Look, I know I wrote a blog post about not doing prints anymore. And that IS true for conventions. Buuuuut prints are coming back – with a catch.
WHY CHANGE MY MIND?
Funny story: I turned in my notice at my office job. To get ready for returning to full-time art-making, I took a hard look at a bunch of numbers. For this story, just know that I was looking at the tally of sales I made online.
(I have a separate spreadsheet for convention sales, but I’ll get to that).
After looking at the data, I realized a surprising fact…
Prints made up 47% of all online sales. That’s close to half of everything!
This blew my mind. When I looked at the spreadsheet for convention sales, prints didn’t even make it to the top 3 categories. But prints DID make it in the top 3 sales categories on Ko-Fi, right up there with original art and PDFs.
So people are buying prints. Which goes against what I initially thought in the original announcement.
WHY IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONVENTIONS AND KO-FI?
What makes prints sell better on Ko-Fi than at conventions?
I think it’s two things: prints don’t usually appear on my convention table due to space restrictions. And the best-selling prints on Ko-fi were limited edition AND framed.
Keep in mind that shoppers are, above all, lazy. If you can offer a framed piece of art (original or print), that saves the shopper the time and effort of finding a frame to fit it. Shoppers are willing to pay for the convenience if it means less work for them.
SO MOVING FORWARD…
Prints are coming back – and staying exclusive to online. That means Ko-Fi, crowdfunding campaigns like KickStarter and Crowdfundr, and possibly even Faire.com. (I’m not on Faire yet, but I’m looking to join.)
That said – prints and original art will be collected into art books. So if you have the means to get upcoming prints, great! If you miss your chance, watch for future art book announcements.
The best way to know when new prints and original art is coming out is to be on my email newsletter (shameless plug). So be sure to sign up to get the first sweet, sweet notice when new stuff comes out.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!
You. Are. Awesome.