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More Methods to Sell Work & Pricing

a great way to bring your work to a new audience is to sell your work through a retail shop. Um When you sell your work through a retail shop, this is considered a wholesale account. What is wholesale. All wholesale means is that the shop is buying your work in bulk several pieces at a time. Most likely reproductions like prince or notebook books adorned with your art Um at a reduced price, typically at 50% of the retail price. And then the shop then sells the art or products for a profit. So um we'll talk about selling original art, which you can do wholesale, but you might consider doing it on consignment because consignment works a little differently. If you're interested in selling your work wholesale, you want to make contact with potential shops. I recommend um doing a lot of what lisa said yesterday when you're researching galleries, the same thing goes for stores, research stores that you think might be a good fit for your work. You might want to start in your local community o...

r in your city shops that you think might might be interested in selling your work, that it's a good aesthetic fit. Um You want to um make sure that they're not selling a lot of stuff already that's too similar to what your work looks like. Um And you want to make sure that that um they also are not don't have exclusivity and we'll talk about that in a second. You may give up some control. Um And that means that once you sell a bunch of stuff. Let's say these are journals and I have the journals printed myself. This is not licensed work. This is something that I had made And I paid to have made and I have 50 of them and I have found a store that wants to sell this journal. It's a blank journal, it's blank inside. And they want to buy 10 of them. They retail normally for $14. So I'm gonna sell them for $7 each, then they're going to sell them for $14. Um for the most part, that's how it works. You set the price, But you may give up control. They may decide that they want to sell it for $16 and eventually, if not all of themselves, they might decide they want to mark them down to $4. So once you sell your stuff, you give up control. If it's important to you that the price of your product never changes. You have to get them to sign off on that. Um Like if you never want your thing to be marked down on sale, make sure that they know that if you never, if you want to make sure that it's always said at a certain price, you need to make sure that they don't mark it up. Usually stores will ask you, is it okay if I sell it because they want to make even more of a profit. Is it okay if I sell it for more money. So get clear on that because you do give up control as I said earlier, you want to get clear on exclusivity. So um sometimes shop owners have requirements, you may have requirements, they may have them to for example, they may request that they are the only shop in the region or the neighborhood that sells your stuff. They want to have an exclusive on you. Um Some stores don't care about that at all. They don't care if every other shop on the street is also selling your stuff, but a lot of stores do care about that. So you want to make sure that you understand that and what their requirements are. Because if it's your goal to have your product in every shop in your neighborhood. Um Some stores may not be down with that. So you just want to get clear on that and usually they'll tell you, but it's always good to ask. Alright. Consignment Incitements similar to wholesale but slightly different. I'm not gonna spend very much time on it, but here's what it's about. So, consignment, it's an agreement with the shop. Sometimes with a gallery, you maintain ownership of the artwork. And if it doesn't sell this is actually how it mostly works with galleries. And sometimes shops, if it work doesn't sell, you can take it back into your possession. This is great for original works where you might not want to have, you know, you might not want to sell your original work to somebody who can then sell it for however much money they want. You know, you may want to maintain control um, reproductions. I recommend staying away from from consignment for the most part, um because you only get paid as things, so, and um, you know, some brick and mortar shops when they're first starting out, will only do consignment. And if you really want to be in a shop, you can do it, but it's a lot more bookkeeping. You need to keep an inventory which you reconcile against the monthly payments you get. So typically shops pay monthly, you have to trust that they're gonna pay you when your stuff sells, that they're keeping track of what's selling, that you're getting credited for it and then it comes out in their bookkeeping system. So it's okay to ask a lot of questions if you do end up doing something on consignment about their track record, or ask who sold consignment with them in the past that you could email for, you know, as a reference, because you really do talk about giving up control. You do give up a lot of control. You don't give as much control up around pricing, um or ownership. It's more trusting that that store is going to pay you and keep track of what stuff of yours have sold. So, um I think it's great sometimes for original pieces um that a storm might want to carry um because you can always take them back If they don't sell, you don't have to see them marked down to like 999. Um uh That doesn't happen. Instead of marking them down, they give them back to you if they haven't sold and then you can figure out another way to sell them. Okay, so that's consignment, it's some it's best for original artwork I think and requires tracking inventory and reconciling against payments from a retailer. Um commissions. I'm going to spend a little bit more time on commissions. A commission is when you create a piece of work specifically for someone, if you enjoy making work that is specifically for other people, then commissions might be a good fit for you. So what is the commission commissions come with some risks. So the client, somebody emails you when they say and some people actually have whole commission areas set up on their website. Um Some people, their entire career is just doing commissions, portrait commissions for example, but the idea is that someone basically is like, I want you to make a painting or a drawing for me um or a pot for me or whatever it is you make or a wall hanging or a weaving or you know, whatever your art form is and they agree to pay you for the most part before that work has been created. So talk about trust, right, it can create the expectation and pressure that they should like the work in the end and that can sometimes feel really nerve wracking to people who do commissions, raise your hand if you've done a commission before. Okay. Do you know what? It's, you know, a lot of times it starts with family and friends and then some people make entire businesses out of it. It's much like a commercial illustration because you have to ask for art direction and make sure that you've got all your ducks in a row before you start. Regardless. It's important to remember that you're entering a business relationship with your client, your ability to communicate with your customer will ultimately determine if your commission is successful. So you want to listen to and respond to their understand or there needs before you begin, you want to listen to and understand their needs before you begin. You want to set a time frame for completion. Um They may say I need this in, you know, three weeks and you're, you know that this kind of work, given your work schedule and everything else going on is gonna take you three months. So make sure you get very clear and if they can't agree to the timeframe, then you don't want to do the commission. Don't try to force yourself to do something in less time than you have. Um you want to get our direction questions I recommend asking are what specific subject matter do you want, what style of my work would you like me to emulate? Get them to send examples, don't be afraid to ask questions. We'll talk about this again in the illustration segment, but always whenever anyone gives you a job, whether it's a fine art commission or an illustration job get really clear on what they want you to do. You save yourself a lot of time in the end art and craft fairs. So again, these are bears like renegade, your local craft wars informal craft fairs. Um, again, more formal fairs like art basel in Miami or freeze in London. Those art fairs are for artists who represented by a gallery generally or an art dealer and are quite prestigious. You may have aspirations to show at an art fair someday if you have fine art dreams and that's great. These are the ones that are far more accessible for pretty much anybody who is interested and that's what I'm gonna talk about. There's like renegade where you apply to have a booth. Okay. Um, they are great for exposure and building a new audience. Remember I was talking earlier about etc. And how or even instagram and how, um, often art directors or curate urz will troll, etc. For talent. The same is true for art fair. So if you're just starting out and you want to reach a new audience, it's not just about selling stuff and making money. This is about growing your email list. You might have that a sign up for that. This is about sharing what you do. People who wholesale walk through those fares just to look for stuff that could potentially buy wholesale. So, if you're interested interested in doing wholesale uh craft fairs like renegade, um and there are others are great places. And again, people also have been curated into shows and gotten licensing deals from people who from companies who walk around looking for new talent. So um there are great places for exposure. And that's in addition to how much money you can potentially make at these fairs. All right. Somebody talked about pricing when we talk about pricing, we get a collective sai right, okay. Um And that's because art is so subjective, right? We've talked about this a little bit. There's no easy mathematical formula for attaching a price tag to a piece of art and it's nothing more than an educated guess. But educating yourself is key. So always start by thinking about price based on what you think the worth work is worth and not where the work is being sold. As lisa said yesterday, lisa Solomon said yesterday, No matter where your artwork is sold, it should always have a consistent price tag. Mhm. I can't emphasize that enough, inconsistent, inconsistent pricing will only confuse buyers and you'd be surprised how many people pay attention to the fact that your work is priced differently in different places. Many buyers do research before they buy artwork. And so if they see your work has disparate pricing in different venues, they may question its value all together. So you want to look for comparables in your neighborhood and the way to find comparables is again to do research. So research, as lisa said yesterday is a really important part of your job. Um You want to look for other artists who make similar work in similar genres, who have a similar level of experience or schooling as you who have similar followings and find out how much our they're pricing their work for. And is it selling? So, do your research. Um you also and don't take this the wrong way. You want to start low. And that doesn't mean you want to make your work cheap. You just want to start low as opposed to high. So in the range that you might come up with for a print or an original, um start on the lower end because once you set a price, I think we talked about this yesterday as well. You don't, you want to stay there, you never want to lower the price. You might want to raise the price eventually. And that's something that I cover a little bit more in my book about when when is the time to raise your prices? Usually when you're selling a lot of that thing, um you may want to just stick with it if you're selling a lot of that thing, but there may come a time when your work becomes worth more money and you want to raise the prices.