Hello, I hope you're having a relaxing Sunday! Before I write about anything else, I have a new original painting to show you - this little piece should have been taken to Snape Maltings Gallery the other day if I'd had time to finish it! I didn't, and so I completed it later this week and added it to the shop.
(Read important information about galleries and the pricing of my work later in this blog post).
Ghostly Leaves 2
Original acrylic painting on deep-edge canvas. 6x6"
© Natasha Newton 2011
Find out more here.
You may have noticed recently that I'm not actually sharing all of my new work on the blog. There are a couple of reasons for this - firstly, I don't want to overload my blog followers with too many posts as I know it can be overwhelming and annoying. We all receive a huge amount of emails these days and there are more blogs and sites to follow than ever before, so I try not to post too often. Sometimes you will see a small flurry of two or three shorter posts over the course of a week, but often I leave a gap of one, two, or sometimes even three weeks between posts, depending upon how busy I am. I am going to aim to "even it out" a little more over the coming months with less 'flurries' and more regular/consistent posting. Secondly, I actually think it's rather nice if I don't share everything here, and you happen to stumble across certain pieces elsewhere, such as the shop or the website, or find out about them via twitter.
Pricing of work in galleries...
The other thing I wanted to mention was the pricing of my work. Over the past couple of years I've been contacted by many potential buyers after they've seen a piece of my work on the website or blog. They often wish to buy the piece directly from me. On some occasions this is completely possible and I regularly sell directly to collectors this way, or through my online shop. Often this isn't possible if the painting in question is at a gallery. In this instance, I tend to give the customer the gallery details and a contact email or phone number. I also offer to contact the gallery on their behalf if they feel more comfortable with this.
However I've noticed that about 90% of the time, as soon as the word "gallery" is mentioned, I hear nothing from the potential buyer. They don't contact the gallery and often I hear nothing more from them. This doesn't happen if they find they can buy directly from me. I discussed this with somebody because I wondered why it was happening, and they said that many people probably believe it costs more to buy my work from a gallery. I would like to make it clear that this isn't true. My pricing is consistent however and wherever I sell the pieces.
For example, a 12x12" original painting on deep-edge canvas will cost you £295.00 to buy whether it's in a gallery, directly from me, in my shop, or a commissioned piece.
I don't undercut the galleries I exhibit with, and there's a full list of sizes and prices available on the website for those of you who are interested. The only exceptions to this rule are if I decide to have a 'sale' on certain items in the shop (which happens occasionally when I want to make room for new pieces), or if I offer a special 'coupon code' for repeat buyers, or as a 'thank you' to my followers and supporters. These are short-term, occasional offers. Also, if you are a member of my mailing list you will find that there are exclusive offers a couple of times per year associated with that, again as a 'thank you' for supporting my work. I've often found that the mailing list members are the very people who are happy to buy from galleries, so it certainly doesn't seem to be impacting gallery sales!
I felt it necessary to clear this up because it's a shame when I feel I'm losing potential buyers because they seem reluctant to contact galleries to buy the work they're interested in. I wanted to assure everyone that my pricing is consistent and transparent.
And by the way, the prices my work is selling for are also steadily rising year on year, so if you're a collector who owns a painting bought two or three years ago, you can rest assured that it's worth more now!
If you have any questions on this subject, please leave a comment below or contact me via email: natasha@natasha-newton.co.uk
Many thanks,
Natasha
Hi Natasha,
Thanks for the post but the galleries usually take a huge percentage.... I am myself wondering if I should have different prices for my work so that I am not working on a loss for the galleries.
Diane
Posted by: Diane Marsland | June 05, 2011 at 03:14 PM
Hi Diane,
Every artist has a different way of dealing with this problem, but my advice would be *not* to have a two-tier pricing system. In my experience, not only will you risk upsetting the gallery by undercutting them, but being inconsistent in your pricing doesn't look good from a buyers point of view.
The trick is to price your work at such a level that you can accept the gallery taking their percentage in return for gaining publicity, new collectors, and a great reputation for your work. There are many advantages to selling through galleries even if you're not personally making as much money on each sale.
Then when you do sell directly to collectors (which will happen more often as your reputation grows) you can be happy that you get to keep 100% of the price on those occasions!
Hope that helps. :)
Natasha
Posted by: The Blackbird Sings | June 05, 2011 at 03:34 PM
This is very interesting. I am nowhere near a position where I can buy a painting (yet). But it is useful to know for the future, as I too would have assumed that the gallery price would be higher.
Posted by: Elizabeth@rosalilium | June 05, 2011 at 06:00 PM
Yes Natasha, this is a good way of dealing with the pricing issue, and as you say, if you do make a private sale, you don't risk upsetting the apple cart at the Gallery!
Posted by: Nicky Scholnick | June 06, 2011 at 11:27 AM
Thanks for this, it's really interesting and something I have been wrestling with myself as I start to get more and more enquiries from galleries and on-line galleries wanting to stock my pieces.
It does mean that I would have to put my Etsy prices up quite a lot, and as sales are quite slow on there at the moment, I'm not ready to do that just yet... in contrast, the items I am selling via a gallery are flying out at the higher prices!
Posted by: Flora | June 06, 2011 at 11:32 AM
I think the word "gallery" can have somewhat intimidating connotations to it for people not familiar with that world, so that may also have something to do with it.
To test it, though, next time someone inquiries about a piece, when telling them it's at a gallery, you might want to include this info in your message -- not the whole blog post, of course, but just that the pricing they will get at the gallery is the same as if they purchased from you personally. If that's what's truly holding them back, that knowledge should remove that barrier.
Posted by: KJ | June 06, 2011 at 11:48 AM