Greetings reader,
As you may have noticed, I’ve opened both a Fine Art America and Redbubble shop. I opened these with the intent to offer additional images, on top of the handmade fine art prints I offer here. Originally, I didn’t plan to offer any of the prints I sold here on those shops, however, that will soon be changing. When I first opened my shop here, with some of my personal favourites up for sale, I knew it was going to be a challenge to both sell and produce those images. After almost a year of offering my images here, it’s become very clear that while this website is a professional way to show off my work, it’s not the most efficient way to sell my images. Furthermore, I’m planning to move further south in Kanagawa, which will put me over an hour and a half away from my print shop, making it both more time consuming and costly to produce images personally.
Over the next few days, I’ll be starting to upload those images to both my FAA and Redbubble shops, as they’ve proven to be the best way to both get more eyes on my images, which results in more sales. There are both ups and downs for these, but ultimately it’s the best choice for the foreseeable future. I do eventually hope to get my own printer, so I can produce high quality images at home, but photography printers and inks aren’t cheap, so until this can prove to be more profitable, there’s not much reason for me to do so.
The pros:
You can order my work, and should receive it much more quickly. These shops operate 24/7, so you never have to wait for me to have a day off to print anything. This makes it much easier for me, as I don’t have to work around my schedule or sacrifice a day off to make a few bucks.
I can offer a wider range of images, as I don’t have to meticulously prepare each one. This means I can edit something and have it up for sale within minutes, rather than hours, or days.
I can offer a much wider range of items, both FAA and Redbubble offer things like art prints, coffee mugs, and phone cases. I’ll likely be purchasing some of these myself, after my move!
The cons:
While I do edit every image specifically for print, it’s impossible for me to do a test print, so I can’t personally check the quality.
The prices, in many cases, are going to be higher. For my shop, I tired to keep the prices as low as possible. With these shops, I only take a portion of the profits, so while the prices are much higher, I’ll likely be getting a much smaller cut. (ex: if you buy a 100 dollar framed print, I’m only getting about 30 dollars out of that)
I can’t sign anything. One of the benefits of offering my prints handmade was that I could sign each limited edition print, and send it with a “thank you” package. When you buy a print with these shops, I just get a notification that a sale was made, so it’s impossible for me to thank you personally.
Overall, for the time being, this is the most efficient way I can produce prints. I will still offer digital images here, however with my renewal coming up, I have some decisions to make, regarding my subscription level.
Thank you for your understanding.