I’ve been selling my fine art photography on Fine Art America and now Pixels since 2011. I started slowly, building my portfolio from a few images to nearly 5,000 artworks.
Along the way I’ve been developing my stock photography offerings through Arcangel, licensing to publishers for book covers and magazine articles, showing in galleries such as the Whitney in Pittsfield, MA and the AVA Gallery in Lebanon, NH. and traveling – adding images from around the world including Iceland, Hawaii, Italy, Florida, Vermont, Maine, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire etc.
My art sales did not start right away. I think it took me about three months before I made my first sale. At the time I was concentrating on my skills and basically learning to create better images and more compelling imagery. Also telling stories through images inspired by the demands of the commercial photography market.
I also wasn’t doing much of my own marketing, rather thinking that sales would come to me. After a few years I realized that this doesn’t happen so much. If you want to the world to see and care about your photography, you have to market yourself and develop your brand. You need to push your photography out unto the world if you want anyone to see it and then perhaps purchase it.
You also have to produce images that buyers are looking for – I’ve found that buyers want image that project a feeling of place or a mood, rather than the image I call “Look I saw a squirrel”. So many of the flow of photographs people post on Facebook or even offer to sell on Fine Art America, Pixels or other POD sites are simply snapshots. They point and shoot. Not much pre-thought or even any sense of passion for the scene. The result is boring and uninteresting images.
Good images require good subjects, good composition and compelling lighting. I’ve seen people offering the most boring images – photographs of drainage ditches, animal butts, weeds, clouds etc. You’re left wondering why someone would think these would sell or even why they even bothered to upload them. The scenes were boring enough in person and then made even more boring with not post processing work, cropping or even exposure adjustments.
Great photographs hit you immediately. Poor, boring photographs should also be apparent. If not, the viewer/photographer/editor of their own portfolio, should start learning to see. Hit the museums, hit the books, hit the galleries – learn to see great composition, great lighting and understand what is compelling and what is not.
How can you get thousands of sales on Pixels and Fine Art America?
Getting thousands of art and photography sales on Pixels and Fine Art America is as simple as:
- creating a large portfolio of compelling artwork or photographs
- creating images that buyers want to hang in their office or home
- creating some buzz around your work
- getting your work out there in the public space through marketing
- creating unique images
- creating well crafted images
- creating professional level images
- gaining followers and champions of your work who will share it with their friends
- getting your work off the Internet and out in the public via galleries and shows