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Author Topic: Fine Art America - sales increasing nicely since September  (Read 52684 times)

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« Reply #25 on: December 29, 2013, 16:32 »
+2
How does Saatchi work?  Acceptance/Juried/inspected, or just pay-to-play?

Just open an account and submit. No IPTC and you need ITIN. No FTP. 70% royalty. But its not really geared towards digital work, as they ask for LxWxD which you need to put in for every single image manually. No batch editing.
Thanks.  I'll forget about them.


« Reply #26 on: March 06, 2014, 07:15 »
0
Quote
I get some sales on several other art sites

Hi Sharpshot

Which Fine Art sites are you successful on? I've tried Smugmug without much success, but haven't ventured further.

I don't really understand why my sales have taken off in the past 3 months - most of them shots of Washington DC, funnily enough. Maybe I'll be back in 3 months saying that it was a flash in the pan and sales have dropped to zero!

steve
Hi Steve . . . nearly 3 months along, how are things holding up for you on FAA? Still strong?

« Reply #27 on: March 06, 2014, 08:27 »
+1
Completely dead for me in terms of any meaningful sales since August 2013. Two sales since Aug.  One for $4 and one for $15. Their search is whacked.  All of my new uploads ended up on the last few pages so they don't get any kind of fresh content bump.  And I cannot find any way for a buyer to search by newest first, so not sure if I am going to pay my fees this year.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #28 on: March 06, 2014, 08:39 »
+1
Completely dead for me in terms of any meaningful sales since August 2013. Two sales since Aug.  One for $4 and one for $15. Their search is whacked.  All of my new uploads ended up on the last few pages so they don't get any kind of fresh content bump.  And I cannot find any way for a buyer to search by newest first, so not sure if I am going to pay my fees this year.

My experience is exactly the same. New uploads are landing at the bottom of the sort in my own port and on the site in general.
A buyer can search newest first if they do a search then choose 'newly added' from the  sort dropdown (left-hand dropdown), but whether they'd bother is doubtful, unless they:
regularly make a particular search, hoping they'll find just what they want, not having found it before
or
are a serious collector of art of a particular subject, so always want to see what's new.

« Reply #29 on: March 06, 2014, 08:42 »
0
Completely dead for me in terms of any meaningful sales since August 2013. Two sales since Aug.  One for $4 and one for $15. Their search is whacked.  All of my new uploads ended up on the last few pages so they don't get any kind of fresh content bump.  And I cannot find any way for a buyer to search by newest first, so not sure if I am going to pay my fees this year.

My experience is exactly the same. New uploads are landing at the bottom of the sort in my own port and on the site in general.
A buyer can search newest first if they do a search then choose 'newly added' from the  sort dropdown (left-hand dropdown), but whether they'd bother is doubtful, unless they:
regularly make a particular search, hoping they'll find just what they want, not having found it before
or
are a serious collector of art of a particular subject, so always want to see what's new.

Ahh thanks for that. It seems like after the Amazon deal fell apart that's when sales dried up.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #30 on: March 06, 2014, 08:48 »
0
I think you really need to do your own selling and use FAA for the fulfilment.
Anything else is just random luck. I'm not even sure how many non-bot vistors I get - very few, I suspect.
I did get a $10.29 sale on Sunday (wow!), one of a series which has got me my only 5 print sales, all a US subject to US buyers.
They promised to have a European fulfilment deal by the New Year, but that seems to have gone by the wayside, though I don't look on their discussion boards often enough to keep up with everything.

« Reply #31 on: March 06, 2014, 10:42 »
+1
If you're dependent on FAA search placement for sales, you won't sell anything unless it's something a bit unique that a buyer finds by keyword search.  I think that's how I've made the few sales I've had - unique subjects.

FAA, of course, won't tell us their search placement formula, but IMHO it's probably based almost completely on previous sales.   


steheap

  • Author of best selling "Get Started in Stock"

« Reply #32 on: March 07, 2014, 11:03 »
0
Quote
Hi Steve . . . nearly 3 months along, how are things holding up for you on FAA? Still strong?


Only just seen this, so I'll fill in the latest. After my three sales in December, I got one more sale in late January (wrote about it on my blog here: http://www.backyardsilver.com/2014/02/where-have-i-been/. That was for $120.

Nothing since. I keep meaning to upload some more arty work, but I diverted myself into creating a new "fine art" site to replace one I have with Smugmug and once I am happy with that I will get back to FAA I think.

Steve

« Reply #33 on: March 07, 2014, 11:29 »
0
I saw your image in "Recent Print Sales" lately :) Congrats again! :)

« Reply #34 on: March 07, 2014, 11:32 »
0
[..misposted...]
« Last Edit: March 07, 2014, 11:40 by stockastic »

« Reply #35 on: March 07, 2014, 11:34 »
0
moved to the correct thread.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2014, 11:41 by tickstock »

« Reply #36 on: March 07, 2014, 11:40 »
0
Oops thanks, I'll move it.

« Reply #37 on: March 09, 2014, 12:42 »
0
Probably the worst SEO on the Internet.

Nothing you do can help you to bring some exposure to your work.

I have sold my art on other POD websites and FAA is the only one that nothing I try works.

Its search engine only helps those that have already sold something.

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #38 on: March 09, 2014, 13:41 »
+2
Probably the worst SEO on the Internet.

Nothing you do can help you to bring some exposure to your work.

I have sold my art on other POD websites and FAA is the only one that nothing I try works.

Its search engine only helps those that have already sold something.

Not sure how you came up with they have the worst SEO. From my experience they have some of the best. Whenever I search Google for my work FAA is almost always near the top on both Google web and also images.

Few people seem to understand SEO but everybody thinks they're doing it right and blame everybody else. SEO depends on how well optimized they have made their content. Especially on FAA where people seem to take an artsy approach to titles and descriptions. A picture of an apple on a plate will be "Sweet Red Love #2" or similar totally irrelevant content. I've also seen people saying they know SEO but when I check their site the images have titles like "DSC0123.jpg" and no description or keyword tags. Then they wonder why they get no traffic or sales. 

« Reply #39 on: March 09, 2014, 14:55 »
0
15 sales in the past year (i.e. in the past 12 months) - a mix of cards and framed, metal, canvas & acrylic photos - here's the latest from February:

http://fineartamerica.com/saleannouncement.html?id=49e5e664413f549b64fcc4786d817e1f

My stuff shows up in google searches and I treat keywords the same way I do for stock, though occasionally I'll go with a more esoteric title for my abstract work. I have a few photos that have sold 2-3 times in the past couple of years. Repeat sales seem to be months apart.


« Reply #40 on: March 09, 2014, 16:20 »
+1
15 sales in the past year (i.e. in the past 12 months) - a mix of cards and framed, metal, canvas & acrylic photos

Marianne, this is very good result, congrats! :)

Btw. beautiful name!

« Reply #41 on: March 09, 2014, 18:21 »
0
I still haven't sold anything with FAA.  Think I'll dump them, as I get some sales on several other art sites.  Might as well spend the time working on sites that make me money and don't charge for their services.  This is the third time I've paid a site and ended up losing money.  Don't see much point in carrying on with that.

What he said.

Seems you have to make efforts to market your stuff there and, in my view, that is what the sites are for.

marthamarks

« Reply #42 on: March 09, 2014, 18:27 »
0
I actually just signed up with FAA this weekend, have uploaded a few images, and am figuring it all out. It's pretty amazing. I have a broad-based "platform" so might be able to sell them myself, without depending on being found on the FAA site.

However... I'm having a hard time not putting a watermark on those large images! They seem to be begging to be stolen.

Does anybody have any "real life" experience with this on FAA? Do images w/o watermarks really sell better there?

Thanks in advance for guidance!

« Reply #43 on: March 09, 2014, 18:32 »
0
To be fair, I think we have to always keep in mind that FAA is basically one guy, plus a customer support person or two.  That one guy does all the code and database work, maintains the site, and makes all the deals with the printers and shippers, and everything else.    There isn't going to be a lot of creative marketing effort.

Oh and yes Getty has thousands and thousands of images there.  Anne Geddes just signed up and presto, she's featured on the main page.  Small potatoes like myself are just needles in the mother of all haystacks.  Even so, I've sold a few. 


ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #44 on: March 09, 2014, 18:48 »
+1
I actually just signed up with FAA this weekend, have uploaded a few images, and am figuring it all out. It's pretty amazing. I have a broad-based "platform" so might be able to sell them myself, without depending on being found on the FAA site.

However... I'm having a hard time not putting a watermark on those large images! They seem to be begging to be stolen.

Does anybody have any "real life" experience with this on FAA? Do images w/o watermarks really sell better there?

Thanks in advance for guidance!

If you look at what's 'recently' sold (just keep refreshing to change the sample, but don't believe these were all sold 'yesterday'), you can get an idea of how many sell with watermarks. OTOH, there have been reports on their discussion boards about images being lifted.

But just look at real (curated) Fine Art sites or the sites of well-known artists, and you'll see that they (almost?) never have watermarks on images, because they're not also trying to sell little images as stock. They'd probably be happy if a blogger 'stole' an image and wrote an article about their work, positive or negative (any publicity is good publicity). Probably with a big name they have money to go chasing after anyone who may steal their image to use commercially.

That said, I do have a watermark on my photos. For a while, I didn't put them onto my images which are not straight photos and which are not available as stock, on the grounds that I could easily establish that they were stolen from FAA, and I could chase them up. But since I read about abuses, I now watermark all new uploads.

You should do well there, Martha. The market seems to be hugely North American (judging by random forays into what has been selling).

steheap

  • Author of best selling "Get Started in Stock"

« Reply #45 on: March 09, 2014, 18:54 »
+1
Quote
"real life" experience with this on FAA


Hi Martha

I decided not to watermark mine. I take the view that my images (if they are also on stock sites) are all over the internet anyway and someone who doesn't want to pay can pick one up on any site. So why bother particularly about FAA? I took down my very obvious stock shots - isolated cats - and tried to make my portfolio more artistic. Even so, I saw that someone had sold three big prints of isolated red wine being poured into a glass : http://fineartamerica.com/featured/red-wine-pouring-into-wineglass-splash-dustin-k-ryan.html. I immediately thought - I have some shots like that, but of course, not on FAA!

I keep uploading ones that I think would be nice on a wall somewhere - it isn't hard work if they are already keyworded.

Steve

« Reply #46 on: March 09, 2014, 19:52 »
0
An FAA forum moderator, claiming to speak for FAA, said their data show conclusively that watermarks reduce sales.  It's in old FAA forum threads somewhere.



ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #47 on: March 09, 2014, 20:00 »
+1
An FAA forum moderator, claiming to speak for FAA, said their data show conclusively that watermarks reduce sales.  It's in old FAA forum threads somewhere.
It's hard to make that statistically relevant, as it's impossible to compare like with like.
For example, probably microstockers are more likely to watermark their images than fine artists, but how do we know that fine artists' work wouldn't sell better in that market anyway? I.e., do prints of oil paintings or watermarks sell proportionately better there than prints of photos?

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #48 on: March 09, 2014, 20:12 »
+2
I actually just signed up with FAA this weekend, have uploaded a few images, and am figuring it all out. It's pretty amazing. I have a broad-based "platform" so might be able to sell them myself, without depending on being found on the FAA site.

However... I'm having a hard time not putting a watermark on those large images! They seem to be begging to be stolen.

Does anybody have any "real life" experience with this on FAA? Do images w/o watermarks really sell better there?

Thanks in advance for guidance!

I have always watermarked mine and I sell plenty through FAA. Would I sell more without it? Don't know, don't care. Google indexes FAA images at over 1,000 pixels long side which can be easily right clicked and saved on Google Images. It bypasses FAA's no right click security. I have found a ton of my images from FAA on other sites where the FAA logo is still on the image or they cropped the pic where you can still see a tiny bit of the FAA watermark. IMO, the watermark should have the contributors name not FAA. If someone is going to rip off my work it should at least have my name on it. And I think the watermark should be in the middle so nobody can crop. If someone wants to steal my images they will. But is it necessary to make it totally easy?

marthamarks

« Reply #49 on: March 09, 2014, 20:38 »
0
Thanks so much Sue, Steve, Stockastic, and Paulie!

I really do appreciate hearing of your experiences and suggestions. FAA is quite appealing to me, since I've sold hundreds of prints over the years (people do love birds and critters!) but always had to produce the prints myself, have them matted and/or framed, packaged up and shipped out. Way too much work for an old timer!

So, if one watermarks images there, I gather there's no option but to have the FAA watermark in the corner. It doesn't look bad at all, but I do wish they included a note that the wm will be removed when the print/card is produced. How hard could that be???

I have a lot of images that were slides originally but later were drum-scanned and professionally printed. If I post those on FAA, I'll know for sure if I ever see them "lifted", because they won't be available anywhere else online.

Anyway, I'm going to give it a try and see what happens. I'll come back with a report sometime in the future. Thanks again!


 

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