posted on June 22, 2001 03:23:30 PM
Has anybody ever tried selling their own photographs on eBay?
Although I've given up buying and selling pocket watches on eBay (for reasons too numerous to get into here), I do miss the experience of selling there. I don't want to sell stuff just for the sake of selling stuff, though, so I thought it might be fun to make some 8 x 10's of my best nature photographs and put them on eBay.
The advantages would be that they're my photos (so I don't have to worry about VERO), the only real effort involved would be bringing the negatives to the photo place to have the enlargements made, and mailing them should be pretty cheap and easy (some thin cardboard and a manilla envelope should do nicely, and the shipping charges should be minimal).
The down side, of course, is that I have no idea if people would actually pay money for copies of my photos. The local photo shops charge at least $5 per enlargement, which would mean I'd have to sell them for at least $10 to make it worth my while. On the other hand, I've found a place on-line that will make 8 x 10 enlargements for $1 each, but you have to order a minimum of 50 to get that price. At that price, I could offer them for sale at $5 and make a decent profit, but if they don't sell I'll be out a bunch of money. Also, do they have to be 8 x 10's? I could do 5 x 7's for a lot cheaper, but again I don't know if there is a market for 5 X 7 nature photographs.
Other concerns are whether I could sell these as dutch auctions [maybe 5 at a time], or whether I would be better off only listing one of each photo per week so they seem "rare". Also, would I need to get them matted [I'm not much of an arts & craftsy kind of guy, so I'd probably have to pay to have it done professionally], or do you think people would by a "bare" print?
Any thought on the subject would be appreciated, and I won't be offended if anybody thinks this is a really dumb idea. I just don't want to spend a lot of money up front to have the prints made unless there's at least a chance that I can make some money on the deal.
Oh -- and just so you can see the types of photos I'm talking about, I've scanned some in on my website:
posted on June 22, 2001 03:46:33 PM
Hey, Tom! I didn't know you lived in Quincy. I'm at the exact opposite end of the Red Line from you.
I actually had considered going the digital route, to be honest. Four things worried me, though. First, I'm not a huge fan of "intangible" auctions. There's too much room for abuse, and I think they have a bad reputation. Second, how much could I charge for a digital picture, for Pete's sake??? And third, I've had digital copies on my website for years with a note saying something like "feel free to download these images for your own private use, but please don't resell them", and I'm not sure how many digital copies are out there already. Finally, how do you keep somebody from sending copies to everybody they know and/or reselling the image?
Barry
---
The opinions expressed above are for comparison purposes only. Your mileage may vary....
posted on June 22, 2001 03:50:35 PM
Barry: If I remember, the site is www.corbis.com -- if it stll exists! But I'm not talking about auctions! I feel that selling the same image over&over via dl'ing is the way to go!
Shame about your watches! You had one of the best auction set-ups (not to mention POEMS!) I've ever seen...bet a lot of collectors miss them!
posted on June 22, 2001 04:02:33 PMTom: Thanks, I'll check that site out. I didn't even think about an alternate venue.
Now that you've got me thinking about this, though....
I recently bought a CD burner for my computer. It wouldn't be too hard to rescan in all these photos at higher resolution so that they'd be the right size for computer wallpaper [1024 x 760]. As bitmaps, they would each be a couple of megabytes, but with my CD burner I could put a whole bunch on a CD and sell it as a package deal. The CD's cost only about $1, and even if I could only get $5 per CD it would be worth it.
Hmmmmm....
Tegan: Actually, most of those photos were taken in Idaho and Utah. Try as I might, I just can't seem to find much nature to photograph living downtown....
Barry
---
The opinions expressed above are for comparison purposes only. Your mileage may vary....
posted on June 22, 2001 04:26:35 PM
Your photos are GORGEOUS!!! And the first thing I thought when I looked at them was "sell them as wallpaper"....but you already thought of it (your last post) Great idea! Go for it! And good luck! (from Utah, BTW)
posted on June 22, 2001 04:54:33 PMyumacoot: Well, the funny thing is that I never would have thought of the wallpaper thing if Tom hadn't mentioned digital photos. Even though he didn't mention wallpaper himself, it got the brain juices flowing. Which means I'll probably have to send him a free CD of images...
I've been going through my albums. Some of the photos just won't work as wallpaper because of their dimensions [why, oh why did I ever think taking "sideways" photos was a good idea???]. But I think I've found 20 or so that will work nicely. Now all i have to do is scan them in.
I hope this idea works! I'd prefer to sell prints, but this way my inital cost outlay is so much less. And who knows? As Tom said, Maybe there's MORE of a market for digital images these days anyway!
Thanks!
Barry
---
The opinions expressed above are for comparison purposes only. Your mileage may vary....
I ALSO SELL PHOTOGRAPHS AND FIND THAT THE PHOTOGRAPHS I OFFER WITH FRAMES USUALY GET BETTER BIDS, THOUGH THE SHIPPING IS HIGHER I CHOOSE PARCEL POST AND THIS HELPS WITH THE BITE..
every 20 seconds in america a woman is giving birth:SHE MUST BE FOUND AND STOPPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.................................................................
posted on June 22, 2001 06:41:10 PM
Wow, your photos are fantastic!!!! Get yourself a screen saver program, burn it on to CD's and sell them as a screen saver.
Just a thought.....
posted on June 22, 2001 07:02:39 PMphotogeyk: Thanks for the input. I was afraid that frames would make a big difference in salability [is that a word?] since I'm just looking to do this on an extremely part-time basis, I think it might not be worth effort to matte, frame, and ship them like that. But thank you for keeping from wasting my money!
shellsputer: A screen saver program, eh? Hmmmmmmmmmm.... I've seen slideshow programs with lots of nature photographs, but all the ones I've seen were free. Well, maybe SOMEBODY bought a copy, but then they were e-mailed to everybody else in creation, I guess. Of course, if I make the pictures big enough, it would be hard to e-mail somebody a 100 megabyte file, right?
Good idea, thanks!
Barry
---
The opinions expressed above are for comparison purposes only. Your mileage may vary....
posted on June 22, 2001 07:13:48 PM
Barry......why have you given up buying AND selling your pocket watches on Ebay?
.
.
Your photos are very, very nice and will sell. In my opinion you just have to find the right market(ing) approach.
posted on June 22, 2001 07:18:36 PM
Unfortunately I could not get the photos to come up. It could be my internet connection.
Have you ever thought about selling your pictures to nature publications or possibly your services as a nature photographer?
You could do a search closed auctions on Ebay and see how nature pics are doing. You would know for sure if it is worth your time and money to sell them on Ebay.
If your pictures are spectacular, a western artist may be interested in painting them. Attend a western art show and show your pics to some of the artists.
posted on June 22, 2001 07:27:22 PM
If you are going to sell actual prints instead of Hi-Rez imaiges consider numbering them and limit the number per size of each edition and sign them. People love anything that makes it feel exclusive or limited.
You are giving me ideas because i have lots of old ,work I have never shared or published of things like birds and reptiles from the Corkscrew swamp and Ding Darling nature refuge. I also have had the problem of going out in the swamp with a 105/200 and 500 lens and then the damn birds want to climb in your lap and go through your pockets!! A lot of my work was with Kodachrome 25 and photomicrography film (asa 12 on mylar) so they blow up BIG without loosing detail.
If you have some exotic size etc needed Meteor Photo here in Troy MI does wonderful stuff. If you need something like a 80 x 20 foot transparency they don't even blink they just want to know when you want to pick it up or do you want them to come out and mount it?
posted on June 23, 2001 04:17:42 AMoutoftheblue: I can't imagine why the pictures wouldn't load for you. Well, unless you've got javascript disabled on your web browser.... As for a western art show, I'm not sure where I would be able to find one here in Boston. And I'm certainly not looking to change careers again and become a nature photographer! Most of these photos I took 10-15 years ago, and I'm not looking to become rich and famous or anything. I just thought it might be a way to make a few extra bucks on eBay, assuming there was a market for such things. I did look on eBay for completed auctions, but it's hard to find much using the title-only search.
gravid: Yeah, I thought about that. the problem is that I'm greedy, and I don't want to limit the number of copies I can sell. But maybe if this idea of selling them digitally works out well enough, I can afford to produce a limited set of prints.
kyriaki: Good idea! Now let's just hope I can remember where I've hidden all the negatives....
Thanks for all the wonderful comments!
Barry
---
The opinions expressed above are for comparison purposes only. Your mileage may vary....
posted on June 23, 2001 05:33:54 AM
i just love the lightening pictures. They are stunning. But if i were to buy one I would want it to be bigger than the 8x10. keep me posted on whether you go with this idea or not. I would be interested. And by the way I also live in boston.
