There are some people who shop on price alone. They get very excited at getting a “deal”, and they will get a deal but with a high price product in my case. Those people usually expect a low price service as that is what they usually pay for.

When the high quality serice is delivered their excitement follows and they blab to everyone about you! You slowly raise your price when you are so popular that it is frankly, insane. I know, I’ve done it before.

Some quotes from the article:

“Last spring, marketer and blogger Hugh MacLeod posted a question on his site: If open source is such a phenomenon, where are all the open source billionaires?”

“In 2007, some 30 open source software companies were purchased for more than $1 billion.”

“How can you build a business by giving away the store? The money comes from selling add-ons, service contracts, and hardware to go with the software.”

While the software itself may be free (in the pricing sense and the ‘libre’ sense), open-source projects are able to make money by selling additional services that allow their users to get additional value from their products.

And because they attract a large user-base from making their software free, they often come with a huge, existing audience.

I actually wrote a more artist-specific post on this subject on the YourArtMarketing forum in reply to a post by Jessie (who commented above). I think it’s going to be useful so I’ll repeat it below:

I don’t want to start too low and end up sending the message that I don’t value my work…but I would like to make a few sales, too.

Value is made up of more than just money, so picking a low price point doesn’t mean you don’t value your work. A lower price can gain you more attention and on the web, attention is very valuable because it’s scarce.

The traditional way to price is to cost up your time spent creating the artwork, add the costs of the materials, and a percentage on top of that, and (then throw that calculation out of the window and price it the same price as similar artwork by other artists).

However this method isn’t written in stone. Take your smallest pieces of artwork: you could price them in a very low bracket ($5? 3 for $10?), offer free shipping (either just within the US, or worldwide), and use them as a “loss leader”.

This could help to build a mailing database of customers who:

• like your artwork
• are willing to pay for your artwork (and have proved so by doing just that), and
• have had a pleasant financial transaction with you, boosting your reputation and building their trust in you.

That customer mailing database is incredibly valuable, and can be used to build a strong relationship with your fans (and sell more profitable pieces of artwork). And don’t underestimate that third point – building trust and reputation is one of the most important things to concentrate on.

So, the price of a piece of artwork doesn’t reflect its value. Your price should reflect something much less short-term than “how much can I get for this piece of artwork” – it should be part of a longer strategy to create a core of valued customers who value you (or “True Fans” to use Kevin Kelly’s recently coined phrase).

How do we make a living(or income) out of what we do if we do not charge realistic prices. Usually art is free at the point of consumption ie the gallery or indeed the internet. People can come along see the work take what they need and then leave. The artist having made the work gets nothing from this transaction. Of course there are the block buster exhibitions at the major galleries that attract the masses to queue up for hours and then shuffle past the work(s) in an overcrowded gallery. These exhibitions usually carry huge amounts of advertising (paid for by the by the punters) and often get further free advertising through the media coverage, because the nature of the exhibition is such that it carries the cache of “educative and cultural”.

Its interesting to note that at the grass roots level art is often derided or not taken seriously, often because of the price of the work perhaps this is because art at this level is often seen as a leisure time activity.

Often the artist has to have another job to support the art practice, This implies a level of leisure time activity rather than a serious profession. Therefore if you are not a professional making a living out of your work then .. well it cannot be any good .. therefore why the high price.

I could continue but .. well its sunday.. I should be out there doing some painting.