Re: direction about greeting cards
2004-05-24 by houston.spencer@alcatel.com
Maria: (Long post follows. Forgive me if any of this has been covered already; I'm a few days behind in my e-mail. Also, please forgive any of this that is so obvious that I deserve to be slapped.) All of Stan's observations about costs are right. You've discussed printing your own cards on inkjet and contracting with a greeting card company. But there's another option that sounds like it would make more sense given your goals. That option is to self-publish in small printing runs. By small, I'm talking about printing 4-10 different image cards at 750-1000 cards per run. This would give you enough volume, at reasonable cost, to get started on the art-fair/small shop market. And if you want to scale up, that's easy to do at very, very low incremental cost. A few words of experience if you do go this route: Price: Because of high competition in the printing industry, the prices for doing this kind of run are quite low. You will probably have to invest a couple thousand dollars (depending on number of cards, size of run, number of colours, quality of stock), but your margins will be reasonable and, assuming your cards sell, you will easily recover the cost and go on to profit. (How much profit is up to you.) Quality: It can vary a *great* deal from print shop to print shop. As with all craft businesses, get recommendations from other photographers who have had cards printed. Quality II - The high end: There are printers that specialize in high-end photography reproduction. Their work is wonderful, and their prices are high. Remember, you're publishing greeting cards. They need to be beautiful enough to sell and (we hope) touch the receipient, but they will more likely end up in the trash than in a frame, so watch your printing costs. Quality III - The low end: There are web-based printers with literally no human interaction required. You upload your images to card templates, and the cards arrive in the mail a surprisingly short time later. It's almost magic! The quality is what it is: sometimes fine, sometimes not. I've worked with two of these types of setups, and both were fine for non-critical work...and the price was extraordinarily reasonable. One of them had quite excellent phone-based customer service. Note, however, that these outfits are usually brokers--agents that farm the job out to various contract printers--not the printers themselves. That's not necessarily a bad thing; it does, after all, get you a very, very low price if that's what you need to get started. Customer service and relationships: If you go this printing route, you will find your eye for quality develops very, very quickly. I have found that having a relationship with a good printer (not the sales guy, but the *printer*) is very valuable. You know about your photographs and how they should look. He (usually he) knows his press and how to deliver what you want, down to recommending different stocks or approaches. If you're going choose a local shop, specifically choose to work with someone you like and respect. Printing jobs *can* be a hassle, and you want to be doing this with someone whom you trust, and with whom you can chuckle when the first proof comes back looking shocking. Color: Why on earth would you care about colour? You may find that your work produces well in a single ink color (ie black). I haven't. After having tried everything from single ink to full process color, I now work almost entirely in duotone for press output. This is very much personal preference and is all about how you want your final product to look...and what cost trade-offs you want to make. Working in duo- and tri-tone has only reinforced the above comment about the value of your relationship with a good printer. Design: If you've got a good eye for design, by all means design the cards yourself. Don't forget back-side branding, copyright etc. Designing a card that conveys that feeling that it's a piece of art--vs Hallmark and the like--is a fun challenge. Size: The size of your card (by which I mean shape and dimensions) is an important design element, but it's also critical to something else: cost. *Card* size and shape, per se, has only tiny influence on cost: everything gets printed on large sheets and is cut when it comes off the back of the press anyway, so choosing a custom size won't have much, if any, cost impact. BUT you need to use a standard size *envelope*, or your custom envelope costs will kill your margin. Stock: Get recommendations on stock from your printer unless you already know what you want. Choose a stock that suits your images (color and weight). You're freed to some extent from the inkjet coated/uncoated/smooth/velvet/matt/gloss/ tyranny, but you enter a world of even more options (some of which have similar names--eg "coated"--but different meanings, so watch your step). Furthermore, you need to keep in mind the card/envelope match. Make sure the stock you choose goes well with a readily available--ie, inexpensive--envelope size and color. The business you're in: I'm probably talking down to you, here, and, if so, I apologize in advance. But this is a point that bears making, just in case you haven't thought about it. When you get into selling greeting cards, it's certainly a way of selling your photography, but go in with your eyes open that you're getting into the business of selling greeting cards. The two can live in a very happy marriage, but trudging around trying to sell your cards is time you're not spending making photographs. That said, if you can make money selling your images this way, more power to you. I'm all for people getting out and making their living (or part of it) from their passion. I worry, looking back over this long screen of text, that I'm making this sound scary. It's not. I jumped in with a 4-card 1000 sheet run a few years ago, having no idea what I was doing. They turned out nicely, were popular enough that I never got nervous again about recovering print costs, and quality has only improved with each bit of knowledge accrued in successive runs. So, if you've got the energy to sell 'em once you've got 'em, then go get 'em! And leave your inkjet to do beautiful, but high cost, master prints and limited editions that you sell at high prices beside your cards at the art fairs. I'm surprised that Lea (from whinydogpress) hasn't piped up on this topic. Are you tuned in, Lea? Cheers. --h ...on a gobsmackingly beautiful day in Paris * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Message: 12 Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 12:00:23 -0700
Show quoted textHide quoted text
From: sierra <artistasierra@...> Subject: Re: direction Stan, Thank you for your response. My ultimate goal would be to be published by a greeting card company. Of course, I don't know the pros and cons to that, so... My plan was just to start going shop to shop and possible art fairs and sell them on a small scale at first. Is there a better site to explore the options available and pros/cons to creating income with our photography. The only other thing that I know about is stock photog. Does publishing our photog. legally prohibit us from doing any kind of art exhibits in the future? Is this the site to continue to ask questions like this? Maria