Category: Marketing

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To Watermark or Not to Watermark Images For Sale

Some say watermarks deter buyers from purchasing Art, others say it doesn’t.

It’s true that there are many comments on line leaning one way or the other. What I tend to do is listen to those with the most experience. Should I listen to folks who sell a couple dozen works a year or the folks who sell thousands of pieces a year. Amazon, eBay, Fine Art America and ImageKind, who sell thousands of units have run A/B tests and have determined that watermarking degrades sales. They are not artists with egos – they are Internet marketers looking to improve the bottom line.

Indian River Inlet Bridge
Charles W. Cullen Bridge at Indian River Inlet – with an example of my usual watermark.

In my case, I choose to NOT watermark the images I upload for sale at Imagekind or Fine Art America and other POD (Print On Demand) art companies. If the unscrupulous want to steal an image – they will – and there is nothing you or I can do to stop them. Anyone with rudimentary image editing skills can remove your watermark in a matter of minutes.

On the other hand I DO watermark images that I post to social media and on other websites. Why, you ask? Well, there I want people to see where the image can be found. My watermarks include a URL – in most cases my USPictures.com domain. I can have that domain point to whichever POD I choose (and I can change that at any time).

CLICK: Bill Swartwout Photography

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My Favorite Cat Artist in the Whole World

Dora Hathazi Mendes has a pure talent for depicting cats in watercolor.

Dora is an artist colleague who lives with her husband and family in Portugal. We have collaborated on various art activities over the last two years. We are colleagues in that we both use Fine Art America as our Print On Demand (POD) art production facility. (FAA is the largest fine art POD in the world. )

If you like cats, as most people do, and find them fun to be around, you might just find that Dora’s art a real joy to see. That’s why I decided to share some of my favorites here on my personal website. I hope you like her paintings as much as I do.

Here is an assortment of snapshots of the above work-in-progress. There are many steps involved in creating such a lifelike likeness of the black kitten – especially in the medium of watercolor on fine art paper.

Of course some cats take a more laid back approach to life. Here is Dora’s watercolor of a ginger Maine Coon cat. The Maine Coon is the largest of domesticated cats and, even though they have active hunting skills, are laid back, fluffy and friendly. Below you can see this artwork on a notebook cover, one of the popular items also produced by Fine Art America from original art. BE sure to click the picture to see the actual piece.

Here are links (click below) to Dora Hathazi Mendes and her art at Fine Art America:

Note, please, that this is not a “sales pitch” – but should you decide to purchase something from Fine Art America, Dora will earn her artist fee and FAA will pay me a (very) small ad fee.

Dora has contributed to the success of my new Artistic Face Masks website where her designer face masks have proven to be popular sellers.

You can see my work at Bill Swartwout Photography.

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Short-term Business Plan for Fine Art Photographs

As a artist, what are you doing to prepare for the Christmas selling season?

That question was proposed on a major art discussion board on the day after the half-way-to-Christmas mark (June 26th). Bill at US PicturesI have been looking ahead to this “season” and have been putting things into place. Here is what I answered…

  1. I will have twice as many items offered for sale in twice as many places as last year. My primary POD (Print On Demand) service is Fine Art America [which is where my USPictures.com domain currently lands] but I have actually been using Imagekind for much longer.  I have also been adding inventory to RedBubble and will soon be adding Zenfolio into the mix. All four produce an excellent product and provide a wide array of product offerings for fine art photographs.
  2. I’m also beginning to organize images for my 2019 calendars – the ones for Ocean City, MD and the Indian River Inlet Bridge in Delaware have been popular in the past and I have another (hopefully) “hot” niche for this season, the Wild Ponies of Assateague Island. I would love to offer calendars at FAA but, alas, that is not to be. I use Zazzle for the calendar product line – along with jigsaw puzzles, clocks and ornaments.
  3. I should have at least a dozen more of my more popular images (prints and canvas only) available on Amazon within the next couple of months, bringing my total to 35-40 (or so). Imagekind promotes art pieces that have already proven to sell. I have several pieces that have sold there over the last 11 years.
  4. Continue to create daily Social Media posts on my Facebook Photography page and other Niche Pages. Twitter accounts for my photography and niche areas will have new tweets two or three times a week.
  5. I will also continue AdWords advertising. Continue? Ha! I already am – but didn’t know it – because someone else is paying for the ads. LOL (That will be the topic of another article.)

In summary, I am planning to have a good year.

How about you? What are you planning to do to enhance your holiday sales? (If you comment, please feel free to link to your own art website.)