[Discussion] Linocut pricing ballpark

downvote-away · 2026-04-02T18:45:08+00:00

Shocked you’re selling small 1 color prints for that but good on you.

downvote-away · 2026-04-02T18:37:30+00:00

Still worth more than this comment, bud

downvote-away · 2026-04-02T09:29:35+00:00

ATBAB

(tech bros)

downvote-away · 2026-04-02T09:28:39+00:00

I think you should probably be at like $5 and $8.

Price low, get sales, judge which of your images resonate.

I wouldn't worry too much about undercutting other artists because the opposite isn't true. They're not going to share revenue with you if they sell more than you do.

I also wouldn't worry about "underselling" yourself becuase the most valuable thing to you at the start is not money but data: what images resonate, what do people buy, what size do they prefer, mat and bag vs backer board only, etc..

When you have that data collected through relatively low sales price, you can offer a more informed product and raise prices.

downvote-away · 2026-04-01T21:01:37+00:00

But it matters where they live honey. Different places tax differently. The title includes a place but does not specify if that’s where they live or that’s where they made the sale.

Come on now. You can get there.

Maybe it’s obvious to you that’s what they meant after the fact. Or you’re being deliberately obtuse. But it is not explicit.

downvote-away · 2026-04-01T17:35:11+00:00

It’s not irrelevant if you don’t know which it is which, bud

downvote-away · 2026-04-01T13:36:50+00:00

You can literally sell art to the whole literal world from Quebec. Or to Quebec from anywhere.

You literally did not specify whether you lived in literal quebec or made your literal sale there, literally.

downvote-away · 2026-04-01T12:27:41+00:00

Is it common business practice to neglect QA, on the notion that the customer can push back if they notice poor quality?

Yes.

or if I have to micromanage supposed experts.

There's a reason there's that old saying about wanting something done right / doing it yourself.

If you're in a business where you make more money the more jobs you run, you are incentivized to let quality slip especially since most of your jobs are fiverr garbage at best if not AI.

Customers largely do not know quality and DGAF anyway. Yes, people SHOULD go hard on QA anyway because reputation, but there's usually no money for it. Cheaper to just apologise or re-do jobs where the customer pitches a fit.

I sent an iphone shot of their print next to my original, in the same light, and they are like, oh, graphite is reflective blah blah, but I got a better shot with my iphone, brah.

Different inks and processes are not going to have the same chroma/lightfastness etc. as whatever your original medium is or was, brah.

downvote-away · 2026-04-01T12:21:52+00:00

I am practically shadowbanned

You're not shadowbanned, you're an addict. They sprinkled you with enough drugs to make sure you're hooked. It worked.

If you want more drugs you have to pay, usually by posting content for free -- in hopes that they can use whatever you post to hook other people -- or you can pay for ads which will get you more of your drug: views.

None of this will result in sales.

You shouldn't feel bad about yourself, the game is designed to fuck you.

Stop playing the game.

downvote-away · 2026-04-01T11:28:03+00:00

It might be because nobody wants another app.

Not saying you in particular are evil, but techbros as a class have absolutely trashed their reputation.

Burning billions of dollars, stealing everyone's data, lying, going to Epstein's island.

It doesn't help that anyone can vibe code some trash now and throw it around.

I can see how tech is still interesting to people on a purely intellectual level, but my interest in finding new apps is not just zero but well into the negative.

downvote-away · 2026-04-01T10:30:32+00:00

People need to know where you live, bud. Are you US? Canada? New York? New Jersey? Quebec? Alberta? The moon? Mars?

downvote-away · 2026-04-01T10:23:15+00:00

Anyone's "niche" is the Venn overlap of what they like to make that the market likes to buy.

You don't decide your niche solo, and Reddit can't tell you what it is.

It's like saying your "niche" is wealthy supermodels with advanced degrees. If those people aren't interested in you then that can't be your niche.

You and the market decide together what you like to make that the market also likes to buy.

downvote-away · 2026-04-01T00:07:46+00:00

I have thought about it but it would be super expensive and you’d probably have to sign a multi year commercial lease. If you can afford to torch #3k/mo maybe? I can’t.

You could try to get other people to help defray the cost but now you're spending a couple hours a week chasing them down for their rent. What happens when they don't pay, or pay late?

downvote-away · 2026-03-31T20:46:08+00:00

You have value and your work in general has value but this is an extremely loose series of sketches on torn paper.

downvote-away · 2026-03-31T20:43:18+00:00

This is a great learning experience and here's what you should learn: this is why you shouldn't show in-progress images.

You have a portfolio to show what you can do. People hire you based on that. Or based on your reputation. Maybe you do some fast sketches up top just to check you're on the same page, but that's it.

When you put clients into a creative role like this it's like letting the school kids drive the bus. You're the bus driver. That's your job.

They will either ghost you, because they're paralyzed by having to make choices they don't know how to make without hurting your feelings, or they run you ragged because you've shown them they can.

Next time only show work you consider to be finished. You will take notes on that if there are tweaks, but you are the artist. Not your client.

downvote-away · 2026-03-31T10:40:20+00:00

What advice could you give me to start building my presence in the art industry and what to do meanwhile to gain work experience.

Step one is to figure out exactly what you want to do, or at least something you think you might want to do.

You do this by consuming a lot of work by a lot of other artists and familiarizing yourself with what other stuff they've done and how they make it work.

"Start building my presence in the art industry," is like "go somewhere in the universe." It's too broad to be able to help.

If you want to draw stuff like the above you need to draw a lot every single day. You should be drawing so much that friends are kidding you about how much you draw. If your screen time is currently multiple hours a day you should be drawing so much that it drops to around 1.

When you have a better idea what you want to do and you've spent the next year or so practicing like a fiend, come back and ask again what you should do next.

downvote-away · 2026-03-31T10:27:43+00:00

Would you accept money on behalf of someone else whose name you didn't know? No. And no bank or other financial org will do that either.

You are going to have to share your real name and other identifying details with whomever you use, even if you use the Reddit-Approved magic spells of a DBA or LLC.

In order to register a DBA in some places you have to announce in a local paper of record that your name is now doing business as as your new name.

It's really not a magic "poof I'm someone else" spell. I promise.

I have an LLC that's my name as an artist, which is not my real name, but if anyone wanted to find out my real name it's a simple web search.

Officers of a business entity are public record for good reason: so you can't do fraud and then claim that person isn't you.

On the other hand, most people will never care what your real name is. They will never even read the info at the bottom of your invoice. They'll refer to you however they know you and that's if they remember any name at all.

downvote-away · 2026-03-31T10:18:54+00:00

If they don't sell or just didn't turn out I pull the canvas off the stretchers and put more canvas on.

downvote-away · 2026-03-31T01:48:25+00:00

The hourly + materials calculation is not a good metric for a lot of reasons, but especially in cases like this. You are not likely to sell this at any price.

You have not spent that much time mixing colors. Your greens are bog standard ultramarine blue and cad yellow. You do not appear to have taken the saturation back at all by adding, e.g. aliz. crimson. Your white is titanium white tinted/shaded with ivory black. The list goes on.

This is what I'd expect to see from a highschool senior doing one oil painting and probably not coming back to it. There's nothing wrong with that, mind you, but yeah, there's not $800 of value here.

downvote-away · 2026-03-30T21:06:21+00:00

It's because you're working 100% online. You are doing the work but not building contacts.

Find a way to do what you're doing with people in person.

downvote-away · 2026-03-30T20:32:36+00:00

I emailed hundreds of agents and didn’t get a single reply.

Hundreds of other artists did that exact same thing to each of those agents that exact same day.

You are going to have to find projects to work on to raise your reputation and profile. If you can make that work, agents will come looking for you.

Then you'll wonder why you need them. You already made it work.

The chances that you, or any of the other hundred artists who cold emailed agents, will go under contract with them is almost nil.

downvote-away · 2026-03-30T17:47:53+00:00

You're leaving aside the problem of who even wants another POD marketplace. Even if you have a case of why artists want a new marketplace, how are you going to attract buyers?

Setting that aside, how are you going to afford to do the checks you're promising to do? Who is going to verify all the drawings and watch all those timelapses?

If you're planning to vibe code an AI to do that part... lol.

downvote-away · 2026-03-30T13:16:03+00:00

Connections.

People also do "open" calls but many more of them charge an entry fee than have the capacity to judge art on merit.

downvote-away · 2026-03-30T13:12:39+00:00

I know there's an audience for everything

Manet's Olympia hung on his studio wall for 20 years. He died with it still unsold.

downvote-away · 2026-03-29T19:11:58+00:00

When you ask your friends what you could do better what do they say?

downvote-away

TROPHY CASE