Selling prints on ebay

smieglitz

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Kodak's pushing that now too. In a way it opposes and yet curiously feels a lot like Kodak's old motto: "You push the button and we do the rest." The old Kodak mentality asserted that photography was difficult, or at least the photographic printing process was. But anyone could operate the camera and through Kodak, achieve easy, high quality results. This was probably one reason why photography took so long to be recognized as a fine art. I think the same recognition will take even longer for inkjet prints. Now anyone can make a print.

However, they can be visually appealing prints, maybe considered fine art prints, but they certainly are not, and never will be, photographs.

Joe
 

Alex Hawley

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Jorge said:
Hey all, give ALex Hawley a pat in the back and congratulations for his first sale on E bay...with buy it now no less!!!

Congratulations Alex...way to go bubba.....
Click to expand...

Thanks for the plug Jorge. And thanks for the encouragement from everyone else.

I had been planning this for a while, hoping to make it coincide with the APUG article in B&W Magazine. In fact, that was the print that sold first. So really I have to thank Sean and APUG as a whole for making this happen.

I have no expectation of becoming rich and famous from e-bay. If I can start breaking even, making my photography self-sustaining, I will be happy. Galleries are very few and literally far between in my area. I still plan on soliciting a couple places in the future, but I will feel more assured having the article published and, hopefully, some e-bay sales and recognition behind me when I ask to see the gallery manager.

For someone like me, out in the boondocks, E-Bay makes some sense for a place to get started. I watched a lot of photos for a couple months to see what sold and what didn't sell, seeing what the gallery stores did and what individuals did. How it turns out for me remains to be experienced.

As far as digital stuff goes, I made a deal with an old aquaintence last month where he would auction one of my railroad shots with his digital enhancements and printing. I was given full credit for taking the original. Its printed digitally on a metalized board. His thinking was it would go over well with the Rail Fan crowd. I like it but it ain't the same as the real thing to my mind. It hasn't sold yet neither. I think I will try auctioning the full analog version and see what happens.
 

gbock

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Jorge said:
Hey all, give ALex Hawley a pat in the back and congratulations for his first sale on E bay...with buy it now no less!!!

Congratulations Alex...way to go bubba.....
Click to expand...


Jorge,

I couldn't resist. It is a beautiful image.

Looking forward to receiving it, Alex, and to seeing more of you work!

Gerhard
 

David A. Goldfarb

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Alex--For the metallic look, you might try printing on Maco Expo AG, which is an RC paper with a metallic substrate (I don't think there are any metallic FB papers). I just got some to try for that shot I posted a while back of the organ at Bath Abbey. It's supposed to be really nice with metallic subjects. I ordered it from Freestyle.
 

argentic

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Jim Chinn said:
Gleaned from another photographers web site:

Giclee is the word used to describe the "money shot" in French pornography.
Click to expand...

In French "Giclée" means a spurt of liquid. That could be anything like water, ink, paint, blood, oil, etc. etc. Any secundary meanings are up to the user of the term.
 

Alex Hawley

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Thanks Gerhard. And ther is more coming, including some grain elevators.

David, thanks for the suggestion. I haven't tried any metallic papers yet, didn't even know they existed until recently. My friend said it was printed on Kodak Metallic Photographic Paper. He didn't do it himself. He transmits the image to a shop that does the actual printing.
 

jd callow

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Kodak's RA4 metalic paper has a wonderful look when used with B&W negs as well.

And Gerhard is the best!!
 

Thomas Wagner

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Intereresting comment about "found money". I once thought of any possible return that way too. Wound up doing a lot of stuff I did not like. Since moving to a small town on the coast and taking a real interest in the area I find that my print sales are no longer money motivated but are a means of showing off the area. NOT tourist shots, but actual prints of the area. As well, I put them in recycled frames. Granted, the tourists by them, but a lot of the locals have them now too. It took retirement in a small town to open my eyes to the non-money aspect of it. I really like it when someone tells me "I've been there". Rather than giving me any BS about artistic value. Of course, not one of my prints would sell on ebay except maybe if I happened to accidently put it in a valuable recycled frame...

Tom
 

jd callow

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James M. Bleifus said:
This thread spurred me to action as well and I opened a store on ebay and have received some very kind emails. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread and clued me in.

Cheers,

James
Click to expand...
James could you post a link to your store?
 

Ole

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What if we made a place with links to all the ebay stores of APUGgers?
 
OP
OP

kjsphoto

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not only stores but how about apug people who sell on ebay with a username and not a store. That would also be cool.
 

jd callow

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James, the images on my screen are nice but too small. The thumb nail is fine, but the image at the bottom of the screen really needs to be larger. I don't have an ebay store, but on normal auctions I controll the size of the image at the bottm and ebay does not charge me anything (or at least didn't prior to the latest rate increase).
 

James Bleifus

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Thanks. I was thinking the same thing so I put another image up with the larger size and it works better. Either I'm doing something wrong or this is a result of some of their price restructuring but they're charging me an extra .75 to move to the 500X500 pixel size.

Cheers,

James
 

NETWORK ERROR

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eBay Beta Tester Seller and bicycle

Hello Bonjour,

Here is the story
Dead Link Removed
I am selling my bicycle.


Seriously, I am trying to sell on eBay for the first time.
Any feedback will be appreciated ! What's OK, What's bad?
You missunderstand something? ebay.com or eBay.fr?
good format? The good price? I have a froggy english?

Thanx a lot.
Pascal

NETWORK ERROR /Photo
http://NETWORK-ERROR.com/photo
 

ted_smith

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I started to read the first 30 or so posts and then skipped to the end so sorry if this has already been mentioned, but I considered the same thing - setting up an e-Bay store. I ditched the idea in favour of a professional subscription to Digital Rail Road (www.digitalraildroad.net) which costs about $550\£270 a year. Basically it's an image library. You create an account (you get a 30 day free trial), upload your images (which can act as a homepage if you don't have your own website) and then by use of keywords and gallery browsing etc buyers find your images and buy them via DRR. DRR obviously take a 20% cut or thereabouts and they negotiate many of the rights for you, and you get the rest. It's hassle free. In addition you can specify whether your image(s) are Rights Managed or Royalty Free and unlike a lot of the crumbier stock photo agencies you specify how much your prints are to be sold for so you don't end up selling a masterpeice for $1 only to find that IKEA are now selling your masterpeice as a canvass for $50 each!

My DRR site is at http://www.digitalrailroad.net/TedSmithPhotography if you want to have a look at what you get.
 

RobC

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I think you will find that the OP wrote his own software and now markets it to other photographers and artists.
 
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