Should You Sell Digital Prints? A Guide for Artists
If you’re reading this post, you’re probably deciding whether digital prints are right for you. As a print shop, we love prints! But, they aren’t for everyone. Read on to learn the ins and outs of deciding whether prints might be right for you.
Ernist is a fan of art prints, especially when they feature chameleons!
Why should you do art prints?
Simple: Prints make you more money.
They greatly expand your audience and your capacity. If you’re selling expensive originals, many of your fans won’t be able to afford them. Plus, you can only sell an original once. After that, you have to go make a new one. Depending on how fast you are, this could be a minor or a major choke point to your sales.
Prints can be produced rapidly and indefinitely at price points that just about anyone can afford.
Aside on lower average order value:
Some people are worried that having (relatively) inexpensive prints will make people buy a print instead of an original. Won’t that hurt overall sales?
In our experience, this is pretty much a moot point. The kind of person that’s willing to pay for an expensive original doesn’t want a print and visa versa.
Reasons to not do art prints
As much as we like art prints, they aren’t a perfect fit for every artist. Here are some cases where you shouldn’t do art prints.
First, and most obvious, you don’t like prints. We’ve talked to plenty of artists that just plain don’t like prints for one reason or another. Some think they devalue their art or make the original feel less special. Others think the quality isn’t high enough (though those artists have usually only tried a low quality printer. We promise, we can do better!). If you hate prints, don’t do them! We know lots of successful and happy artists that don’t do them.
Second, your originals aren’t selling for enough. You can’t have a $50 print and a $75 original. We don’t have exact data here, but in our experience your original needs to sell for at least 5 times as much as a print of the same size. That leaves a big enough spread for things to make sense and for the original to feel genuinely special.
If you aren’t there yet on price, no worries! Once you get there, prints will still be here.
Third, your medium doesn’t translate well to print. Art that relies a lot on texture will feel “flat” in print (literally and visually). If your work is highly textured but has lots of other attributes, you’re probably fine. But, if texture is the main thing about your work, it may not be the best fit.
This post is part of a planned series that will eventually be the ultimate guide to offering art prints.
