Hi guys,

No I don't think there is much activity in print sales for anyone yet. If anyone can contradict me I would love to hear about it.

I cannot help with the print sales, but since you wrote this four hours ago, it would seem your unique views have more than doubled. Since over one millions people have looked at your image, and it is a beautiful image btw, surely someone will buy one. I am hoping for you.

Amazing...in my case...about 13000 to 23000 people visited my photos, no sales.

Your massive viewing hits are probably because the picture is linked to from other sites - twitter,facebook,stumbleupon etc. This kind of number can only be introduced from "outside", i'm afraid and not from inside 1X itself. What is interesting is that no sales have resulted from this, if I understand you correctly. It seems to be clear - people are not viewing printed images anymore. Electronic viewing thereof has completely taken over. The "odd" print can be expected but people are viewing ele tronic images. The march of time, the march of progress. Change is the only constant.

This can be said for many photographers as well. Many camera clubs are being pushed to projection of images as well. The cost of printing being what it is. I used to be satisfied with my images on the computer since i didn't have a darkroom and digital was just beginning (15 yrs ago). I thought that was all I needed(wanted). A slide show to show people once in a while was good for me. But then I bought a printer and started printing. To me, seeing a nice large print is much more satisfying than carrying around an ipad and showing digital renditions. So I guess we use digital (including the internet) to show what we can do, and then (struggle if we don't practice) print for those that want to put them on the wall. A large print can bring out the worst in our techniques and vision if we don't pay attention. It's a whole new ball game once you start printing but very satisfying when done with care.

While I agree there is a massive move to digital projections (etc.) I'm not so sure it can replace prints - people still decorate their houses with photos/drawings and if I had to guess I'd say it has more to do with the fact people like to see the physical print first (in an art gallery or local shop) - though this is just a guess on my part.

I think there is also a difference between what people like to see once or twice and what they want to see daily at home, large size. And some genres are generally preferred for a home display over other genres, like landscapes or nudes for some. A realistic portrait of a stranger would probably fair worse.

If you are not dedicated to it, you probably will not make much if any. It takes a lot of time and effort to sell prints and mostly selling yourself. At least until you have made a name for yourself and then I think you still need to work at selling them. It has been said that an average print will sell bettter than a good print if it has been marketed by a good marketer. (something similar anyway..you get my meaning I hope) I wouldn't expect anybody to beat my door down wanting to buy one of my images just because they saw it on the net. This is not to say that it hasn't happened. Just getting a call from a company such as Apple, that is interested in possibly using one of your images has occurred. So there are parties interested out there fishing in this vast ocean of images.

First, best wishes to you all for all and a successful photo year :-)

IMO 1x is still to young and not know enough by the public.
And in general, photographers aren't the best candidates for buying a picture from an other photographer.

My pictures, (liked or not) are on photo-sites like Photo.net and fotocommunity.de since +-10 years.
Maybe, I was lucky, but some of my pictures were sold via Internet, to private persons, many publishers of magazines/books and some for commercial use.
The pictures who were sold to private persons, were not dramatic, but positive surreal with no "real" persons in it.

Maybe, in a couple of years, when 1x will be know more by the public, the chance of selling a picture will be higher.

To be honest, nobody is going to sell prints by just sitting around and waiting for the magic to happen.

So true! I think this is the most important issue for photographers that are part of any community on the internet. I have mine for sale here-no sales so far.. and i sell prints on other sites as well as my personal homepage..almost no sales from here as well. But when i display finished printed work in real life to all kinds of people that are not artists or photographers its another thing...People who buy for their home walls will almost always tend to buy positive motives like stunning landscapes or black and white moods that are familiar to them. There will always be a marked for selling prints on the internet, but in this digital world your work are most likely to be sold in commercials or to newsdesks,illustrating or stock. IMO the only way to sell (and to be recognized) as an artist you have to display your finished prints in a gallery, and do this many times with success in a variety of galleries. After that the internet work displayed for sale will work as a contact sheet and a place to give people a hint of what kind of an artist you are and from there make people come to your exhibition. And the most important thing is tas Ralf says in the above to promote your work actively here and anywhere you can.
Now of course all this may change over the next few years but IMO this is what it looks like right now.
Happy new year to everybody here :)

I think that the 1x, have to advertise a lot, if photographers are going to sell anything. People who use this page is usually amateur / professional photographers and we buy usually not images - we make them! Will we be able to sell something to the marketing directed at those who buy and not to the producers! Although there probably are some buyers who look at 1x, (I've gotten requests to both calendar, photos and KLM's web page - and also a few other more or less unreliable) it is still photographers who visit these pages most :)

Yes, you are perfectly correct, we need to address a different audience.

Yes, Ralf , I think your words are so true.. To sell one self it`s so easy - and so difficult! Among all these splendid photograhers - I often feel that my photograps are not good enough, and that makes it`s so difficult - and if very many others also think the same... I`ll try :)

I agree on this and we should do our part. 

Thanks, good point, we have actually planned something like this.

Yes, we all should be marketing this in anyway we can. The product is more than good enough imo, but it just not hit the right audience, another thing i feel is holding me back to fully promote this on my own hp and facebook page, is the fact that people who do visit my prints in Norway get this message:

"Unfortunately we cannot ship all items in your cart to Norway. You must remove these items from your cart before you can make the payment."
Of course this will locally here scare away some potential buyers, and therefore im a bit "on the fence" right now. Its really a bit sad course the design and quality on 1x is just simply the best IMO.

Yes, I know. Also one of my main concerns. I expect it is due to the administrative handling of customs. On the other hand, it should not make a difference for limited art prints as the VAT in Norway for that is 0%. It should already make a huge difference to make those available... And it may give more Norwegians a reason to upgrade to a pro-membership.

ralf, this is a personal issue, will it be possible to get prints soon out of the eu, from switzerland?

or maybe we could find people in germany to help out... i want to buy a print, somebody from germany would help me??

Yeah, I get the same with Canada.  I understand the problems 1X is running into with shipping to countries outside of the EU and the USA, and I support the Print Shop, but I have been very reluctant to promote my own prints at 1X-Print Shop simply because most of the customers I have now are unable to use the service, as I myself also am unable to use it.

I hope a solution is found, soon.

Unsure if Ralf/Jacob mentioned it but we are now shipping to Canada!!!

We are?

I just tried it and it seems to be true.  How did you know?  I must have totally missed the news of this.  This is very good news.  :)

A little fairy told me :)

Congrats :) well, i am sure one day we can include Norway as well :) lets hope there are more good fairies flying over here :)

:) 

It really is good news.  Thank you!

David is helping us to promote prints in the States and Canada.

What's the problem with shipping outside EU and USA really? I wondered about this from the beginning of print sales here.

On selling prints of your own work.

We could perhaps try that, not sure how it would work with those forms though, since they are shipped directly from the printing company.Yeah agreed, we could try to implement some better features for previews of the photos on a wall.

Yes, its the only way to sell in a proper way these days. As i stated earlier of course one can hope this will change so that one can look at the web and get the same feeling(almost anyway) but i doubt that will happen soon :) at least this is how it works for me too.This will be cool if one can do so...in my experience people will not only see the picture but the look of it mounted on canvas or in frames. I know other places do a preview of the finished result, and maybe this is a good idea...? not that it has made more sold images in my case, but that may be because people do not like my work or it does not fit the trends right now..a lot of factors will affect this for most of us.

I guess there is really a lot of great stuff on 1x to compile calendars. Anybody tried or suggested that idea? One may let each photographer compose from their publications, you may even let the buyer combine (out of "ready for print" pictures) or the curators design specific 1x calenders ready in time for next christmas (as they do for the 1x books).... With a pricing around 50 euros (reasonable print quality and size), this should be able to produce a nice income stream for protographers and 1x.

Sorry if this has been mentioned....

I'm going to "Print Sales" in my Account drop down menu and I can't find my stats. Under " My Prints (steve hill)" I just get led to sign up page without any other links to my personal acct.

anyone can PM me or post here of that's no trouble - Thanks

Hi Steve,

With respect, I suggest that is about 3x the price level most people really want to, or will, pay :(

Frederic - I don't see "Your Earnings" or "Photos Currently on Sale" on that page...

Hi Steve,

Fred, Ralph, Jacob...

This what I see...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21847753@N02/6665026903/in/photostream/

You'll notice my name with account is there at the top right but this is where it all leads. The next page is to upgrade my account.

Hi Steve,

ahhhh.... that might be it. I was, I guess a Pro Member before?


... and now, I just slink away. ;)

Both "pro" and "extra" include print sales. The former includes limited editions. But, "basic" and "free" do not include print sales. Just look at http://1x.com/upgrade for the features of the different memberships, and check your own membership level on > account > settings

Observation: When I started with photography I used to post to random active photo fora for getting critiques. I searched for those fora through Google with the keywords "photo forums". To be honest, 1x NEVER listed in the Google search (perhaps because of its peculiar name?). I hit upon 1x accidentally through a thread on "photo.stackexchange". My point is that MANY people in the outside world aren't aware of 1x's existence (perhaps because it seldom lists in google searches with the common keywords!). Secondly, $50 for a small sized picture is TOO MUCH BIG amount AFA countries like India are concerned. "$50" equals to "Rs. 2700". People do not earn here much so they can't send much too. Generalizing the price of photographs for every country makes no sense to me.

No problem at all, Ralf has to check each single image uploaded, add tags, and all this takes much time, so it can last some more time, than expected. Best wishes Christoph

Oh, I see. :D