Selling Photo Prints

I know two photogs who sell prints at local, regional and national Christmas craft shows. One of them does shows back to back all through November and right up to Christmas ... and basically makes a big chunk of her annual income in those two months.

Throughout the REST of the year she spends a chunk of time applying to the shows [the BEST shows are juried], and then making sure her inventory is up to the challenge.

When I talked to her about how she got started she said "start small" there is an investment that is necessary for prints, mats, frames and in developing a good booth set-up. As she made money she reinvested it back into more shows and more inventory.


If you are interested in selling prints in this way ... you have to START NOW, in fact you may be too late for some of the bigger juried shows.

You will need to prepare your best samples, send them in to be juried and then work on having enough stock to sell.

Some of the juried shows give you a booth for free, but you pay a large (up to 50%) percentage of all sales to them. Most shows charge for the booth AND ask for a smaller percentage of sales.

I've heard some artisans complain about the commission the show takes, but look at it this way. THEY pay for the space and some of them provide booths, curtains, carpets and the like. And then they bring the customers to you via advertising, publicity, and with some shows ... their reputation.

Depending on where you live and how big your community is, there may be fall and Xmas fairs that are not juried ... you simply purchase booth space.

The important thing to get out of this is to ACT NOW ... get on the Internet, the phone and find out who does the shows, when and how you get in. If you wait till Oct or Nov it will be too late for this year Xmas buying frenzy.

ta ta
Melanie