Offering Prints Of Your Art is a smart decision

Fellow artists often ask me how do you sell your work? Of course there are many avenues from online venues to brick and mortar galleries. It seems that brick and mortar galleries are now selling through online means, which is what I have been doing for years already. So unless they are willing to invest in to marketing for my work specifically, I don't see a particular advantage of letting them have my work. The last gallery I talked to seems to to have the approach of, just bring it up here we'll see what happens. Another aspect that I did not like much, was that this particular gallery would not insure paintings in shipping (they said that USP would not allow them to insure unless UPS actually packs the painting and of course charges exuberantly for that and that would be a cost I would have to carry.

So far I am able to pack my own work and did not have a problem with UPS insurance. Knock on wood! When I asked about promotions and "meet the artist" type of events, the answer was "Maybe if we feel your work can sell." No true commitment to success. The fact that I've sold over 1000 paintings to collectors around the world and that I am one of the best selling artists on art.com Buy artwork by Ginette Callaway at Art.com did not seem to matter to them. So it still seems the best option to take charge of your own destiny as an artist and promote yourselves.

Nobody is going to be as passionate about your success as you are and nobody has as much at stake as you.

Today there are numerous ways to promote yourself online, from your own website (but you have to create traffic, otherwise it's meaningless) to blogs and social networking sites. You can buy advertising but make sure you're targeting the right demographics. Do your research first. Of course you want to attract buyers if your goal is to sell art. Buyers don't necessarily hang out on artist sites or personal blog sites. You would want to determine what the demographics is for the type of art you create and learn how to find buyers in that demographic.

With all that said I have to say one of the best decision I've made is to offer prints of my work. For many years I hesitated doing that, thinking it would be more attractive for buyers to purchase originals that never go to print. But I have been short changing myself. I received more an more requests from collectors for prints as well as from and galleries that sell framed prints. About two years ago I decided to offer prints and was excepted by art.com where I listed over 300 of my works. I was lucky because a few months after, art.com stopped excepting submission and instead started a new site for living artists called Artist Rising. Today most of my prints sales come from art.com and allposters.com If you go to allposters.com simply search for my name Ginette Callaway and you will see my art available.

The commission adds up and makes up a nice chunk of money every months. This was indeed a smart decision and every time I get my check I am glad I joined them when it was still possible. Apart from earning a living, the uplifting aspect is to know how, many people love my work enough to buy it. That's is priceless! I want to give a shout out to the art.com & allposters.com people for doing such a great job of promoting and selling my prints.

Thanks folks, I appreciate your hard work!!! Another site I joined for fine art prints of my work is imagekind. Imagekind is fantastic in that they offer prints on paper and on canvas. They have an array of fine art papers and two types of canvas. They offer frames and matting and all kind of sizes. I have been able to sell wholesale in volume to galleries that offer framed prints and deal with hotel chains, doctor's offices, and other business that look for art. This also has been profitable to me and I also want to thank imagekind for choosing me as a featured artist not to long ago. Offering my work as prints was the best decision I made in the last three years.

I know many artists that hesitate and think the royalties are not enough. I would suggest that maybe to offer some of your work as limited editions and you may want to produce those prints yourself. While other work could be offered by Print on demand places like iamgekind or artist rising. Spreading your effords around and keeping many irons in the fire is the way to go in my opinion!