About Uploading Thousands Of Images

We have hundreds of thousands of artists...even if each artist only could post one image, a viewer would be bogged down....

Carole,

I think art runs from very conceptual work to very commercial images. Somewhere in each of those experiences the artists work to sell.

Some do it on high end gallery sales, while others do it on higher volume print sales.

Because we have AWs we can work very independently of each other in our pursuits.

Dave

It seems that in a venue such as Fine Art America/Pixels that the competition for attention is so mass that having a greater number of images to phish out a possible prospect is a good thing for someone trying to establish an on-line clientele.

Things do not work like a brick and mortar location.

Images are a dime a dozen. Actually, that is ever overpriced. There are millions, maybe billions of images all over the net that are totally free. And some of them are every bit as good as the best you will find here or any other site selling images.

But just the right print, with some assurance of quality, is hard to find. The more choice people have, them more likely they are to find that just the right print.

So, no, too much selection is not the problem at all. With 13 selling internet sites I have seen a direct correlation to sales vs the number of images or the amount of product I have for sale.

Pablo Picasso made 35,000 images, wish I could buy his work for a dime a dozen.

Carole, ask yourself how people generally "search" for images. I believe your perception is that most if not all come to a site like this and sequentially view one image after another until they chance upon something they want or like. While that may be true for some, today, the big advantage for internet explorers is to more efficiently browse for what they want using search criteria. That makes it much easier and slides the advantage toward the artist with more rather than less. While it may be advantageous for each artist to take care in what they post, we can't control their motives for uploading 20 images that are almost identical.

Alan,
You are comparing original works by Picasso to jet ink prints from largely unknowns on faa?

Carole,

First: Guilty.

Secondly, you are absolutely right. So many images are of the same things.

Ironically the question of Why is its own answer. Because that's what people like to see. Successes beget success.

As to "a dime a dozen."

Do you remember the ending of "The Grapes of Wrath"? What (according to Steinbeck) happened was that the pickers banded together and demanded better wages.

The same is true here. Stand together and don't give your love away.

Good news is that they (we) far outnumber you (us)

The number of people entering the market for artwork is increasing at the same rate as the population to artist ratio has always been.

The echo boom far outnumbers the baby boomers that are getting into the thick of it now. Extrapolate that out and look at the size of the market in front of you.

Finding the way into that market is the puzzle. Figure that out and there's plenty of room.

Carole,

The one thing I do not allow all of this sort of analyze to do is paralyze me.

It makes no difference to me that Google Image Search has billions of images.

I am happy for anyone else that sells, but that has nothing to do with me either.

Dave

Marlene, Original paintings and drawings are also for sale here, not just prints.

I would reduce my thousands to 10 or 25 - IF - everyone else would also - and if the search on FAA/pixels wasn't "fixed" towards those that have made a sale or two - and when you want to look at horse pictures - you wouldn't get a hippo.

Alan, originals are absolutely NOT for sale here on faa/pixels. This is a PRINT On Demand site.
At best, they provide a link to the artist directly....there is no company involvement whatsoever for the sale of original paintings or drawings.

I think the more images you have the better but only if you are not sacrificing quality for quantity.

Sadly, everyone's vision of quality work is different and until such a time that we have a curator ( uh), artists are free to post however many they want of whatever quality.

Speaking for myself but on the assumption the same is likely true for others... I dare not remove something I think is inferior because that's exactly what somebody else likes! In other words, What I believe is my best work, isn't always what someone else's preference is. Based on this realization and generally speaking, if I upload what I think is decent work, I'm believing in that piece until I see an absolutely good reason for it to be removed.

I don't care if you upload 2 images or 100... They're not all going to be equal in quality, or importance, least of all to the subjective opinions of others.

Val,

But isn't that the unasked question?

Because who wants to be in that quagmire?

A society could form that objectively sorts by quality.

One day soon that will be exactly what there is. An algorithm that matches the data known to the image that most people with her charteristics would want in an image.

So you will compete in your market, instead of now where we are all competing in every market.

Let it be known that I accepted the robot overlords long before it was fashionable.

Brian,

Some people thought I was the best kid in my family of 9.

Most people didn't!

Funny. How that works.

I certainly hope that curator scenario never happens...

... better to open another site than starting to get super picky here.

On second thought... there is curating (and other things) going on in the Collections Section anyways.

its only a dime a dozen when its the same image done up with 15 color variations. or the same location with 10 angles with a landscape and a portrait of each. if you've done this a number of years, the amount is bound to climb. if you have less, there is less to choose from and buy from you.

---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Mike,

Less means more for me.

Very clear and undeniable truth to that.

I would say however, that it presupposes a static demand. Demand is growing, its just math.

Question is "where?"

Glenn,
If you could offer that service, wouldn't you jump at it?

To have a tiny piece of all the decor purchased when it hits the market in ten years, and for"ever" after.

That's a prize worth winning. So there is somebody working on it or something like it.

It's coming. Bank on it.

Marlene, artist are allowed to sell their originals here.

less of what though. i upload my best each time i send things, its hard to have a concentration of something. the item that they found your store with, may not be the one they bought if you remove the items that found you with, you may lose sales.

people who are interested in buying, usually are not looking at the entire store. they are looking at one particular topic. just like any store, you don't need to look at everything in a grocery store or walmart, you only go into the one location you need. and its pretty frustrating to find out, they now have 3 brands of a sauce, but not the brand you like.

stores only seem full, but if your only interested in biplanes. or you just like old gas stations, then the other 10,000 images won't matter, the 20 you have on that one subject is all that matters.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Carole Lindberg, I agree with you 100%.

I'm not the super market or Walmart, and I don't seek or need those customers.

That's why I deleted all the products other than wall art.

Quality counts.

Alan - no, you cannot get an original work of art - a painting - through FAA/pixels - you can advertise that it is available - but ALL of the work done is between you and the buyer - IF they contact you. FAA/pixels has nothing to do with it otherwise and doesn't guarantee your work - only the prints they make with our image and sell.

Doesn't matter to me at all. When my "marketing" efforts attract a potential customer and sends them to my site they don't any other pieces - only the ones I am offering. I only use the provided Artist Website. To do otherwise, of course, would dilute my efforts and I would be working as hard to help those other artists make sales.

On the other hand, I also use another POD that offers up a type of artist website - but it really sucks (what we have here is one of the best available anywhere). They do, however, offer an affiliate program (which I joined nearly a decade ago). When a potential customer uses one of my links and lands on their main site (with all the competition) I am not as concerned - because I earn an affiliate commission on any sale. I "get paid" no matter what is purchased. Granted, I don't earn as much if it is not one of my photographs - but I do earn something. :)


---------------
~ Bill Swartwout Photography at US Pictures.

Agree with you RD, this is what I understand also.

Alan,
You need to make up your mind. First you say Artists can sell their originals on pixels/faa. I corrected you. You then state it yet again.... then when corrected by Roy, you agree with him that you cannot.

When I said "I think the more images you have the better but only if you are not sacrificing quality for quantity."

With quality I was referring to printability, as in blurry photos, pixilation, flash flair, edges showing, horizons not straight, etc.

I agree completely, Val!

The site search engine is geared to quantity.

Myself I am totally geared to get sales from elsewhere.

I am not selling yet. But that never stopped me from working it.

My concepts move along from idea to idea without much repeating. So I have 379 images and 36 in storage.

If you only have a few topics, you need to do things very repetitively to get traction in the search.

No judgments there, just some simple ideas on the dynamics.

I think none of us should ever begrudge someone else selling. I do not care what they sell. I only care what I make and want to sell.

Dave

Democracy guarantees choice: let's give 'em DEMOCRACY!!! LOL

The Internet is geared toward Long Tail - deep inventory. Unless you are marketing and branding yourself and offering something unique, people aren't going through your portfolio. They are looking by subject.


Then there are the image banks who have 100,000 of images here.

I have over 11,500 images and they are not a dime a dozen. They are custom art that are all keyworded so they can be found via Google search. Most people who buy art do not come directly to FAA but to search engines and once here they utilize they internal search engines for key words. I do well here and have made many contacts in with Art consultants that keep coming to me for more.

"Marlene, Original paintings and drawings are also for sale here, not just prints."

Alan, your original comment was regarding original Picassos.

There are no original Picassos on FAA. But there are several Picasso prints that are public domain and they are available for a dime a dozen and free on other places on the net.

I think too many people are much too concerned about what other people are doing, charging an arm and a leg, selling for a dime a dozen or even giving their art away. It really is none of our business what anyone does with their art.

And the very idea of telling someone else to raise their prices so these don't look so high is absurd to me.

What individuals price their work at is their business and theirs alone. Suggesting all artist should be involved in some sort of price support system is not going to help you sell. Learning how to market and sell your work, well help you sell.

Picasso prints that are public domain

Sorry Floyd,

I am pretty sure there are NO Picasso images in the PD. Picasso died in 1973. Spanish copyright courts are the toughest in the world by reputation. His family definitely can and will go after people.

Dave

Not to side track this thread beyond this point. Just some documentation.

Google on Picasso PD

France's copyright terms for non-musical works are Life plus 70 years. Picasso died in France in 1973. In 2043 all of his works will be in the public domain.

Wiki was well
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pablo_Picasso

Note Picasso worked mainly in France, it might be French courts that enforce his estate's rights.

Dave

No problem being concerned about what other people are doing if that makes you happy. Although it is unlikely to move your own business forward.

Build your own portfolio, build your own brand, set your own prices. Each artist is different.

Could not agree with you more Ed. Don't con ern yourself with what others are doing or how many more people have than yourself.

I have many images of the same subject from different angles and viewpoints. If I only put what I like up I would have very few.

The thing is you do not know what image will trigger a buyer to buy. If I knew that I would 9nly have those images up and forget the rest. Many of what I sell here or elsewhere I would not print for myself. I like them just not enough to hang on my walls.

Am I degrading photographic Art I think not. I am just giving them choices and hope they like mine over another version.

There are people out there, potential customers, with good taste and bad taste.
There are people out there with expendable income to buy a print, and ones without.

You only need to concern yourself with people who have money to buy.

The last three posts I agree totally with.

Dave

Wrong David. Picasso did several pieces for the governments that are considered the work product of a paid government employee and are in the public domain.

Look it up. They are sometimes difficult to find because the titles are in different languages, but they are out there.

Same thing with several other well-known artists that everyone swears are all copyright.

The majority of the great body of work Picasso did, is indeed still under copyright I agree.

Floyd,

I suspected you'd know of something out there in the PD. Thanks.

I know many artists working in US public works program(s)....I think their work in those programs is PD? Right?

Ansel Adams some of his work?

Dave

What I understand from reading all of these replies is that the most important thing is to put out as many images as possible because that gives an algorithm advantage of an image showing up on the screen of an unknown public shopper. This would be influenced by numerous tags.. Selling is everything. It seems that quantity is pushed as the most important feature for fineartamerica,

A couple of people commented that even if an image is not very good, put it out anyway, as someone with poor taste in art might resonate with it and a sale could be made.

I am curious about your motives of being on fineartamerica, if there is anything besides sales..

I'm different and don't care about selling on this particular account. I've sold enough to pay for it and that's more than I expected. I've only given this account a minimal effort and at some point will put some real work into it. Also, I have deleted lots of sub-par work and need to delete more. As a point of pride, I'm not going to put junk on here. For me this is a hobby... but my real passion is restoring antique prints and sell prints on eBay that I make myself... It seems to me when people become obsessed with selling / money, quality goes out the window.

"I am curious about your motives of being on fineartamerica, if there is anything besides sales.. "


Not sales, but the possibility of sales (since I've made very few) has kept me here, I don't know for how much longer. The forum can be entertaining but I can live without it. This is a POD, why wouldn't sales be the primary or only reason for being here?

"I am curious about your motives of being on fineartamerica, if there is anything besides sales.. "

I am not sure why you are asking. What would the main motivation be of joining and POD?

I am sure a very few people are here for the social aspect of it but I would guess 99.95% are here hoping to sell something.

What else are you thinking would be the main motivation?

I make occasional sales on FAA. Besides, FAA gives online presence, images load up in the google search, and since I don't live in the U.S. it is a reliable professional market for unlimited prints that I occasionally sell to my U.S. contacts. I bought some coffee cups with my images last month, which for me was quite a kitch thing to do, and enjoy drinking out of them every morning. The printing was high quality and they are a conversation piece. I had seen some of these cups in small museums, and the FAA printing rivaled what I saw.

I was surprised at many of the people that answered, about 40 or so, who didn't seem to feel that it was necessary to curate their work before presenting it to the public. Mass marketing of one's own work But how about the careful curating and selection of a product that represents our signature, our artistic being. That is why I am asking if "sales is everything". Community is nice, and kind here, but I wonder if the major thrust is sales no matter what. Correct me if I am wrong!.

I am curious about your motives of being on fineartamerica, if there is anything besides sales..


Carole,

My job as an artist, just me, is not sales. My art is very offbeat. I have explored much of what I wanted to explore over the last few years.

One thing is I made art to the rectangular format. I made digital art. FAA lends itself to what I am doing. I did not make circular or triangular canvasses....etc....my experiment aligned with what FAA is selling.

My motive was first being an artist. Now my additional motive is to make a living from what I have created. It is not an either or.

Dave

Carole,

Some people are very prolific. Other people sign up for FAA on a Saturday night, never put up an image, no avatar and never show up again.

The people who are very prolific can never answer for the people who are in fact no shows. Meaning we do our thing, if someone else has very little to say artistically we can not apologize to them. You kind of get what I am saying?

If you go to the recently joined page and then scroll down by date by say two months, most profiles wont have anything MUCH added to them. Most of us in this forum do a lot of work on this.

Dave

"necessary to curate their work before presenting it to the public."

Not sure what this even means.

I curate every image. I look at it and make a decision as to rather I think it will sell or not and go with the ones I think will sell and dump the ones that I don't. This isn't all that difficult. I am not trying to get excepted into any museums or galleries or trying to win any awards. This is a POD site. A place to sell images, simple as that.

I don't want anyone telling if my images are sellable. The times I have had people tell me that certain images would not sell were images I had already sold multiple times already.


"But how about the careful curating and selection of a product that represents our signature".

There is no collective "our signature" of FAA. There are only individual sellers and they are free to curate and select whatever they what as individuals. Sean, the owner of FAA, has made it very clear that he is leaving it up to each individual to decide for themselves what they want to sell and what not.

And no, you are not wrong. The major goals here of the owner and the vast majority of the sellers is to sell. Some are more inclined to "curate" their own work, some are not.

It is a pretty simple concept here that is making money for the owner and a whole lot of the sellers and not so much for others.

The quality of the work, to be honest with you, is not near as important as the quantity and the individual's seller's ability to advertise and market it.

Carole

Since FAA is a POD just like, as far as the buyers are aware, any of the dozen or so other POD's online, why would you or anyone else be here for anything but sales?

It's not an educational site, it's not an online museum, it's not a storage site, it's not an online portfolios site, although there are some who abuse it as such.

It's a sales channel.

David,
I am curious why you consider it abuse for people to use this site to store images or for an online portfolio?

Marlene

I'm referring to people who don't have work available for sale. A $30 a year premium account doesn't really cover the cost and if there's no way for FAA to generate additional income from sales it's a drain on the companies resources and clogs up the search for everyone using it for what it was designed for. And yes, I know there are plenty of people who have work up that never sells or probably will never sell, but at least there's a chance.

The genealogy site Ancestry.com allows you to create family trees for free. They make money off of subscriptions to search the records they have digitized. About 8 years ago someone apparently suggested in a dog breeding message board that using the free service on Ancestry was a good alternative to paying for the for pay pedigree software. There was a brief flood of genealogies for Muffy the poodle and her offspring until they put a stop to it. Some dog breeders complained, claiming that they weren't doing any more harm than someone creating a free account of human genealogy, but as the Ancestry reps explained, the free account was to entice people to pay to see records, of which there were none for dogs, and the dog trees were using up storage space and bandwidth reduced the companies revenues which cut into how much they could reinvest to service their paying customers.

A $30 a year premium account doesn't really cover the cost

DS,

I think it more than covers the cost.

I have BackBlaze storage of my layered files and everything else etc.....about 300 GB of storage and I can add a lot more for $95 for two years. That is $47.50 per year.

Generally FAA wont be storing 300 GB for people.

Dave

Addition 1000 images at 25 MB is 25 GB of needed storage.

DB

The cost per page of operating the FAA site is not the the same as simply storing files.

DS,

You are right there, but if it is only being used for the most part as storage it falls inline to a greater degree.

And the overhead for computing is extremely low.

See my addition above about 1000 images at 25 MB needing 25 GB of storage.

Dave

It's not just storage. It's the also the bandwidth involved if those pages are found in searches. Every single one of those bot hits uses bandwidth and while it's very little for each individual hit, multiply that by millions of images.

Plus, we don't know how the licensing fees are structured for the software that the site uses to generate all the pages for all the products and the search engine.

Bill Cannon, cannot belive my eyes to see that you have over 2 million views with over 1,000 followers, you most certainly are an inspiration for this day and age, well done You!

DS, at least 99% of the images here never sell, I doubt bandwidth is all that precious here.

DK,

Add to that the images that do sell with the $5 and 10% and Sean is not losing money. I sleep better knowing that, very seriously.

Dave

I agree with David S.

Accounts that have nothing for sale and only pay the $30 are not making a dime for FAA.

Abuse may be too strong of a word but they are certainly taking advantage and not really adding anything to the site that I can see. Sean may see it as some sort of value by being able to say he has X number of the world's best artist. I would question the value ever to that if they are not selling. But that is Sean's business.

Human nature being what it is, if nothing else, I would bet any number of those $30 are causing service problems. Billing alone is NOT a zero cost service, dealing with expired credit cards, etc. And how many problems to these people cause when one of their images don't show up the way they think it should, or heaven forbid, disappear altogether.

Here's something else that I think about. I get really frustrated when I shop for a product, find it and then it is not for sale or no longer available. What is it doing in a 'store" if it is not for sale?

A lot of people complain about the free accounts and the accounts that pay but have nothing but family snap-shots and not really interested in selling but may snag a few sales a year.

I have always maintained that if you are one of those then you should be supporting a fee increase to $30 a month. That would get rid of a whole lot of those accounts.

I only bring this up because so many of same people that are so against the "undesirable" (their words, not mine) accounts are also the ones that squeal the loudest when I do. lol

Floyd,

The great thing about the internet is a digital file can be copied with complete accuracy for forever.

It is turning out the internet is extremely unstable as a source of information anyway.

Dave

Accounts that have everything for sale and sell nothing - aren't making FAA/Pixels a dime either.

David B - I'm not sure just how true that is - I think over some period of time it might degrade a bit - but long after it won't matter to us.

RD,

You have to assume with that the storage unit is plugged in longer term, that in part is why the internet is so unstable after all.

We have the ability to have data perfectly copied forever. I did not say it would be or that the data was accurate.

Dave

"Accounts that have everything for sale and sell nothing - aren't making FAA/Pixels a dime either. "

True but I don't think that is as bad as some think it is and at least they are trying and not just taking up space with zero items for sale.

I have six accounts here, five of which I never advertise at all. They all make at least one or two sales a year. Two of them only sell prints from my own inventory that I have to do the fulfillment on. I don't pay for those two accounts. I keep them up there because they do the sales they do and I am hoping someday Sean will see that some of us are selling originals and limited editions and he may decide to start handling those sales and taking a commission. I think it is an excellent lateral expansion opportunity.

Selling limited editions here might be very interesting in the future. With FAA computers keeping track, the overhead could be very low.

Dave

I suppose you could sell a limited edition on here - but you cannot sell a signed limited edition without a double shipment - one to the artist and then from their on to the buyer - I think the cost would be exorbitant - and you complain about shipping now. And what if the buyer were across the country or in another country.

My abstract account, https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/1-roy-erickson.html , are limited to just one print - in whatever medium - because I says so - regardless of size - they are removed from the market as prints as soon as someone purchase a print. I would only have a problem if I had three orders of the same print at one time - but I'll not hold my breath waiting for that one.

I sell several signed and numbered limited editions here every year. But I have them in inventory. And I do not use FAA for printing. That is where you would get the double shipping.

If FAA would broker the deals with the seller doing the fulfillment there would be no double shipping. Same thing that is happening with the people that sell originals. Which I also do.

Every single new image here for sale or not is free content for Google that helps bring in more search traffic for FAA. Imagine a business where you have 500,000 or more people cranking out content for you for free and providing all your inventory and they pay you for the opportunity to create your content and inventory. You only pay them if their inventory sells. Brilliant business model.

Back to the thread topic. The main reason for posting images here is to sell, otherwise I’d be on Flickr or somewhere like that. People buy all kinds of stuff that’s is at times surprising so I don’t hold back.

If you’ve got 100 images and each one has 50 different keywords then you’ve got 5,000 opportunities to be found, if you’ve got 1,000 images with 50 keywords each then 50,000 opportunities to be found. More is better in that case.

Since the only modification a buyer can make on here is some standard crops why not upload variations and different perspectives of images and give them lots of options?

Adding lots of images isn’t really a Walmart approach when people spend around $1,000 for a single large print, which they do.

I wonder if buyers had more flexibility to crop images to their liking if that would increase sales? Lots of people would probably feel that violated their “artistic integrity” but if it’s what the market wants and it results in more sales, I’d let buyers do whatever they want when ordering prints of my photos.