[rdgraffix]

Hi guys,

I was wondering if any of you has had, or know of artists who have had, any measure of success in selling prints online?

I was always under the impression that sales like that online were non-existant, but I've recently heard rumours of some artists having some success in the area.

[eyewoo]

I've been making my prints available online for 8 months or so, using PayPal to take credit card orders. So far, just a couple of sales.

I'd also be interested in who is selling successfully online...

[Ian Jones]

hrmm, difficult to say. I don't really know of anyone successfully doing it and I get the impression it doesn't work. However have you had a look at deviantart prints. They seem to be giving it a go. *Shudder* at the thought of the DA community " omg your l@@t I love your work!+fav! " but check it out anyway...

[ceenda]

I think people like Enayla and Socar MYLES have had reasonable success in selling prints. IIRC, it's done via Epilogue's ( http://www.epilogue.net ) own printing thingy.

[Socar J. MYLES]

Actually, I sell barely any prints via Epilogue, and, to the best of my knowledge, neither does anyone else.

When I had my website set up to sell prints, I sold about one a day, on average--sometimes a bit more (like around X-mas), sometimes a bit less. I'm redoing both my e-commerce system and my printing setup right now (that is, switching from CCNow to PayPal and buying a good archival inkjet printer), so no prints are for sale at the moment.

I sell a few prints on eBay (generally 2-5 prints every three days), but, honestly, I only use eBay for publicity--people see my work there, come to my site, and sometimes buy commissions. Ebay is very annoying--too many non-paying bidders, bidders who can't read the terms of sale, and unreasonable hosers.

Eyewoo, if you have international shipping, I'm going to order a print of that spaniel poster once I find a new flat.

[eyewoo]

ha ha ha ha... great! The US Postal Service International calculator indicates it would cost an additional $22.00... It says it'll also take 4 to 6 weeks, so I'd put it in a tough tube that would take the beating. Hope you go ahead with it and good luck on your new flat!

BTW Socar... selling on average 1 print a day might not sound extraordinary... but I sure wish I could do it...

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: eyewoo ]

[Socar J. MYLES]

That sounds very decent for shipping, and 4-6 weeks' wait will actually be a GOOD thing, because I will also have to wait for my furniture to arrive from IKEA (can't order it till I know what size of flat I'm moving to). I don't want to frame and hang something and then discover that I need to stick a bookcase on that section of wall.

The key to selling many prints is shameless self-promotion. I don't think you've got an Epilogue gallery yet (?), but since you are doing more sf&f art now, it might be a good idea for you. People often come to my site from Epilogue, or write to me asking for prints/commissions. (People don't tend to realize that Epilogue sells prints--their "Buy a Print" button is a bit TOO tiny and unobtrusive!)

Another thing you can do is take out ads in magazines that cater to the same audience as you. For me, that's small-animal magazines. You do great animal pictures--like that dog one--it might be a good idea for you, as well. Not sure where you'd advertise for your human portraits.

[rdgraffix]

Socar - do you mind me asking what printing companies you use for your US and international orders from Ebay? I've been toying with the idea of selling some prints of my own, but it wouldn't really be practical to have the prints created down the street from me and then have to organise International shipping to all US orders. Do you find that the company you use are reliable service and quality wise?

[Socar J. MYLES]

I am using www.photoaccess.com right now. They ship within the US for about two bucks, and anywhere else for $5.

I used to use EZPrints, but I would NOT recommend them to anyone any more. Recently, they changed their default picture-cropping from Fit (fit everything onto the page, leaving white borders) to Crop (crop the image to fit the paper), which would be fine--except they don't seem to check which option you chose--they just use the default for every single order!

They sent out over $40 worth of improperly-cropped prints to customers--in one case, they sent bad prints to the same person twice. Despite the fact that ALL affected customers sent the prints back with complaints attached, and I e-mailed them several times about the problem, I got neither a refund nor an answer...so I had to simply pay for all the ruined prints again.

EZPrints used to offer incredibly fast shipping, but even that has slowed down recently. They get a big thumbs-down. Especially since they charge ridiculous rates for international shipping (expect to pay more than $5 to Canada and more than $20 for the rest of the world.)

[NeoFun]

Do any of these places print to canvas or do the whole paint glod effects? I'm looking to print some of my digital to canvas as bday presents

[Socar J. MYLES]

I think these guys print to canvas:
http://www.giclee.com/

Photoaccess and EZPrints make photographic prints on photographic paper.