Recently, someone asked me for a print of one of my older artworks, Pixel Chicago. Since it was only one print, I knew the price would be more expensive. He was more than happy to pay the extra money for the work, so I went ahead and got one printed. The stock of the print is much thicker than the posters I ordered for Chicago 2010. Plus, the paper is much more glossy. Even though I think the print looks good, I still believe the quality of the poster prints is much cleaner. Still, it begs the question…what kind of prints should I sell? For a good piece of artwork, people will pay the money, but your market is much smaller. I am not going to make much of a profit off the one above, but I could get about 100 of them made for a smaller price per print. The overall price of the poster would go up and I would still make a good profit, but at what cost? Will people not be as interested if the price is much higher? Isn’t it more important at this point to get my artwork “out there”? Should I believe that people will buy my artwork no matter the cost because I have confidence in my work? I could spend about $50 more over the cost of 100 prints and get 500 posters and be able to sell them for a much lower price. Plus, more people are now interested. It is this high wire act I am playing with myself between looking like a professional artist with great, inexpensive artwork and looking like some hack who is just trying to sell a bunch of posters. It is the ongoing debate with myself, but I can’t help thinking that the inexpensive poster is the best route for me…at least for now.
