I’m already tired of summer – take me back to Cape Cod with Ice!

When I teach my marketing class, one of the biggest sources of stress is how to price your work. Mostly, I’m pretty relaxed about this. However, I personally have come to a place where I have to reevaluate my pricing strategy. And so here’s my thinking.

I was told by someone incredibly smart who runs her own marketing sessions – Jessica Burko (take her marketing class!) that there are two things that might make me think about raising prices. The first is if you sell out of most of your work and are bringing out new pieces. The second is if you get a gallery or some other representation where there is a piece of the total taken out as commission.

Both of these are true for me. I have sold through a lot of pieces in the past few months after my New York Times article and, in addition, several of my other pieces have been taken on loan so they are out of circulation. I have been working feverishly to replenish my “stock” but now I have to think about whether they should go out at the same price point.

To add to this, I’m trying to get my work into NYC more often and have been continually told that my prices are too low for this market.

To make things simple for me (and for the viewing public), I price by size. In fact, there are pieces that are the exact same size that may take very different amounts of time. So it can be frustrating to have them priced the same (from my perspective). But another teacher told me that you have to come to a place where the price works for both pieces. You may lose something on the piece that took “forever” but you’ll gain it on the other piece. And I think that works for me as well.

I read elsewhere about an artist who automatically ups their prices %15 every year right after their big annual sale. Their customers know that the prices are going up and they take advantage of the opportunity at the big sale.

Because galleries take between 40 and 50 percent of the total price of the piece, if I were to receive what I’m making now on my work, I’d need to raise my prices that much. And to raise my prices to the NYC market rates could price myself out of the Boston market. Neither of these seem like workable options. So I have to find a happy medium.

I am looking at the 15% or 25% raise at this point. So after Jamaica Plain Open Studios and Roslindale Open Studios in the fall, all of my prices will go up. I don’t know what effect this will have but I will certainly write about it. During Open Studios, I’ll have a sign saying that the prices are going up in November. For my smaller pieces, a 15% difference won’t really be that dramatic ($100 would go to $115, for example). But for my larger framed pieces, it will be noticeable ($1100 to $1265). If I bring the raise up to 25%, the larger pieces go from $1100 to $1375 which doesn’t seem that much in comparison with other paintings of the same size. So I’m going back and forth on it. I don’t think I’d do a 25% rise annually so that may factor into the decision.

Any thoughts? I’d love to hear them.

Finally, in Boston it’s over 900 degrees. Come back winter!!!