Hi folks,
I joined Folksy less than a month ago and had (at a significant cost) prints made of all of my currently listed items in anticipation - and possibly a little overconfidence/naivety - of them selling.
I’ve not sold anything yet and am beginning to have a wobble over whether I’m charging too much… For those of you who have had success shifting your prints, how much would/did you charge for A3-sized prints when you first started out?
You need to promote yourself on Social media if you are to sell. Customers will not just chance to find you.
I see your FB link is to a private group … you need to be as public as possible.
Xx
Ps your shop link from your post above doesn’t work. Had to find you via your forum profile and post history. ?
PPS your prints are lovely 
Hello,
You need to be patient. I opened shop in April, and had first sale in August. Don’t give it up quick! Do you have instagram or facebok page?
Thank you very much for your kind words! That’s a good point - I’ll make that FB group public!
Thank you for your reply! I actually have both and my Instagram has amassed over 50 followers in two weeks, which I think is pretty good going. As JoyOfGlass said, though, my FB group is private, so I’m going to change that ASAP.
I’ve never sold prints however I have bought plenty of them and £18 seems very reasonable for an A3 print (I’m assuming they are open editions rather than limited editions - the listing doesn’t say). However I don’t think your photos do them justice - they look a little dark and the red wall is distracting. I also think you should expand upon your descriptions - I was always told to write the description as if describing the item to a blind person as search algorithms can’t see the images. There are articles on the folksy blog about how to write a listing that gets found by google and the folksy search algorithm.
This is the shop link you have registered with the forum https://folksy.com/shops/cjhartdesign – there is an AND missing
This is your actual shop address…https://folksy.com/shops/CJHArtandDesign
I am not sure re your Facebook why you are using a group at all. Far better to have a simple page, a business page. Why do you need people to join to see your work. Facebook is an excellent promitional tool if you use it to its full capabilites and a group will severly restrict. xx
Thanks for spotting that! My page name went through a little change shortly after i joined Folksy and I thought it had been updated… Obviously not!
The whole Facebook thing had turned into a bit of a mess. I’ve got both a group and a business page, but I’ve got all of my friends in the group rather than the Business page. I should probably shut the group down and invite them to the business page, huh? Facebook however don’t make it very obvious how to do these things easily.
I would email folksy support and ask them to change your url on the forum. I can’t see anywhere where you can correct it yourself. 
That’s exactly what I just done - I couldn’t see any way to change that either! 
Hi Sasha,
Thank you for your reply. I’m not hugely happy with the photos myself, so I’m going to reshoot them all next weekend if I get the chance, but my house is tiny and dull and its walls are all pretty bold-coloured, so I’m going to have to get creative!
That’s fantastic advice regarding my descriptions, too - I’ll have a go at writing them in a way that’s going to get them picked up in search algorithms.
To be honest, I’ve not had a great deal of success at selling prints of my work. I have sold some but they didn’t exactly fly online (though they did OK at “real life” art and craft fairs). I have had far better results through reproducing my work as greetings cards.
£18 is very reasonable for an A3 print. I think you should give them a chance at that price. I think I waited about 3 months for my first sale (that tally is now up to 155, but there aren’t many prints in that number).
If your username has been updated on the Folksy site, you just need to log out of the forums and log back in for it to automatically update here (click on your avatar in the top right corner > click the bottom person icon > click log out).
I understand how difficult it can be to get wall shots, especially with colourful walls! I have to restrict my photos to a couple of walls in the house because they’re the only neutral ones, but I also do close ups where it’s cropped right to the edge of the piece so the background doesn’t matter, or for smaller pieces I might use a piece of white card on the floor and take it from directly above instead.
I’m considering if I can improve my scene shots too though because they do seem to be a good way to show off art (especially when there’s something else to give an idea of size), I’m just trying to work out how when there are no neutral, uncluttered spots in the house 
Your red does seem to be reflecting the light quite a lot though, have you got a wall/surface that’s more matt that you could use?
I sympathise with your wall colour. Not a white wall in my house and to add insult to injury we face North South so no nice East West windows for glass relections AND this is a 1926 cottage and all usable windowsills and woodwork is Wood coloured…
I have some big compressed foam sheets I have to use as backdrops…
and often also make use of the fridge / freezer doors
I have large sheets of white foam board and white card. One lies flat on a desk, the other at right angles on the back wall that’s against the desk. I can photograph paintings flat from above, or on a desk easel against a white backdrop. The white reduces reflected light from coloured walls or other nearby objects.
I use white foam boards…(huge ones) and throw a plain fleece over them, my only decent lighting is in the conservatory which has a lovely rustic red brick wall but not ideal for photographing against. I lay one on a table and the other against the wall then drape the fleece over both…cheap way of doing it as well, the boards were from hobbycraft
Great advice on getting good photos, peeps! I might head to Hobbycraft next weekend to see if I can get some of those foam boards!
think i got mine from hobbycraft
If this helps, i have a very large cardboard box that i use as my photo backgrounds. Ive left the base and 2 sides and cut away the rest, then glued white matt paper over it. It means i can move it to where the natural light is best. May be worth a try for you?
Storing it may be a pain in a small house though…
My husband sells digital art and uses an art staging program to show his pieces in a virtual room set. I don’t know which one he uses, but there’s a good looking article here about the apps available 
P.S. have since asked him and he uses a template called Envarto in Photoshop