Art Sales

art classifieds

2006-11-27T10:57:00.000-08:00

These are websites where you pay a listing fee (anywhere from $5 to $30, depending on the site and the cost of the art) and then your art becomes a part of the classified, so people who are out looking to by art can more easlily come across it.

www.buysellart.com

www.selltheart.com

Even www.sell.com has a section for art and artists..

There are many art classified options on a local level, such as in newspapers, local magazines, or listings at local art museums or coffee shops, but the advantage of online classifieds is that they are able to reach a much broader audience.

the business of art

2006-11-13T07:33:00.000-08:00

Selling art is harder than making it. The following is a list of tips and ideas that I've collected from the website artbusiness.com ..it contains many useful themes that an artist looking to sell should consider; ways to get consumers interested in buying and owning art.

Art is a powerful form of expression for artists as well as for those who own it. Art allows people to convey or demonstrate deeply held feelings and beliefs as well as moral, ethical, and political sentiments in socially acceptable ways.

Art encourages people to ask questions, to take brief moments out of their busy lives to reflect on ideas other than how to make more money faster or how to get over on the competition.

Art makes people think about ways how life might one day be better than it is now.

Art can stimulate the expression and interchange of thoughts, feelings, and ideas among total strangers who would not ordinarily talk to each other.

Children are fascinated with art. Art makes children ask questions. Art makes children fantasize and imagine. Art teaches children how to be creative and have fun with life.

Art beautifies and personalizes environments. Art can transform private homes or places of business into personal museums.

Art can be used as a tool of power-- to intimidate. For example, imagine an office with a bold, vibrant, oversized painting hanging on the wall directly behind the desk, and two imposing larger-than-life sculptures, one at either side of the desk. Anyone who sits and meets with the person seated behind the desk must contend not only with that person, but also with the art.

An original work of art is not only visually appealing, but it also communicates the personality, abilities, creativity, inspiration, mind, and sometimes the genius of the artist who created it.

An original work of art reflects and often enhances the personality of the individual who owns it.

Art attracts tourism, visitors, and dollars. People travel to the great cities of the world to see
great museums, works of art, and, of course, they spend money while doing so.

http://www.artbusiness.com

online auctions

2006-10-18T19:32:00.000-07:00

I was searching for more ways to help price art when I came across this website: http://www.artfact.com/. it's actually really interesting. Not only does it give helpful hints for pricing but it also has direct links to art auctions online. There is also a search feature which contains many works by different artists which can serve as a compare and contrast tool for artists just starting to sell their work.

another great website to search around is http://www.artprice.com which is similar in that it showcases hundreds of thousands of artists and over 21 million auctions. It's very informative to search the art cataloge and get ideas on where ones work might fit in.

crafting a web site

2006-10-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

This is a list of tips I discovered about howto craft the "perfect" website for selling art...

-Use a light background, preferably white, with dark text, preferably black. Don't use images or textures for your background. This makes it difficult for your visitor to read the text on your site.

-Avoid adding music to your site. You may think it sounds nice to include your favorite songs when your page loads, but not everyone will agree. If they find the music annoying, they will leave.

-Don't make your visitor have to scroll horizontally to view information on your website. Web surfers are lazy. Most hate to even scroll up and down let alone left and right.

-Avoid animated graphics and scrolling or flashing text. This only distracts your visitors.

-Put prices on all of your products. If people have to contact you to find out the price of something, they will more often than not leave and look elsewhere.

-You could send out an announcement to your list of subscribers whenever you have a new piece for sale. If you regularly attend art or craft shows, you could send out an email and let your subscribers know when and where. You could also send out surveys or questionnaires to your list to get a better idea as to the type of products they are interested in purchasing.

-Make certain that you have a variety of different payment options for your customers, especially payment by credit card. Studies have shown that sites, which accept credit card payments, have significantly more sales. Use a service like PayPal to accept credit cards from your website. It's free and easy to setup.

-Make sure you have detailed purchasing and shipping instructions in place.

-Have a good refund policy. When your customer receives your product, it may not be exactly what they anticipated. By having a good refund policy upfront, you will gain your customers trust and they will be more comfortable making a purchase, especially if they are parting with a lot of money.

http://tools.devshed.com/c/a/Online-Business-Help/Selling-your-Art-Online-Website-Tips-For-Artists

knowing how to price

2006-10-08T07:35:00.000-07:00

A major factor in selling art, or anything for that matter, is knowing how high or low to price it. Art can be tricky, though, like some other goods in that a high price might indicate that it is of higher quality while a low price might mean it's no good. An artist might think that if they just price their piece(s) low more people will buy and that they will sell their work quickly. Someone else, on the other hand, might think that by pricing something high they are giving buyers the impression that it is really worth something. The truth is, a buyer can be put off by both an overly high and an overly low price.

There are certain ways that an artist can determine how much their work is worth. One way is to go to gallaries, internet auction sites, or any other place where art is for sale such as restaurants or coffee houses, and compare their art to the art of others. Two big areas to compare would be the size of the finished piece and also the mediums used. For example, a 5 foot statue cast in bronze would most likely have a higher price than a 3 foot statue made of paper mache. When the work was completely can affect value, as well. Comparison can offer a reasonable price; one that someone would be willing to pay.

http://www.artbuys.com/selling_art.html

eBay & Etsy

2006-10-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

(more on selling art online)

Most people who are familiar with the internet are familiar with ebay.com, a site where people can buy and sell anything and everything through auctions or "buy it now" offers. Selling art on ebay is becoming more and more popular and there is even a category for it on their main page.

http://www.art.ebay.com

Another site, less popular than ebay among everyday people, but much more popular among artists in the know is Etsy. Etsy is designed for artists and handcrafters, specifically. This makes it much better for buyers and sellers because there isn't a lot of other junk that must be navegated around.

http://www.etsy.com

Etsy is mostly helpful to the artist by being helpful to the buyer. The main page is constantly being updated with a list of the most recently added items (renewing itself several times a minute) and there is even a feature which allows someone to search for items by color. If it is fun for the customer to look around the site, and easy for them to find what they're looking for, the chances of them buying something are much greater.

There are also many unique ways for artists to network through etsy, such as with the 'convo' feature as well as through blogs and message board postings.

selling art online

2006-09-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

There’s no question that one of the most recent and innovative ways to sell art today is on the internet. Building a website or a web page dedicated to selling your art is a great start, but building this site is a complex task. A few days ago I read the analogy that a website, if not properly marketed, is like a store in the middle of the desert.. No one visits. I particularly like this analogy because in the instance of creating a website for selling art it basically is a store, so it’s not so far off from the truth.

One way of promoting this online gallery would be through the contacts one already has set up in "real life" such as putting your site’s web address on business cards and other promotional items that might be given away at gallery shows. Another way is to promote the site through other artist’s sites by offering to link their site to yours for the same in return. This can create a web of artists and can create business for everyone by working with each other instead of against.

If the buyer will be viewing your art online another important thing to keep in mind is picture quality. The photos of your artwork should be a brilliant and clear as possible, while still being a true to life representation of the piece(s). It is also a good idea to post information about the artwork that the buyer might have uncertainties about such as textiles used, scale of image, and cost.

More at:

Http://www.PicassoMio.com

a change of heart :)

2006-09-23T20:11:00.000-07:00

So for the longest time I couldn't remember my username and password for this blogger account and, even more frustrating I couldn't locate the piece of scrap paper I'd written it down on. To make matters worse I couldn't remember which email address I'd used so I couldn't get blogger to tell me my info, either. Luckily I found the paper conviniently sandwiched between the pages of one of my COM books so here I am. wow, I write too much. okay..

I've been dreading so much writing more blogs aboud Oprah and her impact on the business world that I wasn't too upset about loosing the login info and therefore wasn't actively pursuing it. Finally it dawned on me that maybe this wasn't as good a topic as I'd originally thought, and today shortly before miraculously finding my password I realized I should change to a topic I'm actually interested in: art sales.

From now on I am going to use this blog to investigate different ways to sell and promote art.

when Oprah says read...

2006-09-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

In September of 2005 Oprah added James Frey's memoir about addiction A Million Little Pieces to her Oprah Book Club. Almost immediately after, it became number one on the New York Times Best Sellers List and stayed there for 15 weeks [1]. It also quickly went to number one on Amazon.com. Before beign given this distinction the book was little known, but once it made Oprahs list it went straight to the top, selling over 3.5 million copies.

For a while, during the height of the book's popularity I remember seeing a special display set up at the local Target with rows and rows of A Million Little Pieces ready to sell. That says something major when a book is selling so well that it makes a supermarket-type retailer like Target jump on the literature bandwagon.

The fact is, this book was not set out to be a huge hit from the begining. In fact it was declined by several publishers before it even made it to print. Once Oprah put it on her list of books to read, though, thousands of people did what Oprah told them to do..

all this time later it is still number 19 on the New York Times Best Sellers List.

What is interesting in the case of James Frey is that he was later exposed as fabricating much of the supposed truths in his memoir [2]. Oprah at first supported him, calling into Larry King Live during Frey's January 11 interview and saying that his book helped people dealing with addiction and that his embellishments weren't a big deal [3]. Later, she had him on her own show and retracted those supporting statements, giving him a hard time and questioning him about which details were true and which were not.

Throughout the whole ordeal Frey's book stayed at the top of the charts. They say there's no such thing as bad publicity, and especially if Oprah is the one publicizing you. Eventually A Million Little Pieces dropped to the second spot. It was only to be replaced by Night, the autobiographical novel by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel - and Oprah's next pick.

Night remains number two on the NY Times Best Sellers list today. A Million Little Pieces ranks at 19.

References
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/bestseller/
[2] http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0104061jamesfrey1.html
[3] http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-01-25-frey-oprah_x.htm

First Blog...

2006-08-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

I had a hard time, at first, choosing a topic for my blog. I knew that I'd like to follow an individual, preferably a woman since I feel that they are vastly undercelebrated in the business world. It came down to two people: Suze Orman, the woman my mom is forever hailing as a financial genius, or the woman I spend my every afternoon with, Oprah Winfrey. I decided on Oprah. While most people think of her merely as an entertainer, she is above all a business woman.

To her name:

the highest rated talk show of all time [1]
Harpo Productions (Harpo = Oprah, spelled backwards), of which she is founder and chairperson
two magazine publications: O, The Oprah Magazine and O at Home
The Oxygen Network - a television network directed towards women
five books that she co-wrote, with another on the way
The Oprah Book Club, arguably the most popular book club ever [2]
Oprah's Angel Network - a charity that has raised millions of dollars for the underprivileged [3]
a net worth of $1.4 billion [4]

At just over 50 years of age, she has accomplished an awful lot. But what have all these things got to do with the big picture of business? Everything. With 22 million loyal viewers of her talk show alone [5], Oprah has the power to turn the tides, and throughout this semester I will be researching where, how, and to what extent she has an impact.

References
[1] http://www.kingworld.com/release/oprah_winfrey.html
[2] http://www.oprah.com/obc/pastbooks/obc_pastdate.jhtml
[3] http://www.oprahsangelnetwork.org/
[4] http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/54/O0ZT.html
[5] http://www.mutualofamerica.com/articles/Fortune/2002_04_08/Oprah1.asp