New Trend for Visual Artists: Digital Image Downloads

Due to the current economic downturn, today’s artists must be resourceful to maintain an income from their talents. Like the rest of the United States, they are finding a decline in sales due to the high cost of everything, supplies, printing services, and shipping. One way to keep costs down is, as always, to cut out the middle man. Independent artists have found the internet to be a wonderful way to sell their artwork, not only the originals, but also to keep the originals alive in print. In some cases, prints have been known to make more money than the original itself. Recently, all this has been changing. The ultimate cost of making a decent print, including shipping, makes it a less viable option. The benefits of this new trend of offering image downloads, much like a recording artist does, are becoming clearer.

One benefit is that the money goes directly to the artist and maybe a small percentage goes to PayPal or some other money transaction service. In the past, an artist shared his salary and most of it used to go to the printing house. Leaving the artist with less than half of the total fee structure. This new technique frees you from having to deal with the printing press. The customer can now print the image directly from his home printer. Some artists also offer to sign a limited reproduction rights release for personal use. This entitles the customer to have t-shirts, mouse pads, coffee mugs or whatever made from the purchased image.

A second big benefit of this new trend is that there is no shipping. Dealing with limited post office hours, rigid guidelines, and high shipping fees can be very tiring. Nothing conducive to the creative process. Shipments outside of the United States are especially fraught with skyrocketing costs. Only the shipping costs for an 11×14 in. printing shipped to China can cost up to $34.95. This price does not include processing costs. With a digital image download, the customer receives their image as a high resolution .jpg image in an email after the purchase is complete.

The most influential benefit may be what has now been created, a turnkey system. Now an artist can open her email to find the much coveted “You got money” email and not have to take any further action on this part, transaction complete. Now we can do what the other online sellers have been doing all along. Selling a virtual product over and over again, similar to recording artist and e-book sellers. The artist can earn money 24/7 while relaxing on the beach, sleeping, or getting ahead of the next masterpiece.

Instant image downloads are another example of the American public making lemonade out of lemons. If set up correctly, this can become a wonderful source of income for both the freelance and represented artist. Just be sure to let the customer know that they have no right to resell the products. Resell rights can be another source of income altogether. It always pays to be creative in a changing world. Artists are very creative beings. Now our businesses must be to survive the ups and downs of an uncertain future.