I reckon the best way to make a real buck is to sell the same piece of artwork over and over again, whether it be by royalties, rebates, producing prints for sale, or whatever.
Really be interested to hear from anyone successfully doin this.
RobC
Posted by Print Wright (Member # 850) on :
Hi Rob We do some book publishing which I feel is related. Our oldest book is 14 years old and still selling OK. Looked at the print market. These are sold as limited editions. Seems lucrative for the top selling artists, as the prints would be relatively inexpensive to produce in the bulk quantities they can sell. Their "limited editions" may be 1 or 2000. The problem is in marketing. How are you going to sell them & distribute. You would have to give retailers a minimum of 45% discount & a wholesaler would require 20%. For an unknown artist a smaller edition may be more sensible. Then you have to know where to sell. I initially marketed my own books. It was frustating to visit shops only to be knocked back when a similar premises in a neighbouring suburb would buy in bulk then give repeat orders in the future. I would suggest visiting art supply shops that market art, check out their stock and have a chat with the proprietor. Have also known artists to market their art door to door, but wonder at the economics of that Kerry Wright Gladstone Australia
Posted by VICTORGEORGIOU (Member # 474) on :
Rob, there's a fellow here locally who classifys himself as an art merchant. He gets original poster art and has it reprinted in quantity. He then offers it for sale at his website. I don't remember the links anymore, but the fellow tells me that posters over the web can very profitable if you have a good feel for what will sell. Vic G
Posted by Wizsigns (Member # 778) on :
I have recently more or less quit making signs and I work in telecoms where I get paid royalties everytime one of my customers make a phone call. I found the sign business very time consuming and the financial rewards not up to the time I was putting in.
Would have been nice to get paid every time someone looked at one of my signs but very unlikely.
Have a look at http://www.radiuscom.com Radius Communications are starting up in the USA afte 4 successful years in Europe.
I found it worked very well with the sign business easy to gather a few customers when they called in to collect their signs I could help them save some money on the phone bill. The business minded customers asked me to explain the business end of the deal to them and quite a few joined my networking business.
I don't miss making signs now but it is still there because Margy has taken over the sign business.
Hi to all the sign writers I have talked to on this site over the years especially the people I met at the Cork meet and the Meet in Manchester Posted by pierre (Member # 1462) on :
Me. At least I was. The Limited Editions sold out years ago, and my eyes won't allow me to contimue with protrait engravings. I should have made them much more than editions of 1,000 each. They sold out too quickly. I wasn't sharp enough to realize this that many years ago. There were 124 original engravings with 1,000 repros of each. I retained all of the originals except one. That one is an engraving from the Abercrombie & Fitch collection of African Horned Animals. It was "appropriated" by Sheik Sulliman while the collection was on exhibit in the Royal Palace in Saudii Arabia some 18 years ago. It was the engraving of the Oryx, and the Sheik is the owner of the "Oryx National Bank of Saudii Arabia", of course. After many phone calls to the Consulate's office I was finally passed to the Royal Secretary to Sheik Sulliman. I was informed that the return of the engraving "was impossible, and I should feel honored!" The fact that the collection was broken meant nothing, or less, to them. So it hangs in the Royal Palace. Some of the LE's are on our website in the Engravings section.
Posted by Rob Clark (Member # 787) on :
Thankyou, Kerry, Victor, David and Pierre.
I have approached 3M Australia about a series of vehicle graphics kits I have in mind. They say they offer 5% rebate on wholesale price. They market and distribute, I am more or less just selling them the rights to reproduce my designs. This is reputed to be a $3 million / year market here, 3M are not the biggest market share holders though so I need to do some more homework on this.
Another concept I have is with Point of Sale characters, lil fellas like the M&M guys. I would like to find a company who markets these sorts of items and again sell them the rights to reproduce my designs.
I believe the idea is good, I have been skirting about the edges of it for several years, It's time I got the wheels on the ground.
Love your work Pierre, so does the sheik........ obviously.
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