Sales of Fine Art Prints and Products in 2022

The first of my reviews of 2022 is going to be how I did in promoting and selling my images as Fine Art prints on Fine Art America, Pictorem, Society 6, Photo4Me and TurningArt. Society6 and Photo4Me are not very active and so I won’t spend much time talking about those, but I did include them in the charts I’ll show. So, bottom line first, this is the earnings graph for 2022:

And the overall history since 2013 or so:

2022 Sales Results

Firstly, let me define sales here – these aren’t the actual sale prices. On most sites you rarely know that although it is possible to calculate it. But it is meaningless really and the only important thing for me, is what my profit or actual earnings are. That is what I have included in the charts above. So, as you can see, 2022 was a very good year, indeed with total earnings of $3283 compared to $1456 last year. So why, at a time of tightening belts and inflation going through the roof in most countries, did I get a boost in sales. Isn’t this a luxury that people cut back on?

I think the main reasons are:

• I added more images to Fine Art America partly from new travels in 2022 and also from reprocessing and uploading images from earlier years
• I opened a new portfolio with Pictorem, a Canadian company that offers reasonable prices and free shipping to the USA and Canada and I added about 1500 images so far to that site. I have been more selective in terms of what gets uploaded – not sure that is a good idea or not, to be honest. If you are thinking of opening a Pictorem account, here is my referral link. I earned $688 from Pictorem in 2022.
• I really got going with Turning Art, which is a company that offers prints for lease to businesses. It is not for everyone (probably not much use for most of you) as the ones that have really succeeded have all been Washington DC images as I think they have a good presence in that city. I earned $400 from them in 2022.
• But, most importantly, I started to step up my social media game starting in early 2021 and have doubled my efforts on that in 2022. I’ve written a lot about social media on this site. This link will show you most of the posts I have written about the topic, although this one in particular is worth reading.

What type of image sells for me?

I’ve started writing articles each month about what has sold in that month. I’ve written them mainly for potential buyers as there is probably a little bit of “confirmation bias” involved. If someone likes one of my photos and sees that other people like it as well and have bought it for their wall, I think it makes their decision a little easier. You can find the sales I have had in December 2022 here, Fine Art sales in November here, and sales in October here.

I’ve found that I seem to do particularly well with images from around my current home in West Virginia. I think that is partly because some of them are pretty good, but mainly I think it is that I have been pretty active in groups on Facebook focused on Morgantown, West Virginia University including one that is for people that grew up here. I have also sold some prints to people who live in the area and some of those have spread my name around their contacts, which is nice of them.

I also think that there is quite a delay between posting an image on social media with a link back to a portfolio site and any actual purchase. In fact, I think that “link” is broken in the sense that people remember the picture and then when they decide they would like a print for themselves or a gift, they can’t find my original post (which is pretty hard to do), probably may not remember my name, and so they search on Google images for what they remember the print to be. Fine Art America often comes up quite early in the results, and hopefully with my image and I think that is the path to a purchase. So, all my social stuff is aimed at getting the dramatic and interesting images in front of them, getting comments in particular on the image (so I always reply to comments) and then hopefully they remember that later if/when they need a print.

Is there a secret?

Of course not! I’m always open with what I do and what works and what doesn’t! I seem to have fallen into a track that is generating sales for me from the audience I can reach. I’m trying hard to broaden that reach with efforts in Facebook groups focused on Hawaii and Kauai in particular as I have some good images from there and I’m seeing some signs of success there. Will this continue into 2023 – I hope so!

I’d be interested in any successes you have seen in this area – comment freely if you wouldn’t mind sharing!