How To Be A Con Artist III

Before you read this, please make sure to read parts 1 and 2:

How To Be A Con Artist I
How To Be A Con Artist II

Previously I talked about organizing yourself to choose what shows to attend and a way to keep track of those conventions.  I'll repeat what I said before: Go to conventions that are interests you have.  If you like fantasy, go to a fantasy convention.  If you like Star Trek, go to a Trekkie convention.  If you enjoy the show, you'll have a good time and feel excited about being there and that will translate into sales, even if your items aren't specific to the convention's theme.

I'm going to talk a little bit here about what you are selling and also, the big issue of pricing.

Many people who are anime artists worry about selling at other cons.  People who do fantasy illustration worry about selling at anime cons.  These same artists will change their style and attempt to do other styles to try to appeal to the audience of the convention.  This tends to be a mistake.  The most important thing I can tell you as one artist to another is this:

You be you.

Do your art.  Do your style.  Create your work.  Its possible that audiences won't buy your work at a specific type of convention.  If that's the case, then you don't go to that convention to sell your work.  If you keep changing to try to make sales, you aren't going to develop as an artist and your personal style will get lost.  We are all selling art, no matter what form it is, but most importantly, you are selling you.  You are selling YOUR vision.  No one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can create what you create. 

Red Dragon Hatchling by Georgia Horesh

When I started at the conventions, I drew what I was inspired to do.  Some of it was anime style, some of it was fantasy...  I sold both.  As time went on, my work stood out from the other artists because my way of drawing wasn't what anyone else was doing.  My most famous pieces were my cute dragon sets, which at the time, no one had or were doing.  And those sold at all the conventions I went to, whether it was anime, literary, or sci-fi fantasy.  Heck, they even sold at comic-book conventions.  I did do fan art, but those pieces were one of a kind that were placed only in the art show.  I didn't sell fan art at my table - but I'll get into that in another blog.

Create the work you love to create.  You will eventually find your audience and place to sell it and it may be in places you didn't expect.  I'm not saying don't go out of your comfort zone and don't grow - experiment, try new things and don't be afraid of change.  My point is, don't try to be everything to everyone.

Now on to the rough stuff.

Pricing your work a huge hurdle and there are many ways to go about it.  First, lets talk about prints, photos, jewelry, paintings, plush or what not.

The most important thing I can tell you is to not undersell yourself.  Selling items cheaply does get you sales, but a lot of times it won't get you profit and it makes your work... well... cheap.  I undersold a lot of my work and it wasn't till I was going to conventions like Dragon*Con where I was meeting full-on professionals that I saw I was really undervaluing my work.  Remember, you can always lower prices at a show if that appears to be the big hurdle of attendees buying from you, but you really can't raise them at the show.  And here is a secret: if YOU think your work is worth something, then guess what?  So will the customers looking at it.  I mean, do you really want someone to buy something from you just because it was cheap? 

Drowess. 1 of my 1st copies sold for $2 at my table.

The other side of this, is that we as artists have to train the audience.  What you are doing, what you can do as an artist, is a skill.  See how I bolded that and underlined it?  That's because its important.  Art is a skill.  It is a skill like any other that is worth paying for.  Electricians get paid, plumbers get paid, mechanics get paid - and even if people complain about paying, they pay.  Why?  Because they can't do what electricians, plumbers or mechanics do!  If someone comes up to your table and likes your work, even if they are artists, there is something you can do that they can't, or something you captured in your art that they didn't.  They should pay for it!  By undercharging, you undervalue your work and you undervalue ALL art work.  If people see they can pay $2-$5 for art, they think others are overcharging for the same work for more money.  They believe those other artists are snobs or demanding for some reason.  So as a community, we have to stop that thought process and teach the audience that they should pay good money for good art!  (And trust me, that's training that will carry on through your professional career in the arts - ask any professional graphic designer!)

This is also why you should rarely, if ever, do work for free.  Anyone who says to you that if you do the work for free for them, you'll be paid in "experience" or "free publicity" or "free exposure" or "to add to your portfolio", should be sending out a bunch of red flags in your brain.  Basically, they want you to do work for free and are using those excuses to get away with not giving you money.  The creative industry is one of the only places this happens for a good reason.  Its because they get away with it.  Artists are a needy lot and we want people to like us and our work and we fall under the sway of those who approach us with offers and say they want our art.  Its acceptance.  And it all sounds good.  But think about this... Let's go back to our electrician...  Have you EVER heard of someone saying to an electrician, "I'd like you to wire my living room...  Instead of paying you though, you'll be getting free publicity.  I think it will really be great experience for you and it will be a great opportunity for exposure.  I mean, I'll tell everyone what a great job you did and your signature will be on the wall by the light switch."  That wouldn't go over well...  but that's the same thing that happens to many young artists all the time.  

Below is a great rant/speech by Harlan Ellison and while it is regarding writers, I think it applies to other artists as well.  I'd give it a watch if I were you.



Yes, he is vehement, but there is a reason for it.

Now, let's look at pricing...

You need to look at this as a long range situation.  You need to be thinking in regards to a year rather than convention to convention, you should be thinking of yearly income...  How much you want to make a year as an artist.  You have to decide if you want to sell a lot of inexpensive pieces or go with a few expensive ones.  Below is an example of price thinking assuming that the artist wants to make about 20,000 a year to see it in simpler terms:

2 for $10,000 each
4 for $5000 each
8 for $2500 each
16 for $1250 each
32 for $750 each
64 for $313 each
128 for $157 each
256 for $78 each
512 for $40 each
1024 for $20 each or
2048 for $10 each

You also need to be asking yourself the following questions:

• How much are you comfortable selling your work for?
• How many pieces can you realistically sell in a year?
• Who is your audience?

For pricing individually,  you can follow this sort of formula:

1. Add the cost of all the materials (cost of print, cost of mat board and tape or cost of plastic bag if it isn't matted, cost of frame and glass, wire and screws, clay, fabric, stuffing, buttons, thread:  EVERYTHING you used to get the final product.) 
2. Estimate how many hours it took you to create the item and multiply this by how much you'd like to make an hour. ($8 an hour? $10?) Add that to the previous figure.  For example, if it took you an hour and you want to make $10 an hour, you add $10 to the previous number.
3. Multiply the total by 2 at the minimum.
4. Now compare that price to others in the area or that you've seen. If your price is much higher, you may have to look at cutting the costs of producing your work. If your price is much lower, then you might to raise them to be a bit more competitive.

Don't confuse income with profit! Income is what you get from the customer. Profit is what you have after you've paid your expenses. You don't want to just cover your expenses, you want some profit.

Here is an example to figure out a pricing.  I'm rounding up to keep it simple.

1. I made a necklace.  The cost of chain was $7.  The pendant was made from two different pieces which add up to $15.  Jump rings come in a package of 10 for $2 so, figure each jump ring costs $.20.... I used 3 of them so that's $.60.  The lobster clasp was $.50.  That leaves the total of the cost to make the necklace at 23.10.  But wait, I include packaging and price tags to add another 1.40 to bring my total to $24.50.

2. I want to make $10 an hour and it took me an hour to make the necklace so I add another 10 to my total, bringing it up to $34.50.

3. Multiply by two and that brings it to $69.

4. Now I can look at my pricing and decide if that is too high or not.  I can look around on the internet and see what other similar products are selling for and adjust my price accordingly.  Even if I lower the price, I can still make a profit - you don't want to undercut yourself.

Even if you are making prints at home on your epson (which I did), I had to pay for the paper and the ink cartridges.  I had to take that into account when I charged for my prints.  I bought mats wholesale so I got a good price and that got put into the cost.  (If you can, buy wholesale!)  If you can't make a profit you need to figure out where to cut costs and what is putting you over the edge.  Always keep in mind that it isn't just about selling, its about making income!

Now... about Commissions.  This is a big issue for many artists.  I'm going to give another sort of list to follow:

Start with the cost of the actual materials that you will be using.  (note: This is an example and so, I'm throwing a few numbers around, but you'll get the idea)

Full color commission

In this example, a customer wants a full color copic marker commission.  My 12 x 18 Bristol pad cost me about $20 for 10 sheets, so I'll start with $2 for the paper. The markers aren't too expensive and are pretty darn cheap when you realize how many pieces you can get out of them, so I'm just going to call that another $1. I almost always ink my drawings before I color, and since this is a pretty complicated piece, maybe I'll use up a whole pen. Let's call that another $3, which is pretty generous and can include the pencil and eraser wear and tear and some sketchbook pages making the initial sketches (if I decide to do that). So, I'll have about $6 invested in actual art materials.

In the case of digital art, you've got the cost of your computer and your tablet to consider, but there aren't any tangible costs, unless you count the price of electricity. Do include the price of a print here, if you will be mailing a hardcopy of the final version of a digital painting.  You need to figure out what you are printing it on and how much a pack of that paper is so you can determine the cost of printing on one sheet.  Its hard to figure out how much printing you can get from a cartridge, though it sometimes does say on the box...  Figure at least another $4 - $5 on top of the hourly rate - more for the paper to get a digital print.  Each print you make of digital art should include a percentage of the cost of the ink and paper and added to your commission rate.  

The customer wants the original mailed to him, so I'm going to charge him $5 to cover priority mail and insurance on the image.

Now I'm up to $11. No matter how I decide to charge for my time and efforts and extras, I don't want to go below this number, or I'd be losing money on the project. And that's just bad business.

Again, now its time to add in my hours.  Again, you have to ask what kind of wage you want for doing this.  I want to make $10 an hour so... I add that in because I'm guessing it will take me about an hour to do the piece (it always took me longer but we'll keep this simple for now) Now its $21.

There is also a little something called overhead.  This is to take into consideration the situation in which you find yourself doing the work.  Overhead is the cost of electricity, or studio space, the past cost of your tablet or computer, the past cost of your drawing table if you do a commission at home.  Overhead is the cost of your artist table, your parking spot, your hotel room, convention registration, and other such costs if you are doing the commission at a convention.  You can always adjust, but $5 is pretty good start.  So, the work is now up to $26.   That's a lot better that some starting prices I've seen for a full color commission but the price should be higher.  I just threw this together as an example of how to approach pricing your commission. 

When making your sign for your commission rates, make sure you leave leeway for pricing.  For example, a black and white shouldn't just be $20.  It should be shown with a scale so the customer understands that if they ask for more, they will be paying for it.  So you could have it as $20 - $30. 

Make sure you note differences in prices for pencils, black and white and color, whether its traditional art or digital.  Those can be divided down further to head portraits, upper torso, or full body shots.  One person or two people.  Full illustrations with backgrounds.  Character design and so forth.  On your sign, you should have small illustrated examples of those things as well.  This will help people understand what they are getting when you say a pencil drawing or a full color one.  If you can, I also recommend a commission portfolio, featuring previous work you've done for others - again to give customers an idea of what they are getting and to see your skills.

But I will say this - no one should be charging less than $10 for a pencil drawing.  You can disagree with me if you wish, but I'll point to my arguments above. 

Here is something to give you perspective (it is directed at attendees buying art, not artists, but you get the point):

You'll figure out what you are comfortable with, but be fair to yourself as well.  See what others around you are charging and figure out how long it takes you to do the work.  As I said, if you start out high, you can always lower it.   Remember, you shouldn't be thinking just about the show itself, but about your income for the year.  You'll be doing taxes and will have to take into account the fact that you will be paying taxes on that income as well.

So you've set your prices and are ready to go.  You are approached by an attendee who likes your pricing and wants you do work for them.  What do you do now?  You should have a commission list ready to keep track of customers.  This is where you are going to write the person's real name if possible, an email address and/or phone number and a brief title or description of the commission they are getting.  This should be a numbered list so you see how much work you have to do and can give customers later on an honest answer for a timetable on when they can expect their commission to be done.  On the same piece of paper or a different one, write down notes on the image - especially if its an original character.

Ask what the customer wants and make sure you can give it to them.
If this person wants you to draw robots and you aren't comfortable or able to do it, then you aren't doing yourself any favors by attempting it.  I personally didn't draw characters in explicit sexual situations.  If a person requested that type of art of me, I apologized and explained that I didn't do that type of art, BUT I was aware enough of the other artists in the artists alley and I would direct the person to another artist who I knew was comfortable with the subject.  Yes, I lost the commission, but I didn't force myself to do something I didn't want to do AND I established myself as an honest person who could be trusted.  Trust is important when you are selling yourself as an artist.

Black and White Commission

Sometimes the customer has unrealistic expectations that you might not be able to fulfill - turn the job down.  Better to lose out on the money than go through the time suffering and ending up with an unhappy customer and an unhappy artist.  The headache isn't worth it.

Ask them what they want to see in the art.
Look for broad answers that have to do with the way your art makes them feel.  Get details and specifics about what colors they want and what that want to see.  If its an original character, ask them for personality aspects, maybe a brief history so that you can bring something extra to the work.  If the character thinks danger is fun, then drawing them having a grand time killing something will make it a better drawing then them standing there staring at you - the customer will appreciate the aspect that won't take that much more time to do and may become repeat customers.  I had customers that found me at EVERY con so I knew walking in I had at least 3 - 5 commission slots filled before I even sat down at my table.

Ask them if there is anything they don't want to see.
The last thing you want is to put in something the person won't want.  If its pencil, sure you can erase it, but removing ink or marker is a bit harder.

Ask them if they have any other questions or requests. 
This is the moment for the customer to make a change or to clarify any confusion about what they are getting.  This is when you give them a quote on the price and you can make sure you are both ok with that before starting anything.

If everything seems ok, give the customer an idea of when they can pick up their work.  I started getting people's cell phone number so that I could call them at the con when the work was done and they could come get it when they were able rather than having them swing by repeatedly.  That way I wasn't feeling pressured by them popping in a lot asking "Is it done yet?" and they could relax knowing I would let them know when to come get it.  Or, you can say it will be ready for pick up on the last day of the convention and everyone comes for their work then.  Having the phone number also helps you out so that if you are there with work and someone is REALLY late picking it up, you can contact them and see what's going on.  Sometimes people forget they even commissioned work.  I remember standing at my table on Sunday afternoon, everything packed and ready to go, but I had a commission and the person hadn't shown to pick it up.  They were closing the artist alley down and I finally called.  The girl was actually just getting into her car getting ready to leave and if I hadn't called, she would have been gone.  Luckily she was able to run in and pick up the art.

Payment depends on each person.  Some artist like to take all the money up front.  Some like to be paid only after the work is done.  I think doing half up front and half when the work is done is also fine too.  What ever works for you!  Just remember to mark down what has been paid by who.  I'll discuss receipts another time, but this is a moment when that will be a good idea.  On the receipt you can say it is a commission and write down what has been paid.  When they pay the rest, you just add that in and know its all set.

There are many different ways to handle the payment art exchange.  Some artists do a situation like a coat check at a laundry mat.  You give the person a ticket and they return it and get the art they paid for.  You can mark it on your commission list.  Whatever you are comfortable with.

Don't feel badly if this all feels overwhelming.  Pricing is the hardest part for any artists, no matter if you are making jewelry, plushies, illustrations or sculptures.  Our first instinct is to go for a lower price due to our ideas of our self worth, but keep in mind, EVERYONE is feeling that way.  Some of what you'll do is trial and error.  What might work well in one aspect, might not work in another.  What I've posted here isn't law and might not be your cup of tea.  Use it as a guideline - something to help get you started as you try to figure this out.  Be patient with yourself and remember to have fun!

If you have any questions or even some suggestions, PLEASE feel free to post it in comments.  Even if it isn't directly connected to this posting.

Next is: How To Be A Con Artist Part IV