boris Pevzner, the former Silicon Valley entrepreneur who founded Collectrium. “We have built a social art management system, part of the next generation of tools for organizing, discovering, sharing, promoting, and appreciating art. We are thrilled to see this system benefiting art collectors, art fairs, and art galleries worldwide.”

Collectrium will be showcasing the Custom iPad Apps for Galleries with selected gallery customers at art fairs coast-to-coast this fall.

LINKS

Press Release: The Art World is Going Mobile—Collectrium Announces Custom iPad Apps for Galleries

Collectrium

RELATED POST

ArtCapture App Saves Moment of Discovery at Art Fairs

Learn How to Profit from the Art Print Market

Book Cover How to Profit from the Art Print MarketARTISTS. As traditional methods of selling visual art continue to lose luster, effective new distribution channels are springing up to replace them. Thanks to advances in e-commerce and digital printing technology, you can completely control how printed reproductions of your works are produced, priced, and marketed. You can use this power to financially support your passion for making art in ways that were unavailable to previous generations of visual artists.

These are some of the themes discussed in the 2nd edition of Barney Davey’s best-selling book “How to Profit from the Art Print Market.”

In the book, Davey observes that visual artists who organize and execute workable plans around achievable goals are the ones who enjoy the greatest success today. This includes understanding how the rise of print-on-demand technology, e-commerce, and social-media marketing have wreaked havoc on the old style of marketing art through galleries and dealers. In addition, a stark economy has forced a record number of companies from the market.

So even though these conditions may seem daunting, Davey reminds readers that growing a successful career in the art market was never easy. While he still sees some opportunity for artists in traditional markets, Davey believes visual artists must use available technology to be self-sufficient and sell as much art as possible direct to collectors. He considers this the best way for artists to secure their future.

The 16 chapters in the 302-page book explain the major steps involved in selling direct to collectors. Topics covered include:

  • Goals and Vision
  • Understanding Art-Print Media
  • Traits and Attributes of Self-published Artists
  • Economics of Self-publishing
  • Exemplary and Successful Self-published Artists
  • Finding and Working with a Publisher
  • Copyrights and Certificates of Authenticity
  • Trends and Inspiration
  • Business Marketing Basics for the Self-Published Artist
  • Publicity, Promotion and the Power of Self-Belief
  • Websites for Artists
  • Online Marketing and Social Media
  • Galleries, Dealers and Alternative Spaces
  • Licensing
  • Giclées and Digital Prints

You’ll learn how to generate repeat sales of fine-art reproductions in any economy and coordinate publicity, social media and email marketing to ratchet up your sales and sell art online. The book also features a list of 500 business and marketing resources for visual artists.

The book will retail for $39.95, but can be pre-ordered for $24.95. You can download a PDF of “Chapter One: Goals and Visions” for free from the website: http://www.barneydavey.com/download-chapter-one-free/

About the Author

Barney Davey has been intimately involved in the art business since 1988. As a sales and marketing executive for Decor magazine and its sister Decor Expo tradeshows, he consulted with hundreds of the industry’s leading art publishers and self-published artists regarding their art marketing and advertising strategies. He met leading self-published artists and art publishers, and observed the best practices.

In addition to his art marketing consulting, he does public speaking on art and Internet marketing. His newest venture is BarneyDavey.com, a media company that publishes books, blogs, online newsletters, workshops, and webinars for visual artists, including fine artists, fine-art photographers and graphic designers.

A Prolific Blogger

To stay on top of what’s happening in the art-print market, check out the three blogs Barney Davey currently publishes.

Art Print Issues is a business blog for visual artists. The blog covers a range of topics, including these posts on selling techniques:

The Giclee Business directory includes more than 500 listings of giclee printers and fine art business resources for visual artists. Categories include: website services for artists and photographers; artist business software; art licensing; art marketing services; art supplies and picture-framing services for artists, selling art online sources; fine art legal resources; art trade shows, art events, and art fairs; fine-art printmaking services; and home, hospitality and healthcare design resources.

Giclee Business News is a new online news magazine about the digital fine art market. It includes news about artists, technology, art events, learning opportunities, and more.

LINKS

Book: How to Profit from the Art Print Market, 2nd Edition

Blog: Art Print Issues

Online Magazine: Giclée Business News

Online Directory: Giclée Business

Entrepreneurs Explore a Variety of Ways to Market and Sell Art

One way to explore different business models for marketing art and photography is to skim through art blogs and online press releases. Some online releases are issued by brick-and-mortar galleries seeking to reach out to people who search for art online. Many online press releases come from start-up businesses or individuals experimenting with new concepts for selling their work. Some new ventures are announced online by targeted bloggers and journalists who reach high-end collectors. Here are four examples:

Electricity Showroom

Rea is inviting other designers, artists, and writers to get in on the action by collaborating with one another to create and sell inspirational wares on the site.

Poster by Sleep Opp and Chad Rea

He chose the name “electricity showroom” to describe the creative sparks that can occur when designers, artists, and writers work together. He views the site as a way for creative pros to “make stuff quicker.”

“In advertising, you tend to work on a lot of creative projects at once,” Rea says, “Now that I’m creating my own ventures from the ground up, the timelines are much longer than I typically have patience for. I needed something that would allow me to produce ideas quickly. Collaborating with other artists to make and sell prints direct to consumers seemed like the perfect creative outlet for everyone.”

Chad Rea is a member of ecopop, a Portland, Oregon-based social-innovations collective that lives at the intersection of ecology and pop culture. Ecopop creates brands, art, and activism (aka brand activism) with ventures ranging from men’s accessories made from recycled clothes to charity-based iPhone apps.

LINKS:

electricityshowroom.com

ecopop.com

Press Release: New Limited Edition Artist Print Store Electricity Showroom.com Pairs Up Artists to Inspire, Motivate, and Create Change

Artspace Warehouse

Founded over 30 years ago in Basel, Switzerland, Artspace Warehouse now has galleries in Zurich; Cologne, Germany; and Los Angeles, California. Artspace Warehouse specializes in affordable contemporary original art, representing pop, urban, graffiti, and photo styles. The gallery presents an eclectic and every-expanding selection of works from international and local artists at prices for every budget.

The pieces are displayed by category: Value Hunter (from $200 to $400), Savvy Spender (up to $1,000), and Aficianado ($1,000 to $2,000). A collector’s section offers exclusive paintings of museum-quality artists starting at $2,000. The gallery also offers art consultation and commissioned murals.

An Artspace Warehouse press release invited to public to special event at which at which interior designer Deb Gregory spoke about how she is using accessible art and design in her residential and commercial projects. She emphasized that good art and design should be accessible to all, and that interesting environments enrich our lives.

LINKS

www.artspacewarehouse.com

Press Release: Interior Design and Art Can Transfrom Lives: Designer Deborah Gregory to Speak at Artpsace Warehouse

Digital Artist Joel Martin Cohen

Digital artist Joel Martin Cohen used a press release to announce the launch of his own online gallery, through which visitors may purchase prints of his digital compositions.

Cohen, who has experience both a graphic designer and professional photographer, has been working in the digital art space for more than five years. While some of his visual ideas start with a photograph, he develops the art using the digital tools to create treatments that express how he feels about the subject. Many of his subjects include landscapes, cityscapes, and the natural world.

“I was infatuated with the powerful potential of the new digital processes to create looks that never existed before, as well as new takes on traditional painting techniques,” says Cohen. The pieces in his online gallery range in size from 8 x 10 inches to 20 x 30 inches. Prices range from $20 to $500.

“Given the state of the current economy, some clients find that a smaller piece is more suited for them right now,” Cohen said. “Other clients who are looking for wall art for a new home or office may be interested in some of my larger pieces.”

LINKS

 Joel Martin Cohen: Digital Art and Photography

Press Release: Digital Artist Joel Martin Cohen Announces Launch of Online Art Gallery for Wall Art, Prints

Exhibition A

Exhibition A is a new members-only website that sells editions of printed reproductions of works by top contemporary artists. The site’s founders include fashion designer/art lover Cynthia Rowley and Bill Powers who owners the Half Gallery in New York.

They define their mission as follows: “We’re committed to working with exceptional artists–artists whose work is exhibited at well-respected galleries and sought after by serious collectors–to create editions of their work at prices you can afford.”

Each week Exhibition A will debut one or more editions by a contemporary artist. The artwork will either be sold as a limited edition (with a finite, predetermined number of copies) or as a limited-time open edition (in which no additional prints will be made after the four-week edition sale period has ended). The total number of prints made during a limited-time open edition sale will be revealed in the Archive section of Exhibition A website. This total number may include up to 25 prints that Exhibition A made for its own inventory.

According to a post about Exhibition A by Hannah Elliott on Forbes.com, the prices will range from $200 to $500 for a work on canvas to $100 to $300 on paper. One of the goals of the site is to broaden participation in the world of art without hurting the each artist’s primary collectors.

Some of the artists featured on the site include Francesca Dimattio, Dietmar Busse, Dike Blair, David LaChappelle, Olympia Scarry, Dasha Shiskin, Agathe Snow, and Duncan Hannah. On the Exhibition A, you can read bios of the featured artists as well as interviews with collectors of contemporary art.

LINKS

 Artist’s Bios: Exhibition A

 About Exhibition A

 

New artMatch App Lets Buyers Order Art from iPhones

ARTISTS. Art.com, Inc., a leading online provider of wall art, has introduced artMatch™ for the iPhone. The free app makes it easy for art lovers to find, explore, discover, share and purchase art right from their iPhones. After snapping a photo of any work of art, you can instantly search for matching or similar items on Art.com. You can also preview selected artwork in your own space by simply holding up your iPhone. The application is free and can be downloaded through Apple’s App Store.

“Art.com has one simple goal—to make art accessible to all—and our new artMatch application for the iPhone takes that one step further, making it easy and fun for people to engage with art wherever and whenever inspiration strikes,” said Geoffrey Martin, CEO of Art.com, Inc. “Imagine walking down the streets of your favorite city, spotting a work of art you love in a café, gallery or museum and being able to go on your phone, find that work on Art.com, frame it and have it waiting for you at home when you return.”

ArtMatch uses Art.com’s Visual Search™ technology. This makes it possible to:

Instantly find a work of art. Take a photo of a work of art, upload a photo from the phone, or enter a URL, and Art.com will instantly tell you whether it is available for sale on the site. If it’s not on Art.com, you will see similar works that are available on Art.com.

Browse the collection of more than one million works of art available through Art.com. The collection is conveniently presented in list, grid and single views optimized for viewing on the iPhone. Read information about each art piece and use the Super Zoom™ feature to examine brush strokes, texture, and other details of specific art pieces.

Visualize how the selected work of art would look in the room you have in mind. Simply hold up your phone to see the selected work in your own room or select from the gallery of rooms on Art.com.

Save your favorites to a gallery and share them with via email or Facebook. This feature can be useful if you want a second opinion before ordering art for a certain room in your house.

Purchase your pick right from the phone. The app’s integrated shopping cart can sync with your phone contacts for easy shipping to the selected destination. Your artwork arrives ready to hang on your wall. Learn more at www.art.com/iphone.

Art.com was founded in 1998 to make art accessible to all by transforming the way the world discovers, personalizes, shares and purchases art. Art.com, Inc. runs three sites in the USA—Art.com, AllPosters.com, and ArtistRising.com—and has a strong international presence with 25 local sites in Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Mexico, and South America. Art.com, Inc. is a privately held company headquartered in Emeryville, CA, with other facilities in Ohio, North Carolina and the Netherlands.

LINKS

artMatch App

About Art.com

 

 

How to Use Photo Books to Market Your Photography or Art

PHOTOGRAPHERS. ARTISTS. The latest e-book added to PhotoShelter’s online library talks about “Marketing Yourself with Photo Books.”  Although the advice was written for photographers, the e-book might also interest artists, designers, and others who could use photo books to complement other marketing efforts.

The free, 23-page e-book describes ways self-published photo books can be used to effectively build a following among prospects and expand interest from existing clients. The content covers the following topics:

  • The economics of self-publishing
  • Using a photo book as your portfolio
  • Using a photo editor to help select and sequence your best images
  • Design considerations
  • Color fidelity
  • What to consider before and after you make your book

The publication also talks about what magazine photo editors and ad-agency photo buyers think about photo books. One photo editor says she doesn’t like getting huge packages in the mail from people she doesn’t know, so she doesn’t like receiving unsolicited books. But she says small photo books can be a great leave-behinds for photographers who come in for a meeting to show their portfolios.

Pro photographer and avid Blurb bookmaker Dan Milnor wrote the section on things to consider in making a photo book. He notes that, “Making a photo book is a great way to elevate your work.” He says that when you showcase your work in a book, it suddenly has context and presentation that goes way beyond what a promotional postcard can do. Milnor talks about some of the planning that should be done before you start, as well as some ideas for promoting your book.

Case studies in the book feature candid insights by fashion photographer Michael Creagh, travel photographer Graciela Cattarossi, advertising and editorial photographer Andrew Kaufman, documentary photographer Matt Eich, and lifestyle photographer Terry Vine.

Also included is a profile of Larissa Leclair, the founder of the Indie Photobook Library. The Library’s goal is to archive, preserve, and showcase self-published books and magazines.

Guidelines for submitting photo books are included on the Library’s website. Some books from the Library’s growing collection will be exhibited at the Photographic Resource Center in Boston this fall.

Although the “Marketing Yourself with Photo Books” guide was sponsored by Blurb, the e-book also discusses photography bookmaking services from other vendors. To encourage you to apply what you have learned about photo book publishing, the guide includes a 20% off coupon from Blurb.

“Marketing Yourself with Photo Books” is the latest in PhotoShelter’s ongoing series of free business e-books for photographers and marketing professionals. PhotoShelter’s library of 13 free e-books includes guides on email marketing, search engine optimization, starting a photography business, and marketing for freelance professionals.

LINKS

PhotoShelter

E-Book: Marketing Yourself with Photo Books

The PhotoShelter Resource Library

 

 

Guide Explains How to Build and Manage Your Art Career

In “The Artist’s Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love,” author Jackie Battenfield draws on her own years of experience as a former gallery director and
self-supporting artist to explain how to:

  • develop and promote your portfolio.
  • broaden your funding sources through grants, awards, artist residencies, fiscal agents, and individual contributors.
  • explore exhibition, commission, and sales opportunities beyond commercial galleries.
Reflecting how many artists think, the guide covers many of the day-to-day issues of running any self-directed business such as planning, budgeting, managing finances, marketing, and pricing your work. For example, Battenfield advises against setting prices under pressure. As she puts it, “The worst time to figure out a price is when you are taken by a surprise offer to buy a piece.” She suggests making a complete inventory of all your works with prices attached to each piece.

In the guide, she explains in great detail how to write an artist’s statement, document work samples, and build relationships with the individuals and organizations that can further your career.

In the beginning of your art career, you will probably need a part-time or full-time “day job” to earn money for your studio work. Battenfield suggests looking for low-stress jobs that won’t drain you of the creative energy you need for your art.

How Planning Can Help

Throughout the book, Battenfield emphasizes the value of planning.  She points out that if you don’t set short- and long-term goals, you won’t be able to create, evaluate, and pursue the opportunities that can help make your dreams become reality.  Here are a few tips:

Survey the current art landscape. Instead of imagining an amorphous group of collectors, artists, or the general public, reflect on who would be most interested in the content of your work. What spaces feel like a natural fit? Although the art world is no longer held captive by a few dealers, critics, curators, or patrons, not all new venues and opportunities will be suited to your work or long-term professional goals.

Develop a work structure, business systems, and support networks that allow you maintain a healthy attitude, stay engaged, and search for new solutions. While the art world continues to shift in unexpected ways, you will need to continue to believe in yourself, ask questions, and get feedback and help as often as you need it.

Write your own obituary. How do you want to be remembered? What will you have accomplished? What will family members, friends, and colleagues say about you? This exercise can help ensure that you aren’t pursuing goals contrary to your core values and beliefs.

Promoting Yourself

What makes The Artist’s Guide so appealing is Battenfield’s empathy with artists who feel uncomfortable promoting themselves.  She acknowledges her own shyness and writes that “Promoting yourself requires coming face to face with your own self-esteem and issues of entitlement. It can quickly stir up feelings of inadequacy about your work and yourself as an artist.”

She says there are ways to promote your work that will allow you to maintain your personal integrity and enable your own networking style to emerge. “Promoting yourself doesn’t mean that you are impolite, disrespectful of others, or inappropriately aggressive,” writes Battenfield. “It can be as simple as saying a few words about the show to a curator at an opening, then following up with card inviting the curator to one of your own shows.”  Here are a few other tips from The Artist’s Guide:

Be yourself. People appreciate honesty and sincerity. Phoniness is easy to detect.

Turn your shyness into an asset. Be an attentive listener and ask questions.

Take a few actions every day to cultivate relationships with people you can help promote your work. Taking purposeful action can help you maintain the healthy attitude you will need to manage some of the issues that arise every day.

You can’t predict when the art community will turn their attention to you, Battenfield points out, “Art history is full of artists whose work was ignored and then embraced at different stages of their lives.” The strength to persevere can be developed by actively pursuing your goals and maintaining an resilient attitude.

The advice in The Artist’s Guide rings true, because Battenfield admits she made nearly every mistake discussed in the book: “I had fuzzy work samples and incoherent artist statements that still make me flush beet-red when I see them. I’ve bungled relationships and pulled them back together by the skin of my teeth.” She suggests using The Artist’s Guide as a template for creating a process that works for you.

Although a lot of the book focuses on different types of art organizations and funding sources, Battenfield’s day-to-day business advice is relevant to photographers and other freelance professionals who would like to have less stress in their lives and more time to focus on their craft.

Words of Wisdom

“It’s tough to be an artist in our culture,” writes Battenfield. While funds and opportunities are limited, your desires are limitless. Pushing yourself to the limits of your technical abilities can be challenging enough. Adding business responsibilities can feel overwhelming.

Making time to replenish your well of creativity is essential, she says. Constantly pushing yourself too hard won’t allow you to do your best work. Battenfield writes that “Any systems you can build to protect that fragile connection to your creativity is paramount to sustaining your artistic life.” In describing her approach to writing the guide, she explains “Every chapter in the book is about nurturing and protecting your creative energies so can make the best art possible.”

Jackie Battenfield has supported herself from art sales for over twenty years. She teaches career development programs for visual artists at the Creative Capital Foundation, and Columbia University. She also speaks at art workshops and events nationwide. Visit her website: www.artistcareerguide.com to see if she will be speaking at event in your area. You can preview and purchase the 378-page softcover book on Amazon.com or the Barnes
& Noble website.

LINKS

Book Website: The Artist’s Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love

Facebook Page: The Artist’s Guide

About Jackie Battenfield

Amazon: The Artist’s Guide

Barnes & Noble:  The Artist’s Guide