Intro Pricing and Marketing Tips

Q. I am wondering how a person would go about marketing their carvings and how to price them? I really am just carving for fun right now but there has been a lot of interest and have people wanting to buy them, but I am clueless. Thanks for your time.

A. Great questions – for which there are no easy answers.

Pricing is a combination of factors – your time and the value you put on it, the material and tool cost (depreciation, rent, etc.), dollars you may have invested in promotional materials or travel averaged in, etc. On the other side are those who would purchase your work – what are their budget constrains, etc. It helps to know what the work cost you in terms of time so that at least you have a starting point – so that you can determine a fair price. If you are not interested in making money right away, maybe you’ll offer the work for less – just so that it finds a good home.

As far as marketing goes, in my experience, paid ads don’t work – best to make and show the work in person, then via a website of your own, then look for opportunities to have others feature your work (the ribbons at a show are great – what about a follow up article in a local paper, written by an arts editor?)

Other than that, it is just time in the game, the longer you make art, the better known you become and the better your work gets.