How To Sales Advice

This question is at the behest of those that, for some unknown reason, believe my stuff might sell

It's a simple question made more difficult by the fact that I'm a crotchety, 72 y/o gentleman with severe Asperger's syndrome...
I don't like dealing with other people. That kinda discounts art fairs/gallery shows/whatnot.
Add to that my recent foray into the smoke photography genre which is somewhat unique. Examples...https://1x.com/member/​chauncey43

Have considered places like Amazon or Art.com but getting lost in the forest is a concern...suggestions from anyone???

As a 51 year old with mold Aspergers I would say that any form of selling art relies on interacting with the customer. So from that point of view you may be SOL . From what I have seen on just about all of the different online selling "systems" requires you to activly promote and sell your product, simply using whichever sustem you chose to do the actual sale. These seem to vary from the full service product fulfillment offered by the likes of Fine Art America (or a couple of dozen other countries) to the mostly just provide the payment services of online marketplaces like Etsy. Where you are responcible for all of the product forfillment.

Personally I'm thinking of trying some of my work on Etsy, being part of a marketplace like that has some added apeal over just setting up my own e commerce enabled website, which I could do relativly easily, since I have already done that for a local retail shop. Either way you stiĺl have to promote it to drive traffic to your products.

Alan

chauncey wrote in post #17909668
This question is at the behest of those that, for some unknown reason, believe my stuff might sell
It's a simple question made more difficult by the fact that I'm a crotchety, 72 y/o gentleman with severe Asperger's syndrome...
I don't like dealing with other people. That kinda discounts art fairs/gallery shows/whatnot.
Add to that my recent foray into the smoke photography genre which is somewhat unique. Examples...https://1x.com/member/​chauncey43
Have considered places like Amazon or Art.com but getting lost in the forest is a concern...suggestions from anyone???

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Hi, Chauncey!

In my experience, when you put your stuff up to sell prints online, nobody just "happens to find it". Not even if it is keyword aggressively. The way people sell successfully on sites like Fine Art America, Amazon, etc, is if they market their work personally, and then send their clients to the website to make an order. In other words, it is best to look at such sites as an order fulfillment solution, and not as a marketing solution.

For instance, when someone who knows me and is familiar with my work tells that they want to buy a print, I refer them to my Fine Art America account and let them know that to order a print from me that is where they need to go. This is how print sales happen on the internet - not from people just browsing the 'net and happening to come across your stuff when they do searches.

Unfortunately for you, this pretty much means that without "dealing with people" the sales aren't going to happen (except perhaps for the oddball fluke sale every once in a blue moon).

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chauncey wrote in post #17909668
Have considered places like Amazon or Art.com but getting lost in the forest is a concern...suggestions from anyone???

Whatever you do getting lost in the forest will be the default result. the above are merely distribution systems - you need to attract customers by letting them know you exist.
1. Build a substantial body of work with a unified theme or style (IE lots of smoke images). You need this first because attracting customers who are interested in your smoke images (or other images) will be pointless if there aren't enough/new images to attract them back again.
2. Submit work to photography magazines to start with in order to build some awareness.
3. Put together a self published photobook and send copies to newpapers/magazines for review (you are going to have to spend some money to get results).

Hire a marketing assistant, paid by commission. Can't say many would want to work commission-based, but you might get lucky with a varsity student willing to put in 2-5 hours a week promoting your stuff.

The responses that struck a cord..."SOL" and hire a marketing guru...
I think that I'll select additional opinions from more than a local juried committee and go from there...thanks guys.

Although my Aspergers is very mild (Not mold, I wish I could get the spoll chuckker to work on my Android phone, and I thought I had done a reasonable proof read of my first post too) I have a son (he's 25 now) who is quite severly affected by it, and I also know quite a few others with the condition. Although communication can be very difficult at times communicating about things that are a passion generally seems to be much easier than many other every day communications.

One approach that may work is not to think about it as selling or promoting the sale of your work to a customer. Simply talk to people about your art, without deliberatly trying to sell it. It is after all your hobby and something you like doing, so it should be a subject you are confident about. Have some examples on your phone for example so that you can show them what you do while talking with them. Then all you have to do is drop in at the end that you have some work avilable, and where to find it, FAA or where ever you decide to try. Getting some cards printed is easy and quite cheap.

The other thing to do is not set your self huge expectations sales wise. Put your work out there, and make your aim simply to talk to people about it, and just hand them a card at the end of the conversation. If nothing else treat it as an exercise in building some confidence. Then any sales you do make become a nice added boost, not something you need to achive to measure sucess.

Alan

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chauncey wrote in post #17911079
I think that I'll select additional opinions from more than a local juried committee and go from there.....

I don't understand what you are saying here.
I looked for mention of a local juried show in your first post, but didn't see any.
Would you please expound on what you mean?

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Several of our local shows require review by a jury committee before entering the show...supposedly keeps out the riffraff.
Have passed that review process for those local shows.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #17909958
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Hi, Chauncey!

In my experience, when you put your stuff up to sell prints online, nobody just "happens to find it". Not even if it is keyword aggressively. The way people sell successfully on sites like Fine Art America, Amazon, etc, is if they market their work personally, and then send their clients to the website to make an order. In other words, it is best to look at such sites as an order fulfillment solution, and not as a marketing solution.

For instance, when someone who knows me and is familiar with my work tells that they want to buy a print, I refer them to my Fine Art America account and let them know that to order a print from me that is where they need to go. This is how print sales happen on the internet - not from people just browsing the 'net and happening to come across your stuff when they do searches.

Unfortunately for you, this pretty much means that without "dealing with people" the sales aren't going to happen (except perhaps for the oddball fluke sale every once in a blue moon).

.

That's what I use my site for too. A tool to distribute my works to my clients once I have been paid. No disk or usb drives needed. Give them a link to download the photos they have already paid for. I do or I used to do my marketing and networking through my Facebook account or from people who know my works for years.