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02/14/2016 04:08:46 PM · #1
I've always used DPC prints to sell my work but never seem to get traffic to it at all. I have a Facebook page that has 400 followers and I have posted any new prints for sale there and point them to the DPC site for purchase but for years it's been the same people getting the posts who are not interested in purchase or have already purchased from me.

What third party sites do you use to sell prints? Are there any that do a really good job of promoting the artist? Looking for one that will take a cut of the sale and not a monthly subscription type site.
02/14/2016 06:16:52 PM · #2
Fine art America has done well for me but I'm not sure if I just got lucky with a couple images that gained traction or if they were just keyworded well. Either way you can setup a free site there and see what happens.
02/14/2016 08:10:16 PM · #3
Setting it up now. Thanks. Seems nice.
02/14/2016 08:26:24 PM · #4
I make the occasional stock sale through Alamy, but nowhere near enough to call it actual income, so am also looking for a fine art site to sell images through. Wonder if there is a Fine Art Canada?
02/14/2016 08:36:28 PM · #5
I've sold a few on Fine Art America too.
02/14/2016 10:23:02 PM · #6
Originally posted by Hipychik:

I've sold a few on Fine Art America too.

How are you pricing your prints? I'm finding info on "how it works" rather sparse ... :-(
02/15/2016 09:48:47 AM · #7
I was a little confused about that too. After you log in it explains it. You put what price point you want to actually make for yourself and then they add the shipping, printing, matting, framing cost and sell at that price point. The recommended is between $5.00 and $15.00 depending on size. You are not limited to prints either. You can sell pillows, shower curtains, iPhone cases and plenty more.

We'll see how this goes. It does seem to be like others sites I've tried though. Focused more on other media like paintings rather than photography. Photography seems to get the backseat on most of these sites.

For those of you that use it. Does it promote your art well? What things have you done to direct people to your page?
02/15/2016 11:29:57 AM · #8
FineArtAmerica does give you a fair amount of exposure. I have been successfully selling prints there...more from random users than I get on my own website. Mind you, I don't sell many, but I price my prints as they would be priced in a gallery rather than as "poster prints". (I started doing that years ago, when a gallery was selling some of my prints, and they argued successfully that I should not be underpricing on the web).

I try to keep my prices consistent across all the websites I sell on (though it's a bit hard to be exact with the different ways you set pricing).

I've been successful with DPCPrints too, but I don't think I've had any sales there for 3 or more years.

My gallery in their custom artists site is here: //fineartbynature.com

If you pay the $35 or so a year for the custom site, you are also on FineArtAmerica in parallel. (I can never tell which site the purchase comes from...they are really the same with a different facade)

Message edited by author 2016-02-15 11:31:03.
02/15/2016 12:15:19 PM · #9
I've put a few up. Let me know what you think.

My FAA gallery
02/15/2016 06:44:44 PM · #10
For those of you that have made sales on FAA how many prints do you currently have available through them? I'm guessing that quantity comes into play big time with the site in relation to sales dollars.
02/15/2016 07:27:19 PM · #11
Originally posted by Neil:

FineArtAmerica does give you a fair amount of exposure. I have been successfully selling prints there...more from random users than I get on my own website. Mind you, I don't sell many, but I price my prints as they would be priced in a gallery rather than as "poster prints". (I started doing that years ago, when a gallery was selling some of my prints, and they argued successfully that I should not be underpricing on the web).

I try to keep my prices consistent across all the websites I sell on (though it's a bit hard to be exact with the different ways you set pricing).

Are you only selling at small sizes? I checked out one of your lighthouse images, and it was sized at 8x5+, but I couldn't get it to show me a price for a 12x8 ... how much of that retail price are you getting?

Considering the difference in image quality, I suspect I'll be better off avoiding "gallery pricing" for now, though I'm tempted to post something at four figures just to see if anyone's that crazy ... :-)

Any idea whether abstracts (e.g. flip/blend fractals) might sell over there?
02/15/2016 07:28:01 PM · #12
Originally posted by SEG:

For those of you that have made sales on FAA how many prints do you currently have available through them? I'm guessing that quantity comes into play big time with the site in relation to sales dollars.


I have 70. Not as many as I could, and not as many as I have elsewhere.

I think keywords are important.

I think listing order is important. One way to push yourself up in the listing order is to sponsor a page.

//fineartamerica.com/announcement-artwork-page-sponsorship.html?announcement=true
02/15/2016 07:44:25 PM · #13
Originally posted by GeneralE:

Originally posted by Neil:

FineArtAmerica does give you a fair amount of exposure. I have been successfully selling prints there...more from random users than I get on my own website. Mind you, I don't sell many, but I price my prints as they would be priced in a gallery rather than as "poster prints". (I started doing that years ago, when a gallery was selling some of my prints, and they argued successfully that I should not be underpricing on the web).

I try to keep my prices consistent across all the websites I sell on (though it's a bit hard to be exact with the different ways you set pricing).

Are you only selling at small sizes? I checked out one of your lighthouse images, and it was sized at 8x5+, but I couldn't get it to show me a price for a 12x8 ... how much of that retail price are you getting?

Considering the difference in image quality, I suspect I'll be better off avoiding "gallery pricing" for now, though I'm tempted to post something at four figures just to see if anyone's that crazy ... :-)

Any idea whether abstracts (e.g. flip/blend fractals) might sell over there?


I went on the FAA site, searched for my name (not logged in), my Bass Harbor Light shot let me pick any size. A 8x12 is $51.56. $44 of that is markup (mine). Most of the prints I've sold seem to be 10x16 (close to my 10x15 aspect ratio for my sensor) But looking at it (and I rarely do) I guess I don't sell that much there. Seemed like more, mainly because I get an email saying I sold one and I think, great! I only sold 2 prints in 2015 there. But at least when I sell, I make enough money to notice it. :)

I've been there since 2011 and have had 23 sales. But at least half were only $5 profit on "cards". Maybe lower prices would sell more, but on the other hand, there's a lot I could do to promote myself there which I don't do (like the page sponsorship).

On the other hand, the only traffic that seems to go to my "main website" nrshapiro.com site, which I pay much more, is traffic I direct there. FAA/ArtistsWebsite brings customers I don't know.

I have 6 of my motion blur abstracts there. I don't know whether abstract sell there in general, but none of mine have sold there yet.



Message edited by author 2016-02-15 19:49:01.
02/15/2016 07:54:07 PM · #14
It's probably my old browser not letting me view other sizes then. Most of my prints *are* poster-like, with a border and caption pretty much intended to be covered by a mat by anyone who can afford to frame it.

Do they let you restrict available print sizes so you don't get unintended cropping?
02/15/2016 07:56:50 PM · #15
Originally posted by GeneralE:

It's probably my old browser not letting me view other sizes then. Most of my prints *are* poster-like, with a border and caption pretty much intended to be covered by a mat by anyone who can afford to frame it.

Do they let you restrict available print sizes so you don't get unintended cropping?


The sizes they offer are directly based on your aspect ratio. So there's no cropping (better than Zenfolio).

BUT: while they let you pick the ones you want to sell, you'd have to do it picture by picture. Not convenient. So you end up with weird sizes at the right aspect ratio.
Bass Harbor Light Sizes (ratio is 3:2)

5.38"x8.00"
6.63"x10.00"
8.00"x12.00"
9.38"x14.00"
10.63"x16.00"
13.38"x20.00"
16.00"x24.00"
20.00"x30.00"
24.00"x36.00"

Message edited by author 2016-02-15 19:57:42.
02/15/2016 08:03:49 PM · #16
I probably only have enough resolution to get up to about 16x20 ... do they cut it off when the native resolution gets too low or do they upsize it? Do they care if I include my own border, or text?

Message edited by author 2016-02-15 20:04:42.
02/15/2016 08:17:31 PM · #17
I have been on FineArtAmerica for several years. I was selling regularly through last year. Keywords and descriptions are critical as are both quantity and quality. You upload the highest resolution you have (just now 25 MB is the technical maximum though I've gotten up to 30 MB to go through).

Do not add borders to your images. FAA does not crop and they print any ratio including those that are totally non-standard in terms of prints. For prints, they will add a 1/4" border to be covered by the mat or frame. If you add one, in the case of a sale, they will probably come back to you and ask you to take it off so the customer does not get a double border. Basically, they offer prints in 2" (long side) increments up (except 18" - they skip from 16" to 20") to the point that the resolution of your file will permit. You go into "default" settings and set a mark-up for each size. So yes, you could say $10 for every single size but most people start in that range for the smallest print and add a bit for each size increment over that. Once your default prices are set, when you upload an image, those prices will be put in automatically.

The weird sizes Neil mentions happen because originally the site was created to allow traditional artists to offer prints of their artwork. Obviously artists paint (or draw or whatever) on surfaces that are often other than standard print ratio sizes. So quality photographs of their work (from which prints would be made) would not have standard print ratio sizes either. Since FAA is a full-service print-on-demand site, they actually make a lot (maybe most) of their money not on the prints but on the matting and framing (or canvases or acrylics or metal, etc). Therefore they don't mind odd sizes at all :) but a customer who wants to purchase just a print and then plunk it into a pre-cut mat or off-the-shelf frame may be disappointed.

I'm quite active there and would be happy to answer any other questions you may have to the best of my ability.

If you go to the main Discussion forum and then look for the tab marked "Help", you will find most of your questions - and lots more you didn't even know you had - answered. My best advice is to do some serious reading there before starting uploads. Experience has taught me that if you mess up titles or don't do thorough and well-thought out keywords and descriptions from the outset, you will be sorry later.
02/15/2016 08:26:58 PM · #18
Originally posted by nam:

If you go to the main Discussion forum and then look for the tab marked "Help", you will find most of your questions - and lots more you didn't even know you had - answered. My best advice is to do some serious reading there before starting uploads. Experience has taught me that if you mess up titles or don't do thorough and well-thought out keywords and descriptions from the outset, you will be sorry later.

Thanks -- I think you've covered the most important parts right here. :-)

ETA: Think there'd be a market for these quotations, where the frame is the "art"?

Quotation Plaques

Message edited by author 2016-02-15 20:39:43.
02/15/2016 08:50:15 PM · #19
Originally posted by GeneralE:

I probably only have enough resolution to get up to about 16x20 ... do they cut it off when the native resolution gets too low or do they upsize it? Do they care if I include my own border, or text?


They cut it off but you may be surprised. They print 100 dpi which many won't do.

I'm sure there would be at least a small market for your framed quotations, Paul. You are expected to market your own stuff, to drive traffic to them. They don't do that for you. But if you had a lot of quotations (and you obviously do), you could probably establish a niche there.

BTW you can join for free and upload and sell up to 25 images. It's $30 for full membership and you get a modest website for that, too. Anything you upload to FAA is "cloned" to your website so you don't have to do the work twice. I try to send people to my website when I'm doing my marketing (I am terrible at that part of the game). You'll see that they look almost the same though you can customize the website a lot more than I have. There are some important differences, though, too.

Nikki's FAA site
Nikki's website
02/15/2016 09:00:35 PM · #20
Cool ... those I could upload without more editing (to remove borders mostly) -- and I have 50 already. I might upload 20 or so and see if I can make enough to pay for a membership to get started. I just wanted to make sure they'd be considered "art" enough for them ...

Do you think I should price the 4x6 at $5 -- seems a little high to me for what it is, but ...?
02/15/2016 09:19:35 PM · #21
Originally posted by GeneralE:

Cool ... those I could upload without more editing (to remove borders mostly) -- and I have 50 already. I might upload 20 or so and see if I can make enough to pay for a membership to get started. I just wanted to make sure they'd be considered "art" enough for them ...

Do you think I should price the 4x6 at $5 -- seems a little high to me for what it is, but ...?


The smallest size they will print will be 8" on the long side. $5 is not too low for the lowest IMO Unlikely that you will sell if you just upload 20 and then let them sit there AND don't drive traffic there, but it happens. I recommend not paying until after you have the 25 up and have spent the time to read around, keyword well, etc. That could take a full day or it could take weeks or even months :) - depends on you. Anyway, no sense in paying for more until you get to the point that you want to upload more.
02/15/2016 10:17:40 PM · #22
Originally posted by nam:


My best advice is to do some serious reading there before starting uploads. Experience has taught me that if you mess up titles or don't do thorough and well-thought out keywords and descriptions from the outset, you will be sorry later.


Thanks for all the advice. I added a few more images tonight. I think that you can go back at anytime though and change the keywords, titles, etc. I changed a few already.

Also, great work. With the quantity and quality you have I can see your page being very successful.
02/15/2016 10:58:24 PM · #23
Originally posted by nam:

Originally posted by GeneralE:

I probably only have enough resolution to get up to about 16x20 ... do they cut it off when the native resolution gets too low or do they upsize it? Do they care if I include my own border, or text?


They cut it off but you may be surprised. They print 100 dpi which many won't do.

I'm sure there would be at least a small market for your framed quotations, Paul. You are expected to market your own stuff, to drive traffic to them. They don't do that for you. But if you had a lot of quotations (and you obviously do), you could probably establish a niche there.

BTW you can join for free and upload and sell up to 25 images. It's $30 for full membership and you get a modest website for that, too. Anything you upload to FAA is "cloned" to your website so you don't have to do the work twice. I try to send people to my website when I'm doing my marketing (I am terrible at that part of the game). You'll see that they look almost the same though you can customize the website a lot more than I have. There are some important differences, though, too.

Nikki's FAA site
Nikki's website


I'm a member of course for the last 5 years, but I've not taken as full advantage of it like you have. Thanks for the great info. I have a question though...one thing that always worried me about FAA is that I've heard mixed reviews on print quality. Have you ordered any of your own prints? What did you think? (I've not ordered any of mine since I always print at White House Custom Color.) What about frames? Quality, workmanship if they were assembled with your print?

One other thing that has kept me having another site which I consider my primary site (Zenfolio)...watermarking. I tried using watermarking but they always say FineArtAmerica (FAA). Not my own custom watermark, like I can do on my Zenfolio site. That makes a branded site (my FAA artist site) look like it's not your own.\
02/16/2016 01:08:19 AM · #24
Originally posted by SEG:

Originally posted by nam:


My best advice is to do some serious reading there before starting uploads. Experience has taught me that if you mess up titles or don't do thorough and well-thought out keywords and descriptions from the outset, you will be sorry later.


. . . I think that you can go back at anytime though and change the keywords, titles, etc. I changed a few already.

Also, great work. With the quantity and quality you have I can see your page being very successful.


Thank you.

You can change them anytime BUT as I understand it, when you change a title, you risk breaking a link. Since what you are after is links out there on search engines and blogs and FB pages and sites like Pinterest in the hope someone will see an image and like it and follow the link to its source and buy a print, you want to avoid broken links if you can. You just have to start over, so to speak, with the new title and broken links can be frustrating to searchers. And making good titles is almost a science in itself. There are all sorts of opinions as to which way to go (descriptive, lyrical, etc.) - you have to make up your own mind on that but it's hard to do so until you've read around and thought about some of the theories and approaches. Titles that are duplicates of other titles in your own body of work create problems, too; after awhile, it gets hard to remember what titles you have already used. Some people even keep spreadsheets as they upload to help keep themselves straight.

As for the keywords and descriptions, yes, you can add, delete, tweak them anytime without "penalty", and I do it frequently, too. It can take up to 24 hours for the site to index them, but that's no biggie. However, if you just jump in and upload a ton of images, thinking you will go back and do keywords and descriptions later, I am just telling you it gets harder and harder to do that unless you are extremely self-disciplined. I am speaking from experience. I do a good job on the upload now, but I didn't at first because I didn't know how. I try to go back and I try to catch the early uploads, but they are still out there. Remember, you want to be continuing to add new work, too. And work with no keywords (esp) cannot be found through a keyword search at FAA. Work that only has general words like "flower" "red" "spring" will, in all likelihood, never be found with a search. Work that has spam keywords can be reported and you will be asked to remove them. Descriptions that are straight copies of text from someplace like Wikipedia or that are copy and paste from one of your images to another are, as I understand it, counter-productive in that search engines are programmed (or coded or whatever the word is) to avoid indexing the same content over and over again. This makes sense to me.

Anyway, I'm just saying that even though it seems time-consuming to read through dozens of threads on subjects like this, it can save you time in the end to do so.
02/16/2016 01:18:41 AM · #25
Originally posted by Neil:

. . . I have a question though...one thing that always worried me about FAA is that I've heard mixed reviews on print quality. Have you ordered any of your own prints? What did you think? (I've not ordered any of mine since I always print at White House Custom Color.) What about frames? Quality, workmanship if they were assembled with your print?

One other thing that has kept me having another site which I consider my primary site (Zenfolio)...watermarking. I tried using watermarking but they always say FineArtAmerica (FAA). Not my own custom watermark, like I can do on my Zenfolio site. That makes a branded site (my FAA artist site) look like it's not your own.\


I've not ordered prints on paper, but I have ordered both metal and canvas prints as well as totes. I was pleased with the quality of all. In general, I'd say that the print quality is excellent. Considering the volume of sales, I think they have very few problems there. And most people seem pleased with the mats and frames, too.

Products are a bit touchier, but I still offer all products on most images. I do have some images that I don't offer any products on and others for which I remove certain product options, but it's not because of quality issues.

There's a customer review section that you can read as they come in. I follow it pretty closely. I'd say that well over 95% of those who write are very satisfied. When you consider that most customers don't bother with a review unless they have a complaint, I think that's pretty good. And the company does stand behind their 100% money back guarantee.

Watermarks are another issue. I choose to not watermark my images, but again, this is something each artist has to decide for him or herself. It's true that you can only use the FineArtAmerica watermark, but some artists do add a signature to their images before they upload. Again, you will want to read up on this whole issue as there are many different takes on it.
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