Pricing of prints no matter what medium you use is dependent on the size of the edition, how many editions of the same image will be published, and if the prints are going to be embellished. A lot of publishing companies and artists like to publish their prints in two sizes. Of course, this will affect the amount of prints that will eventually find their way to market. Unless you have access to a strong distribution network like large print companies do, I would always recommend that you keep your edition sizes extremely low, especially when starting out.
Let’s say you have an original that is 30×40 inches (this is one of the most saleable sizes in the marketplace). You might decide to publish this image in the original size and one slightly larger or smaller. You don’t want to go much larger than 20% of the original size, so you could publish it as a 36×48 inch print as well. You can go smaller than 20%; that’s up to you. If you are publishing two editions and are not connected to a large distribution network, I would go no higher than 25 in each edition. If you plan to publish only one size, I would make the edition 35 to 50 but no higher.
Many prints today come embellished. This is an easy way to increase the value of your prints. Most of the embellished prints are being done with heavy acrylic medium. If your work is done with heavy brushstrokes, this form of embellishing is ideal. If you paint smoothly with no visible brushstrokes, you may forgo embellishing all together as it might really alter the look of your image. You would use either gloss or matt medium depending on what type laminate is used to coat your print. You do not want to use a high gloss medium to embellish a matt laminated print and visa-versa.
I represent two artists who do the most incredible work in watercolor on paper. They are Terry Gilecki who does gorgeous koi paintings and Erick Christensen who I think is the best at the wine painting genre. But instead of publishing their prints on paper, they print them on canvas. That is because prints on canvas sell better than prints on paper. Their work is so realistic and done in such a fine manner that embellishing their prints would take a lot away from their subtle imagery. For work that does lend itself to embellishing, I generally add $100 to $200 on top of the price of a 30×40 inch print or larger and $50 to $100 for a 24×30 inch or smaller print. This varies depending on how well known you are and how large the edition is.
Okay, but you’re still wondering what the final pricing should be. In the early days of printing serigraphs, which were a costly gamble for every image a company chose to print, only well known artists’ work were being published. In those days the general rule of thumb was 10% of the price of the artist’s original. However, this was also when print editions were all close to 300 in number. Now with emerging artists having access and being able to afford to print their own work, things have gotten very murky indeed.
Let’s say you are an emerging artist who is selling his or her work for around $2,000 for a 30×40 inch original. If you price your prints according to the 10% rule, you won’t make any money! That is a huge problem. In these situations I would lower the edition size to only 10 (without artist proofs…this will be a topic of a future blog), publish only one edition, and definitely try to embellish the print if at all possible. Doing this will add to your print’s rarity and increase its value. So even though your originals are selling for only $2,000 or less, you will still be able to sell your prints for between $500 and $600. If you are selling through a gallery, you won’t be making much, but it will still be more than from the single sale of your original. Also, if you sell your original and have only 2 prints left in the edition, you can raise the price of these remaining prints to $800 or $1,000. Think of it as extra money in your pocket for very little effort other than picking up the phone to order a print!
As you sell out your editions and become more well known you can always increase your prices. You never want to start high and have to cut your prices. Gradually increasing your prices will add credibility in your work. Decreasing prices will have just the opposite effect!
