thoughts about a few POD sites

[GoncaloF]

what do you think about Fine Art America ,zazzel, redbubble, society6?


worth the time?, they pay? how are the sales?


 in society6 worth pay to be verified ?

[stockastic]

You'll find a lot of threads here on POD, some recent, but here's a bullet point summary of my own opinions.

FAA - PRO: lets you set markup, reads IPTC and has keyword search, handles any aspect ratio, large market share. CON: search is heavily weighted by past sales and curated 'collections', new works have little chance.  I make a few sales, of niche subjects not covered by the big sellers.

Redbubble - doesn't read IPTC, fixed aspect ratios, I never sell anything there.

Zazzle - a complete and utter waste of time.

Society6 - I know nothing about them.


(OT - why are all these sites currently going crazy about 'throw pillows'?)

[pkphotos]

I do well with Zazzle, the rest are a waste of time.

[shiyali]

Has anybody tried Nuvango?

[Lizard]

You'll find a lot of threads here on POD, some recent, but here's a bullet point summary of my own opinions.

FAA - PRO: lets you set markup, reads IPTC and has keyword search, handles any aspect ratio, large market share. CON: search is heavily weighted by past sales and curated 'collections', new works have little chance.  I make a few sales, of niche subjects not covered by the big sellers.

Redbubble - doesn't read IPTC, fixed aspect ratios, I never sell anything there.

Zazzle - a complete and utter waste of time.

Society6 - I know nothing about them.


(OT - why are all these sites currently going crazy about 'throw pillows'?)

I just started reading about most of those sites and my main conclusion is that successful artists use them primary as printing service and delivering products while they do their promotion themself.

Of course few "unexpected" sales are fine but primary your sales will depend of your involving in promotion of your work and yourself as an artist.

According to some interviews with some artists who have some really quality fine art on POD sites, they claim that limited series prints do help, do raise the print price and also people get interested into buying original witch is artists ( at least for painters) main goal.


Anyways im also interested, some people have huge portfolio with famous artist galleries selling prints of Picasso, Monet, Chagall etc...

Is that allowed, is that considered public domain or on what basis can they do that? 

 

[stockastic]

I just started reading about most of those sites and my main conclusion is that successful artists use them primary as printing service and delivering products while they do their promotion themself.

That's certainly true for newer contributors, because while these sites do have keyword search, it's heavily weighted by previous sales, so new stuff is no longer visible.

Anyways im also interested, some people have huge portfolio with famous artist galleries selling prints of Picasso, Monet, Chagall etc...

Is that allowed, is that considered public domain or on what basis can they do that?

FAA is full of stuff like that, and tons of other junk of questionable legality, and they don't do anything about it unless they receive a formal complaint, DMCA takedown etc.   

[bunhill]

According to some interviews with some artists who have some really quality fine art on POD sites, they claim that limited series prints do help, do raise the print price and also people get interested into buying original witch is artists ( at least for painters) main goal

Doing numbered editions of ink jets (sometimes amusingly called gicl�e prints) from a digital file seems terribly pretentious to me. The thing is endlessly reproducible at identical machine quality (unless the digital file is then verifiably destroyed !).

And it seems borderline dishonest to me - given that the prints are made to order - ie that the complete series may likely never actually exist (how can a thing be 1/50 if 50/50 does not yet exist and may never ?).

Numbered editions make sense when an image is printed from a plate which gradually degrades in quality through use. Or when an object is produced by casting. Or, for example, if a particular printer makes a series of silver prints from a negative. Years later it would be interesting to know how many of those prints were made in that edition.

[Braznyc]

Fine Art America: The same artists selling the same images. Rotation is a forbidden word. Nothing I did about keywords worked there.

RedBubble: Its best sellers have a distinctive style. I'm not sure about its potentials yet. A lot of fan art and copyright infringement, and that bothers me.

Zazzle: My favorite. My best sellers are there. I like the forums and the tools.
CONS: after selling one product after the other with the same design and looking like it's going to be a "hit", some designs stop selling. It's like they hide it from the public.... for a reason I haven't understood yet. Maybe it's just my imagination.

Society6: seems like a POD that has a fancy name... and that's it. I don't know much about it.

[wordplanet]

I've had sales on FAA, redbubble and crated this month so here's my experience for what it's worth:

FAA:  I've done a lot of promoting of my 300-photo portfolio recently and sold some pillows via SM marketing this month (they used a coupon I promoted). Recent sales also include a very large acrylic print in November and cards (neither of which I promoted) so IMHO good keywords and your own promotions both help there.
       I'm active on a couple of groups so my work is often tweeted and re-tweeted and shared on G+ & FB, but I'm still selling about as much as last year (2013) despite adding ~100 new photos. Made 25+ sales - more than half large framed prints -since 2012. Promoting is time consuming. Setting my own prices lets me earn $150-200 on most print sales. I have some repeat sellers, though the sales are often months apart. Here's my portfolio there: http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/marianne-campolongo.html - I have a gallery of sold images too.

Crated: Haven't done a lot of promoting - Added new work and tweeted a couple of my photos from my 36-image portfolio in the run-up to Christmas, but that's it.  I  just sold a nice big framed print on Christmas day, my first sale. My portfolio is "featured" so my keywords can be found, and I've had individual work "curated" which means it was featured on page one of the site.
It's a tricky site - If your portfolio isn't featured, then your images don't show up in the search at all. I love the way the site looks and plan to add a lot more work. The competition is stiff - lots of beautiful stuff there. https://crated.com/mariannecampolongo?p=2

Redbubble: Had a couple of small sales in November (poster, iPhone case), made payout and then sold a sticker earlier this month. Very small portfolio, mostly products with a small markup - not much framed art - joined so I could design iPhone cases. I've sold one poster, lots of cards, a phone case and a sticker. Only added a few new things for Valentine's Day much earlier this year and did a blog about it & when I first joined in 2012, I blogged about iPhone cases but that's all I've done, so I can't really judge. http://www.redbubble.com/people/campyphotos

No experience with Society 6 or Zazzle. I've added links to my portfolios if that helps. I find similar types of images sell for me on all the POD sites. My stock-y design stuff sells on cards & products; nautical, editorial and more experimental artsy stuff sells as prints.

[shiyali]

I recently came across a site called displate.com . They print art on metal. Does anyone have experience with them?

[Painter]

Started to upload to Redbubble in December. More that 5000 views but no sales. Are those views just bots, does anyone know? Hardly any views at all on Zazzle, but a few small sales.

[jarih]

Started to upload to Redbubble in December. More that 5000 views but no sales. Are those views just bots, does anyone know? Hardly any views at all on Zazzle, but a few small sales.

Same here, I start also in December. About 10000 views, 9 favorites and 1 sales.

[cascoly]

Started to upload to Redbubble in December. More that 5000 views but no sales. Are those views just bots, does anyone know? Hardly any views at all on Zazzle, but a few small sales.

I sold a few on RB, but overall it's a social media site, not a market -- it's geared to communities not sales, so you'll get lots of vieews

[Painter]

Thank you jarih and cascoly, guess I will have to wait and see a little longer. I have not checked the community there yet.

[Ariene]

I recently came across a site called displate.com . They print art on metal. Does anyone have experience with them?

They don't read IPTC, in keywords no commas, you get 25%. There are limits up to 7 files/week and 250 files in gallery if I remember correct. You can upgrade to paid account (lol).


About Society6. I asked them if there's option to improve site with adding watermark on our work (after I've found my work without any protection on Pinterest). They say it's bad idea and clients won't buy our work then LOL.



Btw, interesting reading here about pinterest sharing art work.