Latest Sales from Fine Art America
I’m always pleased to see sales on Fine Art America. Not just because of the profit that comes with each sale, but more importantly to my ego, the feeling that someone appreciates what I do and is willing to pay good money to hang my art on their wall. So I was very happy to see two large sales in the past weeks.
The first was one that has sold in the past (and one I have on my wall at home). A widescreen panorama of Cheat Lake near Morgantown in the fall with vibrant autumn colors:
This one was bought as a 36 inch x 12 inch metal print and the profit was $83. The announcement page on FineArtAmerica is here. I have got my new reduced pricing plan in place that I discussed a month or two back – whether that is the reason for my new batch of sales will never be known, but I’m happy with the income from that sale.
My next sale came yesterday and this one is for a 45 inch x 20 inch canvas print inside a broad wooden frame. The actual print is 40 x 15 inches with a profit of $106. Looks pretty smart in the announcement page! I took this image on a late afternoon boat tour of the Na Pali coast in Kauai that I wrote about at the time. The weather was perfect and we were far enough from the shore to allow me to create a stitched panorama of the coastline. People often say that you should use a tripod for panoramas – this was on a moving boat out in the ocean and still Lightroom managed to piece it together very smoothly!
I’ve kept updating this blog with my various Fine Art America sales. If you are interested, you can work your way backwards through the posts via this link! Now back to work on my Mediterranean images! Incidentally, the one that I worked on of the narrow street under the Acropolis was accepted without issues. I know that one comment asked whether I would submit it as commercial with it including buildings. So far I have uploaded about 260 images and Shutterstock has accepted all but 8 of them. What made me laugh (or cry) was that I just got an email from CanStockPhoto letting me know that they had reviewed my uploads and had accepted one, but rejected 159 of them for various keyword offenses!! I think I may remove that site from my upload list!
I have sold more with Saatchi and Society 6. I would rather sell with FAA, and eventually go all in with them for my art work because they have the best interface and support. I suppose my work is getting buried because they have such a massive collection. Is there anything you do special to market from there?
I don’t really do any marketing – I have tried occasional Facebook ads that link to a specific image, but nothing comes of them. Perhaps someone remembered my account, but I doubt it! So it is just luck (and good images) I think!! I will report on Society 6 shortly. Things sell there more frequently, but with less profit. I’ve never looked at Saatchi – I will check them out. What sells there?
Congratulations on sales. Good work is well appreciated.
The day before yesterday, CanStock sent me a photo refusal which shows a duck diving into the water. Only the tail is visible.
Reason for failure – There is not enough release model.
I laughed well)))
Yes – makes you wonder if they want to fail!
Also, re Canstock. I should have dropped them years ago, but my very first sale in 2006 was with them, plus with Stocksubmitter, they require no work on my part.
I agree – it takes no effort, but it is annoying to get those sort of stupid rejections!
I pretty much upload the same stuff at all three. As a matter of fact, one of my images has sold at all three.
I stopped looking at rejections many years ago. I use to rant and resubmit; now I just move on and keep uploading. Many of my best sellers on one site was rejected on others.
Congrats on your sales! Also it seems you are really fast at selecting, editing … and uploading images. How long did it take to get those 260 ready?
Yes, I am getting better at it! I don’t really know how long it took for the 260 as I did them over a week or so. I processed all of them (crop, auto exposure, adjust a bit, add clarity) first and then had a mammoth keywording session over a couple of days. I did 74 more just recently – probably four hours to edit and then maybe 3 hours to keyword, describe and upload. I use Stock Submitter and so upload is not much at all.
Haven’t even thought about Stocksubmitter for the art sites. Thanks for the tip
Sorry – I was replying to a question about getting the 260 images online on stock agencies. I’m not sure how Stock Submitter would help with the art sites as those tend to be single uploads with some submission work rather than bulk. But if you work it out, please let me know!
Sorry, I misread. I usually do art stuff in batches of 5 or less due to the tedium. I’m not sure it would help either. I still don”t understand how none of them but FAA and one other (I forget) is able to read IPTC data.
3 hours for key-wording 74 photos is impressive. Would you mind to share the average number of keywords for each photo? And did you use the tool such as Keyword Suggestion on Shutterstock? Thanks
I currently use this system to get the initial keywords: https://imstocker.com/en/keyworder
I normally pick the generic ones for a place – the city name, country, town, cityscape etc. and copy those in Lightroom to all the main variants of my images. I also copy a generic title and description as well. So if I have 3 images of a specific church, I would copy my generic keywords to the first one. Then I add the specific keywords to that one, the name of the church etc. I edit my generic description to include the specifics as well. Then I can sync the metadata from that completed image to the other similar ones. I find that if I work like that, I don’t get many incorrect keywords and I also get specific detailed ones that describe the location of the shot.
is it possible to sell photos on fineart america using your phone. i dont have dslr. im using my phone to upload photos on shutterstock and dreamstime. is fineart america strict in terms of quality of photo or work? will they reject photos if it’s grainy, blur or not stabilize?
Well, FAA don’t actually check the files at all – they rely on the contributor knowing what they are doing. Recent phones are very good with most types of photography and so you would be OK with prints up to a reasonable size, but if someone buys a print and thinks the quality is horrible and returns it to FAA, they could decide that none of your images are good enough. I don’t know if that has happened, but it is a risk. It might be worth doing a large print in Walmart or somewhere from your phone image and see if you think it is good enough.
Steve