Selling prints of your astro photos?

[rocketandroll]

Hi folks...

So... I know my pics arent quite up to the standards of a lot of the folks on here but... a couple of people have suggested... having seen them proffesionally printed at A3 size, that I should speak to a few local galleries and such like to see if they would consider selling them.

I know a few places locally that sell local photographers work... but Ive not tried anything like that before (though I have done proffesional photography before, weddings and architectural).

Has anyone tried this themselves... if so... do you have any tips or suggestions? Any idea what I should charge for a framed A3 print?

Cheers all!

Ben

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[cloudbuster]

Hi Ben

I'm thinkin of doin something similar....so i'll be watchin this thread with interest!

[steelfixer]

Hi Ben

Having seen some of your work I agree you should see if there is a market for them.

The biggest problem I can see is the internet.

Your photos will entice people to want one but then they are likely to go on to the web and download pics from the likes of Hubble and print their own.

Having said that go for it and see what happens, nothing ventured ect.

Graham

[rocketandroll]

Cheers...

Well... I know a few people do it... someone on here mentioned the other day that they sell framed prints of their pics.

I guess you could kind of say that people could download and print photos of anything these days... yet folks still sell photos of local landmarks, chintsy rural scenes etc... I was hoping the 'local' angle might add something to it... ok, its not a recognisable local landmark... but a photo of deep space taken FROM a known local site has to be more 'accessible' than one taken from space by NASA.

Anyway... might pop into a couple of galleries today and see what they say.

Ben

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[steelfixer]

Ben go for it.

On the back of the recent series on telly you might be able to convince a gallery to set up an exibition of your work.

It would be good to see it happen.It would certainly brighten up this dull old town.

I wish you all the luck in the world with it.

Graham

[JonH]

Good luck with it Ben. It's never easy pricing your own work so it'll be interesting to hear what your local galleries suggest.

Have you tried checking out the websites of local photographers to see how much they charge for framed and unframed prints?

[Photosbykev]

The only wisdom I can can offer is never underprice your work just to get some exposure. You will only end up selling stuff cheap for the rest of your career and still have to deal with difficult customers who expect the earth for nothing.

I know of individuals that try to sell A3 prints at over £500 each. They don't sell many but they only have to sell ONE. If you charge say £25 for an A3 print you have to sell 20+ and still not have the same profit after allowing for your time, effort and postage etc.

BTW I consider £25 to be seriously under priced. It will probably cost you an hour of effort to process an order from receipt to delivery and that's without considering the initial cost of the print and your expertise in getting the original capture.

[rocketandroll]

Cheers for the advice all, and thanks for the pricing thoughts Kev.

To be honest I wanted to try and avoid selling them direct online for now... hence going round local galleries.

I visited three today, one was way too 'craft' and didn't really do photography, the other two both agreed to display and sell the prints. I have one more big one to hit later and see if they'll take some, but I know they already do photography so they should say yes.

Pricing wise... the actual cost to me of a A3 framed print is about £12 or so... the cost of an A4 framed print is about £7. I was thinking of aiming at about £60 - £80 for the A3 framed prints and £40 or so for the A4 ones. Less for card mounted prints.

Obviously the gallery will take a commission from that, but I don't have to do any work dealing with orders or posting stuff... just invest in a few prints in the first place to put on their wall.

I'm not trying to make a living out of it.... but it'd be nice if it added a bit of pocket money to help pay for my astronomy gear if nothing else :-)

Ben

[carlc]

The only wisdom I can can offer is never underprice your work just to get some exposure. You will only end up selling stuff cheap for the rest of your career and still have to deal with difficult customers who expect the earth for nothing.

I know of individuals that try to sell A3 prints at over £500 each. They don't sell many but they only have to sell ONE. If you charge say £25 for an A3 print you have to sell 20+ and still not have the same profit after allowing for your time, effort and postage etc.

BTW I consider £25 to be seriously under priced. It will probably cost you an hour of effort to process an order from receipt to delivery and that's without considering the initial cost of the print and your expertise in getting the original capture.

That is very good advice.

My wife tried selling personalised hair brushes (she's a bit of an artist) and other 'craft' stuff but priced them so low that she made about £2 per hour.

I don't know what others will think about this but if the Gallery has their tax returns audited and they've named you as a supplier then Mr Tax Man may come to visit. You may be okay with taking that risk but otherwise you have to register as self employed and do a tax self assessment every year. If you're going to go down that route then register as soon as possible - there are fines for registering more than a few months after starting 'business'.

Sorry to come along with the heavy stuff - it's based on advice from an accountant - I do some 'medical-legal' work on the side (nothing heavy - I'm a nurse not a lawyer) and the consultant I do the work for had to declare me as a subcontractor. No visits so far but based on my Dad's experiences as a shop owner (and the experiences of an artist friend of my wife's) it will happen one day.

To be honest for the end 'profit' I make I sometimes wonder if it's worth the effort...

Carl

BTW - love your work.

[rocketandroll]

That is very good advice.

My wife tried selling personalised hair brushes (she's a bit of an artist) and other 'craft' stuff but priced them so low that she made about £2 per hour.

I don't know what others will think about this but if the Gallery has their tax returns audited and they've named you as a supplier then Mr Tax Man may come to visit. You may be okay with taking that risk but otherwise you have to register as self employed and do a tax self assessment every year. If you're going to go down that route then register as soon as possible - there are fines for registering more than a few months after starting 'business'.

Sorry to come along with the heavy stuff - it's based on advice from an accountant - I do some 'medical-legal' work on the side (nothing heavy - I'm a nurse not a lawyer) and the consultant I do the work for had to declare me as a subcontractor. No visits so far but based on my Dad's experiences as a shop owner (and the experiences of an artist friend of my wife's) it will happen one day.

To be honest for the end 'profit' I make I sometimes wonder if it's worth the effort...

Carl

BTW - love your work.

Cheers Carl

It's good to have the bad news as well as the good :-) Thankfully I already run my own company (actually, two) and already do my own tax return so it shouldn't be a problem... not sure how artists normall work in terms of paying tax on sale of art?

I may just put the sales and the costs through my existing company and not have to worry about it as a seperate entity.

Anyway, I can worry about that when the time comes... I would have to sell something first :-)

Ben

[rocketandroll]

...oh, and as for pricing....

Yeah, I also dabble in the fantasy/sci-fi miniature/model painting world... I have friends who paint stuff professionally but I've looked at it and you have to work back the hourly rate you'd be getting for your work.

I have one model which won a well known international competition and is pretty recognisable globally in the hobby which I recon I could sell for £1000 or so, which doesn't sound bad for a 1" high plastic toy soldier.... but if you add up the time that went in to making and painting it, it's probably over 200hrs... and all of a sudden, that doesn't sound quite so great a price any more :-)

The craft thing has just exploded the last few years and the trouble is... there are lots of people out there who don't need to make money from it and they set the price of things.... which means, unless you have something unique, you can't hope to make a living from that stuff :-(

Ben

[steelfixer]

Ben sounds like you have made some progress.

Have you tried the Gallery in the market square in Woodbridge.

If you could get in there you would be made.

If it is still run by the same people then they have connections with the private London Galleries.

Graham

[Captain Caveman]

Don't worry about the tax, you only pay anything if you make a profit, so if you invest everything it to more Astro stuff, you need never make a decent profit, just have ever more equipment - meaning your "business" is making losses after expenditure

[pete_l]

Apropos tax:

It's good to have the bad news as well as the good :-) Thankfully I already run my own company (actually, two) and already do my own tax return so it shouldn't be a problem... not sure how artists normall work in terms of paying tax on sale of art?

I may just put the sales and the costs through my existing company and not have to worry about it as a seperate entity.

Anyway, I can worry about that when the time comes... I would have to sell something first :-)

Ben

IANAA, but I have a feeling that I read somewhere (trying not to be too vague here ) that if you make money from a hobby, then there is a tacit understanding that a small profit, on that basis that it's a hobby not a job, won't be taxed.

You may be asked to demonstrate that it is a hobby, but just pulling out the receipts for equipment you bought long before you sold any images should be good enough.

[rocketandroll]

...Cheers Pete

I think I'd have to sell a LOT of prints to make back the amount I've spent on my gear so far :-)

I thought there was some 'unwritten rule' like that for hobbies that pay for themselves.

Ben

[rocketandroll]

Well... the first four prints were delivered to the first gallery today... I must admit they looked pretty darn nice framed up in black wooden frames with a black border and white text descriptions under each image.

I'll go down and take a quick pic of them on display once they are up in the gallery.

More to deliver tomorrow, then off to pitch them to a few more next week.

I'll let everyone know how it goes as I know a few people were interested in doing something similar near them.

As a guide, the gallery owner has suggested we go with a price of £45 per print... that's a roughly A4 sized print in a larger frame. His cut is 25% of the sale price... so I'll get over £30 on each one... not a huge amount but... this is a little local gallery and to be fair, I don't think I can demand much more in that setting.

Gonna aim for £70+ for the A3 prints in BIG frames at the more high-end galleries.

Ben

[Stargazer Jack]

Sounds good so far and you said that £30 isn't a lot but it adds up so you can buy more accessories or other astro stuff. Keep it up

[iwatkins]

Good luck on the sales.

Consider getting some samples printed and framed. Then if you drive, get up to Holt in North Norfolk and try all the galleries there. Last time I was there, there were at least three contemporary galleries there plus quite a few others.

I used to sell quality framed prints at A2 size for around £250 but that was weather/landscape shots. It was only three images but a total of 17 framed copies sold. Paid for a new camera.

Cheers

Ian

[stan26]

Hi Ben, I will also be watching this thread closely. I would love to get some of my work out there in the gallerys even if I wasn't making sod all on them, although I probably wouldn't display any of my current stuff, but now I'm guiding and have now have top quality optics with some nice wifefield idea's in mind......

I would contact you first though, not wanting to tread on your toe's only being just "down'na ruud" as they say in suffolk.

Stan

[rocketandroll]

Hey Stan... no probs... will let you know how it goes :-)

Tell you what... just noticed you have a 200 L series lens and a 500D same as me... if you can get the 500D modded we could do some rather cool mosaic joint projects using guided 500D/200L lens combo's :-)

I was hoping to do a BIG area of Cygnus this summer with it... possibly the whole area incorporating the NA nebula, Sadr, the crescent and maybe as far as the Veil.... that'd look freakin awesome at A2 size and 80mp+ :-) Dunno if my current PC would handle working with an 80mp image in PS though :-)

Ben

[stan26]

Hi Ben, thanks, Yes maybe we could do a joint project, using the same optical train would make it relatively easy I guess. As you say a high quality MP widefield of cygnus on A2 would be epic! My pc would certainly stuggle handling an image of that size!

As much as I would love to I'm a bit reluctant to mod my 500D as its my main everyday camera. I am looking to get a 2nd DSLR to self mod, but with spare cash being a bit lean after the L series purchase it will have to wait. I'm even considering saving hard for 6 months and converting to CCD........

Let us know how you get on Ben, and if/when I do get a modded cam maybe we'll have ago at that WF project!

Regards

Stan

(p.s just noticed I miss typed "wife"field in my last post....not sure if thats photography or pornography)

[rocketandroll]

...Stan, I have to say that I doubt the admins would condone a 'Readers Wives' section on the forum, even if they were photographed through scopes from a mile away.

We can but ask though :-)

Ben

Hi Ben, thanks, Yes maybe we could do a joint project, using the same optical train would make it relatively easy I guess. As you say a high quality MP widefield of cygnus on A2 would be epic! My pc would certainly stuggle handling an image of that size!

As much as I would love to I'm a bit reluctant to mod my 500D as its my main everyday camera. I am looking to get a 2nd DSLR to self mod, but with spare cash being a bit lean after the L series purchase it will have to wait. I'm even considering saving hard for 6 months and converting to CCD........

Let us know how you get on Ben, and if/when I do get a modded cam maybe we'll have ago at that WF project!

Regards

Stan

(p.s just noticed I miss typed "wife"field in my last post....not sure if thats photography or pornography)

[Catanonia]

I tried it for a year with my pictures and never got a sniff mate.

U less u have good contacts and people willing to show for free, I found I couldn't make it pay.

Good luck thou.

[welshrob87]

Hi

I work for MOMA Wales (a charitable art gallery and arts centre in Mid Wales) and for the last couple of years we've had some astronomical images for sale. One of our supporters takes images in the area cause of the dark skies here. He gave us some images to sell to raise funds.

We did sell a few but not a huge amount. We had 2 sizes for sale (A5 & A4) mounted and unmounted but no frame, and were sold very cheaply in my opinion. Something like £5 for a mounted A5 and £15 for mounted A4.

Good luck

[rocketandroll]

Quick update....

The guy from the first gallery just called me to say that he has just sold all four of the A3 framed prints I gave him before he'd even hung them up?!

He had to knock the price down a little but I have just made about £120 profit off it.

I am still assuming that was a fluke and future sales won't come so easily... but I am still confident I can sell about two prints on average a month between the four to six galleries I recon I can get them in... and that'll make enough money for me to buy a new ED refractor before the end of the year.

Seems to have been a good idea so far.

Ben