Spent $180 on a print run of 40, sold 3, the rest are in my closet holding a broken lamp
i did the thing where you make an edition because a friend said "prints are passive income." 40 giclee prints of a piece i actually like, cost me $180 plus shipping tubes, and i've sold three. two of those were to people i know.
here's the part that bugs me. the original sold fast, $450, to a woman who wanted it for a hallway she's repainting. the print, same image, $45, sat. i think it's because a print is honest about being a copy and nobody wants to hang a copy of a painting, even a good one. or maybe my print is just bad, that's also possible.
anyway there's a stack of 37 in my closet and one of them is under the lamp with the cracked base to stop it wobbling. i'm not mad about it exactly. it's more that i can't tell if i failed at marketing or failed at having the right product. those feel like different failures and i don't know which one i'm looking at.
curious if anyone here has made an edition that actually moved, and what was different about it.
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ngl the "prints are passive income" friend owes you $135 minimum. but i don't think it's that people won't hang a copy, i think it's that $45 is the worst possible price. too cheap to feel like art, too expensive to be an impulse buy. it lives in the uncanny valley of pricing. the original sold because $450 for a one-of-one with a story is a decision, $45 for a print is a shrug, and nobody makes a decision on a shrug. i'd either go full poster at $20 and move all 37, or bump it to $120 and call it an edition of 40 signed. the middle is where prints go to die.
the pricing thing is right but i'd push back a little on the $20 poster idea. i do pastel portraits and i've watched cheap prints sell fine to people who liked the image, but then they never come back for the real thing. $20 tells them the work is a souvenir. if you'd rather have 37 in the closet than sell the whole edition at a price that quietly says "this was a mistake," that's not stubbornness.
$120 signed with the edition number written in your own hand is a different object, honestly. i'd do that. probably badly, but i'd do it.
the pastel portrait thing is the piece i was missing. cheap prints as a front door is the standard advice and i've never once seen someone say what happens to the back room. "souvenir" is exactly the word. you sell someone a $20 version and you've taught them what the work costs.
$120 signed it is then. i'll do it badly with you. my handwriting on the back of a print looks like a prescription.
the uncanny valley of pricing, ok that's annoyingly good. "nobody makes a decision on a shrug" is going on a sticky note.
$120 signed is the version i'd actually want to sell but i think that's a fantasy for a name nobody knows. the $20 poster route stings less than it should, honestly. if i'm going to eat it i'd rather move them than look at the stack.
$135 is the number though, i'm sending that