I spoke yesterday of how my writing and comment-moderation workflow here on TOP might need to change. Well, our print sales might need to evolve as well.
I've heard anecdotally from a variety of sources that print sales are slowing across the board, as the tradition of fine printmaking continues to evaporate from the culture of photography. Our print sales have certainly declined. I'm not sure I can ascribe that to anything in the broader culture, however. TOP's audience has constricted to about one-third the size of the audience at peak (2013), although the readers that remain seem much more engaged, devoted, and active—also, they're more dedicated or devoted to photography or however you want to phrase it, more experienced and knowledgeable. TOP doesn't attract hordes of casual visitors looking for shopping advice any more, that's for sure.
Anyway, it might be time for a transition here too. Our old model (taking orders in advance for a limited time and fulfilling them after they were already sold) worked quite wonderfully. But it's a high-volume model. Our best print sale sold ~735 prints, and our most lucrative made $128,000 in profit. Another artist first agreed to make 50 prints, but that 50 sold so rapidly that he agreed to make 100 more. Those vanished as well. Yet another print-sale artist told us that the check we sent her was the largest amount of money she'd earned at one time in her life.
But those days are long gone. Now we struggle to sell 100, and often don't reach 50. And the profits are more modest.
Great good fortune
It's still nothing to sneeze at; not at all. When's the last time you sold 35 prints of a single picture? It's very unusual. The number of photographers who sell 35 prints of one picture in a gallery show are a tiny minority. Most people who have gallery shows would be over the moon to sell 35 total. So I'm grateful we can do that. Looked at objectively, it's still very fortunate that we do so well. Quite wonderful.
It might be time to change the sales model, is all. For one thing, the printer still needs to be paid. The first print is where a lot of the labor is. If we sell 125 prints, the first print is a small proportion of the whole. If the printer is providing 15 prints, it's a larger part of the work. It becomes harder for us to cover that cost. One printer won't work with us unless we can guarantee 100 sales.
So what I'm thinking of is switching to some kind of small-volume model. As you can see from the last post but one, 148 readers put themselves into the category of people who would consider buying a print of "Mennonite Boys Watching Dirt-Track Racing." But how many people actually will buy one? Fifteen per cent? Ten? So call it 15 to 22 sales. And that sounds about right.
So maybe I should have the printer make 15 copies (or 15 and three artist's proofs), and I'll pay him out of my pocket, and then we'll offer the 15 until they sell out. The price would have to be higher doing it that way, but still nothing too onerous. (And sometimes people want to pay more, but that's another post.)
I'd like to try that with reader prints, too. Your prints, I mean. I have in mind three prints by readers. I could ask each person to provide, say, ten copies of his or her print, and then offer them without a deadline. They'd just sell until they sold out. Wouldn't it be nice to make a sale out of the Baker's Dozens, for instance?
I'll have to think about that. Anyway, that's all that this post is trying to say: that I'm thinking about this. The volume model is on the cusp of not making enough volume, so maybe it's just time to change.
Mike
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Reminded me of one of my favorite things from "Letting Go Of The Camera" by Brooks Jensen. I can't locate my copy at the moment, so I'll have to paraphrase:
"It doesn't matter if you do an edition of 5 or 50 because you are never going to print more than 3.
Posted by: Dave Levingston | Friday, 21 July 2023 at 02:51 PM
Especially for digital prints, one idea is to skip the printer. That leaves fewer people to divide the money between. (And means you don't have to worry about printer minimum quantities.)
With the higher volume sales there was legitimate concern about the artist also handling the logistics (artists not, mostly, being primarily known for handling logistics!). But if the model is changing to a smaller initial order, and those sent to you and shipped from there (meaning you or an employee there do the shipping, but that's something that seems baked into that one of your ideas above), then that's asking much less from the artist in terms of promptness and reliability. (Oh, and shuffling between printer to print, artist to sign, and logistics person to ship was an extra step in the old process that could go away in this proposed one.)
(When I was the artist, I was pretty happy to have someone else handling the logistics; I might have been able to, but it would have been something I had to work to keep on top of, at best. But that was more prints than you're talking about for the future.)
(Artist, printer, shipper, and TOP owner are the obvious ones who do key tasks that have to be paid for.)
Not all artists would want to handle their own exhibition prints, of course, but quite a few probably would. Especially if it made them more money? And your selection of prints to offer would of course be based on seeing proof prints; in digital printing it's fairly easy to make more prints like the proof, so you'd know what you were selling.
Younger people also mostly just don't have the money for original artwork so often these days; it may be that more than lack of interest.
Posted by: David Dyer-Bennet | Friday, 21 July 2023 at 03:03 PM
re "shopping advice" I've been visiting TOP since sometime before 2010, you've always covered a variety of topics but my gut feel is there's less about cameras than there used to be, even just a note about a new camera much less anything deeper, maybe that's why there's less visitors looking for advice.
I wish you would do more gear reviews ( however detailed) because you're really good at it, your blog, your choice obviously.
Posted by: David Robinson | Friday, 21 July 2023 at 03:54 PM
Checkout LightJet printing. They use three color lasers to make prints on both B&W and color printing paper.
Doing a search for LightJet printers will led you to many photo lab sites. This may or may not be an answer for your low print sales.
Posted by: c.d.embrey | Friday, 21 July 2023 at 07:43 PM
Mike, long time reader. Seldom comment. I for one would buy a 16x20 figuring the image to be 11x14, give or take. It is an exquisite image.
One of your assets is a loyal & motivated audience.
I’d be interested to know how the survey worked out.
Number of Interest in which size prints ?
Tell me your price for a 16 x 20 and I’ll send the $.
I’ve been interested in and following graphic prints. Wood Engraving Prints & Lino Prints. Graphics seem to sell.
Check out Wood Engravers Network.
Posted by: Tim McGowan | Friday, 21 July 2023 at 10:00 PM
Have you looked over TOP's future prospects for book sale referrals? In that case, logistics is taken care of as university presses seem to know how to do it. Several books that I refer to often came to me through TOP referrals.
Posted by: scott kirkpatrick | Saturday, 22 July 2023 at 10:54 AM
I am very aware of the print market drying up. I'd love to sell a dozen or two prints of one of my photos. The most I have ever sold of a photo was 6 and that was back in my wet darkroom days. I'm having to reconsider making prints because I can't sell them and they are piling up. I hate to stop printing altogether because I do my own printing,
I have just bought a new printer, and to me, it isn't a photograph if it is just ones and zeros on the internet. A photograph is something you can hold in your hands or hang on your wall. Yeah, I know. I'm old.
Posted by: James Bullard | Saturday, 22 July 2023 at 12:45 PM
If you have limited number of prints, say 15, you could also sell them ‘on auction’. Set a deadline and ask for offers and then sell to the 15 highest bidders.
Posted by: Ilkka | Saturday, 22 July 2023 at 08:14 PM