ninety percent of photographers will
never sell a physical print of one of
their photos and it's not because they
don't try it's because they choose to
take the hardest road possible to sell
their work and i know from my own
experience because i chose this path and
later in my career i realized i didn't
have to make it this difficult to sell
prints see most photographers want to be
an artist they idealized the lifestyle
and the passion of the steven shores the
joelle meyerwitz the alex webbs with the
goal to create the most loved and
received work possible that stands the
test of time sadly most of us will never
become this legendary artist modern
camera technology the internet social
media it's just a different time if
you're an artist with a camera and i
know that's really depressing to think
about if you choose to see the glass as
half empty but if you choose to see the
glass as half full the internet provides
you with a massive opportunity for you
to sell everything that you're creating
and the best part
no one even has to know who you are big
thank you to shipstation for sponsoring
today's video head over to
shipstation.com evan to start a free
60-day trial so looking back on my photo
career in 2014 and 15 i had possibly the
most lucrative opportunity for me to
actually make money as a creative
business but unfortunately i made the
mistake of trying so hard to be an
artist this is hands down the best quick
tip i have for you all in 2022 and that
is if you're a photographer stop trying
so hard to be an artist especially if
your goal is to make money you need to
start thinking like a business and shift
your mindset a little bit you see most
people are so upset right now at
instagram and social media because they
believe it is holding photographers back
from marketing themselves they believe
they're never going to be able to sell
prints sell presets or do anything with
their career now because instagram is
not showing photos to people so we have
to call a spade a spade here and this is
going to sound brutally honest but it's
the truth social media platforms are
designed to keep people on their app the
algorithms show people what they want to
see what they find interesting and if
you are posting your creative work and
people are not interacting with it
they're not engaging with it they're not
seeing it you have to read that as
people do not care about what i'm
creating now before you get butt hurt
and hung up on that last statement and
getting my comments all upset at me hear
me out it might not be that people don't
care about the things that you're
creating it might be that they don't
care about you as an artist there might
not be an audience for all of your
creative expression but they might care
about one or two particular things i
think we all know that on social media
accounts when you post a specific
type of thing that you know is going to
hit with your audience you see more
engagement and that right there is the
biggest problem that artists have when
it comes to making money they have a
difficulty distinguishing between their
artistic integrity and what they want to
create
versus what is going to do well as a
business and what is going to serve a
particular audience you see no business
is going to be able to cater to everyone
i've actually worked at businesses
before as a photographer that had this
model and it was a complete disaster so
if you're a photographer out there
interested in making money with your
creativity you need to ask yourself this
important question who is my audience
who am i creating things for who is
going to buy these prints that i create
you see a business has to start from a
place where it serves one specific group
and serves them very well look at nike
for example nike is a massive brand at
this point but nike started with simply
track shoes and then they expanded to
all the products that we know and love
from them today but they started with
one basic shoe with one basic goal and
if you are a photographer out there
interested in making money you need to
start distinguishing who you are as an
artist versus who you are as a business
and who you are serving and what that
one thing you are going to do well is
and one of the beautiful things about
selling prints to a particular audience
and starting a creative business is you
don't have to sacrifice your artistic
integrity you can be an artist on
instagram and post whatever you want but
you can also create a page or create a
website around a creative business that
serves one particular audience here's a
good example of how you could reframe
some of your thinking you're an artist
who occasionally posts photos of old
vintage cars and you realize that every
time you post one of these old vintage
car photos you get higher engagement and
more people seem to interact with your
page there's clearly an audience for
this particular type of photography so
you create a separate instagram
dedicated only to vintage car photos you
also create a website dedicated only to
selling prints of vintage car photos for
people's homes for people's garages for
people's office anyone who is interested
in these vintage car photos so now you
are going from an artist who
occasionally creates photography around
vintage cars to being that artist plus a
business that serves the particular
audience of people who are only
interested in vintage car photos now you
have the ability to target this
particular audience with everything that
you do on social media your website and
with advertising you see in that example
people don't have to know who you are
they don't care all they're interested
in is owning this cool vintage car photo
for their home and you're removing the
extra step of them having to actually
buy into you as an artist to subscribe
to your page to your website where
you're only occasionally sharing this
one type of thing that they're
interested in they can just follow your
business page they don't care who you
are and they see vintage car photos
every single day which is what they want
you're finding your specific audience
and for a business to actually work
people need to understand what it is
that you are providing and that leads me
to the massive mistake that i made in
2014 and 2015 when it came to my
personal brand and me trying so hard to
be an artist but before we get into that
i want to thank the sponsor on today's
video ship station so along with selling
photo prints i also sell my photo books
on evanramf.com as well as my merch on
1826.com and regardless of what you plan
to sell online you are going to run into
the same problems as me the biggest one
being shipping years ago i was spending
so much time in lines at the post office
as well as handwriting every single
address on orders that came in that all
changed when i found shipstation
shipstation makes processing orders
quick and efficient with their easy to
use and easy to learn user interface and
shipstation is already trusted by over a
hundred thousand e-commerce sellers and
they're now available in the uk
australia and canada shipstation easily
integrates with almost all website
hosting platforms out there including
the platform that i've made multiple
tutorials with on this youtube channel
so whatever you want to use ship station
for whether it's your creative business
or just avoiding all the problems that
come with the post office they're
hooking up everyone on this channel with
a 60-day free trial just go to
shipstation.com
ship more in less time for a lot less
money that's a 60-day free trial at
shipstation.com
evan so in 2014 and 2015 when i started
growing my name as an artist and growing
my brand on social media i did
everything right except
one thing and there's one thing i got
wrong left so much money on the table
and could be a business that is still
operating to this day had i done these
steps so my plan in 2014 and 15 my
mission was to create atlanta
photography that was finally interesting
this mission got inspired by me going to
a bookstore and seeing all the atlanta
books having boring photography i was
like why is no one making atlanta cool
the city was growing people were very
interested in the city at the time and i
wanted to do something fresh so i had
the mission i had the inspiration for
what i was trying to do and i knew the
audience that i was trying to attract to
what i was trying to do was people
interested in atlanta people who lived
in the city people who were going to
school in the city working in the city
participating in all the events all the
growth that was happening in the city so
from there every action that i took had
the intention of capturing the specific
audience of people interested in this
new perspective on atlanta cityscape
photography so i was posting on social
media frequently i was networking with
all the right people i was going to
events trying to meet people in person
and my plan it worked i started to get
recognition as an artist in atlanta i
did something new something that people
had not done before and i got recognized
for it the problem and the thing that i
missed out on was capitalizing on the
potential business in this audience that
i was growing you see as an artist
eventually i got sick of doing atlanta
cityscape photography like all creative
people do that wave of inspiration wore
off and i moved on to things like street
photography and youtube and that's where
a lot of you found me in 2017.
but back in 2014 and 15 all i needed to
do was set up a website titled
atlantaphotoprints.com
and i needed to create an instagram as
well where i could share the photos from
atlanta that might not have made it to
my main feed or as an artist when i
stopped having that inspiration to do
atlanta cityscape photography i could
continue to post atlanta city photos to
this other account and with this website
atlantaphotoprints.com the audience of
people that i was building in atlanta
who was interested in this atlanta
cityscape photography could be served
long after my creative inspiration as an
artist wore off people could still be
buying photo prints from this website
today and they also at the time that i
was primarily posting a lot of atlanta
photos could have bought a print every
single time i posted an image think
about how great of a business this would
be every single time i shared an image
to my instagram as i was growing this
brand there was a caption at the bottom
saying link in bio if you want to buy a
print and someone could buy a print of
every single image that i was creating
but i never did something like this
because i was so much more interested in
growing a persona as an artist trying to
keep my prints my work limited than i
was with actually creating a business
that could potentially make a lot more
money than i was capable of making as an
artist and like i said if i had built
this website and set up this business to
sell prints early on when i was building
that initial audience i could still be
serving that audience today you see it
wouldn't matter that the photos were
made by evan rant or made by a
particular artist they're just photos of
atlanta for people who are on social
media and on the internet looking for
photos of atlanta and potentially
wanting prints of atlanta for their home
and not to mention all the missed out
opportunities when it comes to
searchability anytime someone searches
atlanta photo print they can potentially
find my website and all the e-commerce
abilities that you have with running ads
on social media as well as tick tock i
could have built an entire business
around atlanta specific photo prints
serving an atlanta specific audience but
i didn't because i was so worried about
being an artist but who knows i might
still do that idea here one day when i
finally have the time for it but if you
want to steal it by all means and if you
want to take that model and apply it to
the city that you live in the place that
you live in the thing that you're doing
i highly recommend it stop worrying so
much about being an artist and focus on
being a creative business if your goal
is to make money maybe be an artist as a
hobby and maybe be a business as a
profession and if you create something
that serves a very specific group of
people with prints of the photography
that you're creating you will make money
and you'll be out of that ninety percent
of photographers who never actually make
a sale