Best Place to Sell Printed Work?

If you really want to focus on selling photography, you need to highly scrutinze what you show. I took a breeze through your flicker and saw way too many photos. If you want to sell you have to show only your best of your best. This may mean marking only 10 to 15 images per yearas worthy of trying to sell. If you show mediocre, viewers will consider you medicore.

The idea of putting your pictures in cafes etc is a good one, but you will have to pay the cafe owner probably a 35% commission for each one that sells. If you put your framed pics together in groups of say 8 -10, you can move them from cafe to cafe every couple of months. This keeps the pis fresh in each cafe.

It's a big investment in framed pictures, not so bad if you do the framing yourself.

HappySnapper90 wrote in post #15773322
If you really want to focus on selling photography, you need to highly scrutinze what you show. I took a breeze through your flicker and saw way too many photos. If you want to sell you have to show only your best of your best. This may mean marking only 10 to 15 images per yearas worthy of trying to sell. If you show mediocre, viewers will consider you medicore.

i agree, on my flickr is not meant to be a portfolio viewing, its an overall of my best work, not best of the best but best at the time I was working on client/model's sets... as for portfolios that can be viewed on my website http://www.chrisadvalp​roductions.com/portfol​ios.html


I tried the 10-15 best but I got too many great photos (in my opinion) that I need to show to potential clients on my portfolios... I ran through them a very strict diversity selective process and still got a lot of very different photographs... Yes I know some in my portfolio may have the same model but the shots are very differently lit/shot, etc...

ChrisAdval wrote in post #15773997
I tried the 10-15 best but I got too many great photos (in my opinion) that I need to show to potential clients on my portfolios...

You don't need to show them you want to.... big difference.

You need to show people just enough images to sell them your services. Any more than that is a waste and risks people getting bored. Most people will make a decision on if they like your style/work within the first minute so a large portfolio is a waste.

You also don't need a diverse range of work. You need work that will appeal directly to your target customer. If you want to do weddings you don't need sports photos or shots of cars... you just need weddings. Business is about selling. Identify who your target market is and show them what they are likely to buy.

Dan Marchant wrote in post #15774340
You don't need to show them you want to.... big difference.

You need to show people just enough images to sell them your services. Any more than that is a waste and risks people getting bored. Most people will make a decision on if they like your style/work within the first minute so a large portfolio is a waste.

You also don't need a diverse range of work. You need work that will appeal directly to your target customer. If you want to do weddings you don't need sports photos or shots of cars... you just need weddings. Business is about selling. Identify who your target market is and show them what they are likely to buy.

Good advice Dan, my only addition to it, is if you want to work in different generes, than seperate your work into different websites, say 1 for weddings, one for sports etc..that way, depending on who your client is, you can direct them to the appropriare website, and it won't be cluttered with images that dont apply to what they are interested in.

Could be worth trying RedBubble or FineArtAmerica, if you're looking for no investment costs. As others have said though, it's one thing to get your photos available for sale, its another to actually get people to buy them. You need to build relationships and do some marketing...or hire someone to do it for you.

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Ben McDarmont Photography

Dan Marchant wrote in post #15774340
You need to show people just enough images to sell them your services. Any more than that is a waste and risks people getting bored. Most people will make a decision on if they like your style/work within the first minute so a large portfolio is a waste.

But I think the OP was interested in selling stock, so that his work could end up being used in products that are available at WalMart. While showing only a small sample of one's work is sound advice for someone selling their services, it is a poor tactic for one who is selling his images, especially when the images are being sold as stock.

The needs of photo buyers are often very specific, and you want to ensure that they find what they are looking for when they see your portfolio. I once received a request for a photo of a bedded Whitetail Deer buck in hard antler (meaning the phase the antlers are in between mid-September and December), with trophy class antlers, bedded in grassland habitat, with blue sky behind him. Guess what? I didn't have an image that fit the criteria, so I lost the chance to make a sale.

If you want the image buyers to use your stuff, you have to show them that you are likely to have exactly what they are looking for, and that is best accomplished by including as many images as possible in one's stock list.

In that case, probably what would work then would be two sections in one's website: one 'Portfolio' with the strongest images, grouped by specialty, aimed at the commercial commissions and a 'Stock' section, with all images that are available for sale: maybe even an online store.

no stock here, only private stock list available for licensing is a different story than agency stock... I am looking to get publishers who sell posters/calendars, etc... photo products with my either bought copyright of my photos or licensed photos... which is what I am primarily aiming for, but let's be honest if you are an unknown they won't think for a millisecond to check out the photos in most cases if it is a known publisher who sells nationally or/and world-wide. So selling posters either online, which has been impossible since its an impulse item as we all should know, so my best bet from the research I've gathered is selling posters and other photographic product goods at local conventions/art fairs/flea markets/farmers markets/etc.,etc.... Correct or not?

I didn't mean stock agencies. Check out this photographer's website. He does several things, but leaving his 'school' aside, see how he's got one portfolio section for people who just want to check him out, then he's also got another section --Galleries-- where he's showcasing and selling the pictures he's accumulated over the time he's been shooting. That's more like what I meant.

A number of photographers are hosting/selling their own work without turning to stock agencies. These agencies were great to work for a decade or more ago, when they cared for the interests of photographers. Nowadays all they care about is themselves and the fattening of their purses, offering to the public a humongous library of pictures at ridiculous prices. Only a few photographers from their hundreds of contributors are actually making a living in this manner. A lot of veterans are now operating workshops and 'schools'; seems there's more money to make in teaching hobbyists than in shooting.

ChrisAdval wrote in post #15780348
no stock here, only private stock list available for licensing is a different story than agency stock... I am looking to get publishers who sell posters/calendars, etc... photo products with my either bought copyright of my photos or licensed photos... which is what I am primarily aiming for, but let's be honest if you are an unknown they won't think for a millisecond to check out the photos in most cases ....

So I refer you again to my first answer on page one https://photography-on-the.net …hp?p=15734542&p​ostcount=2

Put your photos up on your site, but don't expect any sales because no one will know they are there unless you make the effort to make them aware through marketing and PR.

Likewise, as you said, no publisher is going to come to your site because they won't know it's there and wont need to (they get enough people contacting them). If you want a publisher to buy/license you images you need to work out who they are and start contacting them.

HappySnapper90 wrote in post #15773322
If you really want to focus on selling photography, you need to highly scrutinze what you show. I took a breeze through your flicker and saw way too many photos. If you want to sell you have to show only your best of your best. This may mean marking only 10 to 15 images per yearas worthy of trying to sell. If you show mediocre, viewers will consider you medicore.

This is exactly what I did but not with the website but instead with a print book. I picked 26 best images and had a nice hard cover print book made. It is so much easier to show it to clients and let them see it live instead of pointing people over to my website and having them look thru different categories. I called my book 2012 Catalog

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...

Good luck. You generally get back what you put in.

Instaproofs. they do all their fulfillment through richard photo lab. awesome quality and super easy to use.