Just before Christmas I made myself a little Etsy shop with about 15 prints available. I picked from my best work and images I thought people might be tempted to buy for their homes. I know that print sales isn’t the best industry to be trying to get into but I thought it would be a fun thing to try having picked up a really good quality printer.
I knew that Etsy wouldn’t really show my items to people until I got a few sales under my belt so I figured that I’d do some kind of promotion to friends and family to maybe get a couple of reviews up on there. I was utterly shocked today to see that I had an order already before I’d even done that. I do have a promotion running just in case someone did end up looking at them. So I’ve just printed off that diving kingfisher and packaged it all up to post tomorrow. I really hope the buyer is happy and I know it’s a really good looking print on great paper.
I sold one to family a while ago as they wanted to gift it (it was actually this same kingfisher image) and whilst that was lovely, it didn’t feel like it really counted. I made my first proper sale to a new colleague at work just before Christmas which was fantastic. That spurred me on to try Etsy as it gave me a confidence boost. Selling to him was absolutely fantastic and he was thrilled with the bear print (I did myself one too because it’s gorgeous!) but I still wanted to make a sale to someone who had never met me and was just picking my work because they thought it looked really good and now I’ve done that. So the new goal is to sell another one on Etsy and hopefully get some feedback on my shop.
I don’t think I’ll ever make a living off prints (or even cover my camera equipment costs!) but it’s awesome to think that I made a little money and to know that my work is getting out there and being appreciated by other people. Things like instagram are fun but you only hold someone for a few seconds and it doesn’t compare to a photo getting framed and going up in a room somewhere where it’ll get seen day after day.
