Alain, if someone came to you saying they’re striking out on their own and want to be a full time nature photographer, would you encourage them to primarily focus on selling prints, or would you push them to diversify their offerings?
I can point to one regional community of nature photographers I’m a part of and see how those that are “full time pros” have a wide array of primary income sources. Some still make something from stock, while others rely on teaching, tours and workshops. Very few rely exclusively on fine art print sales (or derive most of their income that way), even the most accomplished landscape photographers of the bunch. And in many cases these same folks still have to supplement their income outside of their full time photography work anyway via other revenue streams.
In today’s age of heightened competition in the industry from pros, semi-pros, and amateurs (“everyone has a camera!”), are you still encouraging folks to dive fully into your niche, or do you believe diversification is a necessity?
This is definitely an important question. I recommend diversification. I call it the four legs of the table. Think of a one legged, two legged or three legged table. None of those are stable. Only four legs guarantees stability. We are not tables but the idea is the same: multiple sources of support, wether for balance or for finances, create stability.
Originally I only had one source of income: print sales. That left me at the mercy of the market’s vagaries. Recessions, changes in outlets, price fluctuations, competition, all conspired to create income issues.
I was quick to diversify to deal with these issues. First by offering wholesale products in addition to my retail print sales. Shops sold my work in addition to selling my work myself. I then diversified with books then later with workshops, Mastery tutorials on USB/DVD and other products.
Today I also added rental properties income which further shield me from market fluctuations by adding something people must have (a roof over their head) as opposed to something people want to have (artwork or learning how to take better photos). If the economy goes south which one is going to be there? That way I don’t have to guess, even though the answer is clear to me.
Of course this brings an additional workload because I am in effect running several businesses. In that regard it is important to know that I do not do this alone. I work with my wife, Natalie, and we share the workload. No crossover here, no micro-management, we each focus on different things. I could not do it alone. I also could not start with all this right away. This system was built over 25 years.
Here too planning plays a huge role in generating success. Financial independence is not accidental.
I’m curious to know as to what percentage of your time is spent on the business side of your photography versus the actual shooting. And as a corollary to that what aspects of your business do you enjoy the most and the least. Before jumping in I suspect that many would like to know the personal benefits of running a business other than making money and being independent.
Good question. Our time is as you imply divided between the creative and the business aspects. Because I work with Natalie I focus on creating and on marketing while Natalie focuses on invoicing, taking phone calls, shipping and many other logistical aspects.
So to answer your question I spend relatively little time on the business aspects and most of my time on the creative aspects, but that is because I do not work alone. And to answer another implied question I find marketing to be a creative endeavor
As to the reason why I do this as opposed to other money-making endeavors the answer is because I love art and photography. To me the goal of making a living doing what I love is creating the lifestyle that I want.
I believe that success and happiness come from doing what I am passionate about. I regularly ask myself, when I meet people engaged in other professions, if I would prefer doing what they do. Because of my business and social life I have contacts with people from many different walks of life, professions and income levels. Regardless of all this so far the answer has been no.
I am simply happy doing what I do. I love creating art, I love teaching, I love writing, I love running my business and I love marketing.
In regards to shooting time versus processing time this ratio has changed over the course of my career because of changes In the technology (film to digital essentially) and because of changes in my personal artistic style. At the present time I spend more time in the studio than in the field, not because of business responsibilities (see above) but because I make significant changes to my images in the software and these require a lot of processing time.
Finally which aspects do I enjoy the most and the least? The only aspect I dislike is dealing with negative people but that is easily taken care of by not doing business with them. I just don’t want negativity in my life. It is not conducive to creativity and it is annoying.
Hi Alain. Thanks for taking the time to field our questions. In answering Max’s question above, you mentioned that you offer wholesale products and retail print sales (and I’m not sure if when it comes to wholesale you are referring to photographic prints or products such as your books).
I’m planning to sit down in the next week or so and plan out how I would like to make income from photography in the coming year (and beyond). Thus far, I’ve made money from writing for websites, contracting to take hospitality photos for a friend who runs a hotel, and print sales (photo prints and calendars), which have come from both online sales via my website or Etsy, and from a local shop that carries matted prints of my work.
Given that I have a full time job, as many other photographers do, I want to focus as much as possible on revenue streams that can be relatively passive, such as having local shops sell my work. I’ve also heard of photographers having their work printed and sold wholesale via large retailers such as Wayfair, etc. What I’m getting at is, if I were to attempt to get my work produced wholesale through larger retailers, would you suggest separating the photos that I sell myself on a smaller scale from the ones that I would try to sell wholesale, or make the same photos available through all of those avenues? While it would be nice to have a potentially steadier, passive income through that wholesale means, I’m not sure that I would want to seemingly devalue the photos I’m selling myself when they may be being mass-produced and available elsewhere.
Hi Kevin,
Thank you for following up on Max’s question. Let me start by clarifying this: I used to do wholesale, I no longer do. It was something I tried and while it worked for a time success was limited and I eventually abandoned it.
The products I was selling wholesale were posters of Grand Canyon. At the time (this is way back in 1999) I was selling quantity rather than quality so posters fit in. The problem is to get a low price per poster I had to make 5000 using offset printing to reduce costs and create a low price point product. I was dependent on the Grand Canyon Association, the GCA, who were buying them from me. One day the buyer retired, a new buyer took her position, and this new buyer decided not to carry my posters anymore. While I had sold some I had many 1000’s of posters left. I tried selling them in other locations but none could generate the amount of sales required to make carrying these posters worth it. I finally let go of them last year by donating them to Goodwill so I could write them off my inventory.
I’ll let you be the judge of what is the best decision for you. However I personally do not recommend wholesaling because of the low price point. Many photographers believe that they will make up the loss of income per sale by the volume of sales. However volume is usually not there which means you just sell at a low price and make little or no money.
Of course you can print the work yourself and avoid the inventory issue I had. However if you do so there will be little or no quality difference between the prints you sell yourself at full price and the prints you sell wholesale at low price, something you allude to in your question. This is why I used offset printing for my posters. I knew they were lower quality, that they would fade In a short time, and that they were mass produced. I also knew that this justified the higher price of my fine art prints and made them more desirable for clients who wanted a quality product.
I eventually moved to a quality rather than quantity business focus in 2003. I increased my prices, increased product quality, changed my marketing, found new customers and when all this was done made much more money because while my number of sales were much smaller my profit margin was much higher. This continues to be my approach today.
I very much enjoyed doing this AMA and I want to say a big ‘thank you’ to all of you who asked questions or visited this thread to read the questions and the answers. All the questions were great and I can tell there is a high level of interest from the posters about selling their fine art prints or making photography a source of income, whether as a hobby or as a full time occupation and source of income.
I was however surprised that a number of questions I get regularly when I teach marketing and salesmanship did not come up. Since this is a wrap up post I listed below some of the most common questions I usually get. These are questions that come up regularly with students, questions I consider ‘fundamental’ to learning marketing and salesmanship:
What is the most important aspect of salesmanship and marketing?
What is the difference between salesmanship and marketing?
Which one should I learn first: salesmanship or marketing?
How do you answer people who ask ‘do you manipulate?’
How effective is your home gallery in generating sales?
How do you bring people to your home gallery?
Do you do art shows ?
What do you think of art shows as a selling venue?
What are the best art shows?
How effective is your website in generating large print sales?
How do you answer common objections such as:
I need to ask my husband before making a decision
I need to measure my wall
All my walls are filled with artwork, I have no space to display more
I travel in a motorhome and we have no space to put art in
Too big
Too expensive
Too colorful
Not colorful enough
Does not match my decor
My wife will kill me if I buy this
I just spent all my money on (you name it)
I only collect photographs of rainbows (or penguins, advertising signs, bicycles, etc.)
I don’t like your frames
You are too expensive
You are not expensive enough
I did not plan to buy art today
I’ve never bought art
I only buy paintings
I only buy from famous artists
I can’t take it with me and I live overseas so you can’t ship it
Is this a painting?
Are you famous?
What am I looking at here?
Is there lighting behind the print?
Why does the wood look different on all 4 sides of the frame?
I can’t buy it because there’s a speck of dust here under the glass
The mat corner is not perfectly cut
I don’t like your signature
Is it cheaper if you erase your signature?
Is it cheaper if you take the print out of the mat and roll it?
etc. (ad infinitum)
Do you do matting and framing yourself?
What equipment do you use for matting and framing?
How is your studio organized for processing, printing, matting, framing, shipping, etc.
What is your shipping schedule: everyday, once a week, other?
Do you take phone orders?
Do you cut mats by hand or with a computerized mat-cutter?
Which mat cutter do you recommend to start with?
Is it important to mat or can you use other presentations?
What is your best selling image?
What is your worst selling image?
What is the sales ratio between prints, workshops, books, Mastery Tutorials etc. ?
What sells best in all your offerings?
There are many more questions but these are some of the most common ones. I wanted to open a window on the subjects I am asked about regularly. Again, thank you to all for posting your questions and for visiting this thread. It has been a pleasure doing this AMA
Many of these questions are answered in my marketing books because they are fundamental to marketing and salesmanship and so the answers have not changed.
I also offer more advanced tutorials and private consulting. I taught many marketing seminars but I don’t have one scheduled at this time. Over the past couple years I have been teaching essentially through one on one consulting because that has proven more effective in what has become a very competitive print-selling market.
Or I could do another AMA but setting that up is in the hands of the moderator. There would have to be enough demand to justify it I suppose. Another possiblilty is to set up a different format such as an online seminar for example. I don’t know if NPN is set up for that.
