The question should be “Is it more profitable to sell prints or originals of your artwork?” IMO in the long run you are better off establishing yourself as an artist that sells originals. If you are going to sell prints, the profit margin is very low and the effort to promote them is not much different than selling originals. Just do not undersell yourself on the price of originals.

I have sold way more prints than originals, but I have made way more from selling originals. So it’s kind of a toss-up. Although if I HAD to give one up, it would definitely be the prints. I have my own printer and paper and I know pretty much what I am doing with the printer, but even so, prints are kind of a PIA and they eat up plenty of time and cause frustration. If I were selling more originals, I would not be selling prints. I would instead be painting more small paintings. I still think about doing that and probably will in the future. It’s just that for me, it is difficult to produce a very small painting that is worth looking at. It’s a whole different ballgame than making a painting that is “normal” size for me, which is 18 x 24″ or larger.

I’m a recent convert to selling reproduction prints, and my goal is to paint more for that market. I was militantly against them for years.

Last year I invested in all of the materials and the printer I needed to print them myself, I made my investment money back within six months. An interesting aside, the materials costs for prints is higher than my costs for an original!

I also include a card advertising my custom pet portraits with prints I sell, and have picked up some commissions that way.

I do my printing at the end of the day, when I’m toast with painting. I print a bunch and insert them in their clear sleeves and in their envelope so when they sell, I just have to print a packing slip and address envelope off they go.

I do not market them, I just list them. Amazon is my best venue, then etsy then ebay, but Amazon by far is the best for me so far.

That is a good idea about enclosing a card about your custom pet portraits with the prints. I need to do that.

Re the eye thing, I have that going on as well, which is shaking out as a change in my painting style. But I have also been thinking about switching to ceramics or sculpture–more touch and less visual. Have you thought of that?

It’s terrific to hear you are seeing a trend toward larger commissions! Personally, I would love to work larger, and on my most recent splurge on art stuff, I bought some 40 x 40″ canvases to try with oils.

It’s good to hear you will still have money for later years of life. I can dismantle my non-art shop somewhat for that and make enough, but I also get a small amount of royalties from my book. That would be enough to scrape by, but I am hoping that some art income would get me to a bit more comfortable level.

I sure will. I’m so looking forward to tackling those!

I do a limited run of 150 22×28 and 150 14×18 of most of my paintings. I also get a ton of post cards printed. I use a local printer for all my work.

I make about the same on the 300 prints as I do the originals after you factor everything in. The down side of the past cards are boxing them, but there are plenty of people that will buy them to hang onto for years.

(For my own purposes since I do not know your pricing structure): 300 to 1 sounds like a high ratio to make prints worth while. I never sold prints but would expect to make between $10-$20 profit per print. I also cannot imagine selling 300 prints. (Congratulations to you for your success.) That would make my original worth more than $3000 and possibly over $6000 (which will never happen for me). Am I not understanding correctly???