Best Place to Sell Printed Work?

Besides the obvious art galleries... I'm trying to sell posters and framed printed work to the masses. I'm looking for little to no investments to sell/advertise the selling of printed work though, and I have little patience lol...

ChrisAdval wrote in post #15733401
I'm looking for little to no investments to sell/advertise the selling of printed work though, and I have little patience lol...

... then you will have little success.

Not trying to be mean here. It is just a fact of business that success comes from doing a good job of selling. It doesn't matter how great your images are if no one knows they exist. These are your images. If you aren't willing to put in the effort to get them into the market and make people aware of them, then why would anyone else make the effort for you?

You are competing with all the other photographers out there who are willing to invest in their business and put in the effort to promote their work/business. Unless you put in an equal effort your work simply won't get noticed.

You could just stick your images on a web site and hope someone stumbles on them but the likelihood of that is slim. Instead you need to do research to find places that sell products like yours, and find out how they do business (their usual terms). Then approach them in a professional way with a product that will make them (as well as you) money.

Dan Marchant wrote in post #15734542
... then you will have little success.

Not trying to be mean here. It is just a fact of business that success comes from doing a good job of selling. It doesn't matter how great your images are if no one knows they exist. These are your images. If you aren't willing to put in the effort to get them into the market and make people aware of them, then why would anyone else make the effort for you?

You are competing with all the other photographers out there who are willing to invest in their business and put in the effort to promote their work/business. Unless you put in an equal effort your work simply won't get noticed.

You could just stick your images on a web site and hope someone stumbles on them but the likelihood of that is slim. Instead you need to do research to find places that sell products like yours, and find out how they do business (their usual terms). Then approach them in a professional way with a product that will make them (as well as you) money.

I agree, just don't got the green to invest... right now, but I got time and money to invest... which normally never helps more than money. I do plan on sending out postcards to specifically targeted wholesalers and publishers who would normally buy/license my type of images for use of posters/calendars etc...

You can ask in cafes and restaurants in your area if they'd mind displaying your work on their walls with a price tag and sell it on consignment. Not sure how successful this would be, but it has been for some. Been wanting to trying it out myself, but every time I look at my picture library I just can't choose a handful of photos I'd like to have on MY wall, let alone a business'.

ChrisAdval wrote in post #15734595
I agree, just don't got the green to invest... right now, but I got time and money to invest... which normally never helps more than money.

You "don't got" the green to invest, but you have money to invest . . . this confuses me.

Could you clarify your situation for us?

Isn't the business of photography founded on diligence, hard work, and patience? Oh yeah; and at least reasonable skill and a good eye. Good luck with not wanting to pay the dues.

To answer your question; I saw a relative beginner have amazing success at a local fair at Huntington Beach. He had to make a gamble but the payoff was fairly instant.

He made a ton of photo products - from large prints (20x30 style) to little pins of his photography of the pier. I think the real art was in the printing - but his prices were about double or triple his costs. By the end of the weekend, I think his box of 500 business cards was about exhausted.

He had a Rebel XT with a kit lens and dropped maybe $5K on prints + who knows how much for 2 days of booth rental but his stuff sold and his name got out there.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #15734734
You "don't got" the green to invest, but you have money to invest . . . this confuses me.

Could you clarify your situation for us?

sorry I meant time and energy...

Situation is lacking money, and patience to earn some money from my work... I can understand "planting seeds" approach but selling posters/calendars is one way of marketing myself to more people not just local but hopefully world-wide at stores like Walmart that sell these types of items.

NBEast wrote in post #15734763
Isn't the business of photography founded on diligence, hard work, and patience? Oh yeah; and at least reasonable skill and a good eye. Good luck with not wanting to pay the dues.

To answer your question; I saw a relative beginner have amazing success at a local fair at Huntington Beach. He had to make a gamble but the payoff was fairly instant.

He made a ton of photo products - from large prints (20x30 style) to little pins of his photography of the pier. I think the real art was in the printing - but his prices were about double or triple his costs. By the end of the weekend, I think his box of 500 business cards was about exhausted.

He had a Rebel XT with a kit lens and dropped maybe $5K on prints + who knows how much for 2 days of booth rental but his stuff sold and his name got out there.

thanks, yea, I was thinking of going to a flea/farmers market nearby or other similar local places that has spaces for rent for a small period of time for I can sell prints since posters/calendars are more of a impulse buy item, so selling it online for myself and have tried is extremely difficult.

You need to start thinking and selling local. The Internet is just a big black hole where the business dreams of artists get compressed into essentially nothingness. There are thousands upon thousands of people trying to sell their pictures on scores of sites/services, with only a few of them making sales. It's a business model that works for the ones who own/run such sites. Take stock agencies as an example: millions of photos selling for a pittance. I've had an image that has sold a few times in Fotolia... for 25 cents each time. Considering that these agencies don't pay you unless you sell at least 50 dollars or more, you can imagine when I'm gonna get a cheque.

In order to succeed on the Internet you need to be extremely good, and even then, artwork is not something that most people are willing to pay for and then wait for days for it to arrive. Artwork tends to be more of an impulse buy; this is the reason why art sales and market stalls are more successful than shiny websites.

There's no quick and easy way to success here. You have to commit the time and the resources. For the photographer, patience is more than a virtue: it's a prime requisite of the profession.

"I'm looking for little to no investments to sell/advertise the selling of printed work though, and I have little patience lol..."

I've found you usually get out of something what you're willing to put into it - and I don't mean just money.

Selling pictures as Fine Art question

ChrisAdval wrote in post #15734793
sorry I meant time and energy...

Situation is lacking money, and patience to earn some money from my work... I can understand "planting seeds" approach but selling posters/calendars is one way of marketing myself to more people not just local but hopefully world-wide at stores like Walmart that sell these types of items.

Well, if you want to have your images sold at WalMart and the like, you will need to get in with the publishers / printers who WalMart contracts with - publishers such as Mead, Dayspring, Willow Creek Press, Brown Trout Publishing, etc. You can either contact the publishers directly to attempt to license your images to them via rights managed licenses, or you can submit your images to the stock agencies that these publishers buy from.

Either way, selling stock images is an entirely different type of business than selling printed work, so it seems that the goals you stated in post #8 are very different goals than those you stated in your original post.

ChrisAdval wrote in post #15734793
sorry I meant time and energy...

Situation is lacking money, and patience to earn some money from my work...

This raises the question then, will you have the green to spend on printing/matting and/or framing your work to sell it locally. Youre going to have to spend some money to get youre stuff out there..

You can sell / advertise for free @ Craigslist, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest and many other places. Each one of these sites has traffic and Craigslist can allow you to build local client base. I am not sure of your pricing but usually people on Craigslist are known to be lowballers.

ya! marketing is important if you are trying to sell your work..
one way is you can shoot e mails to thousands of people at one time . it may ccost less.