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I’ve decided I can’t keep up with my original plan for the year of creating 1 or 2 ATC cards per day to sell on EBAY when I prefer doing Windstones anyway. Plus, postage has become more of an expense too now, which irks me. Sending someone two cards is going to cost me .62! All because I won’t skimp on the card holders. That, and when I add the EBay listing fee of .95 and my materials and time…eh, I’m better off doing Windstones. So anyway, here’s my latest and probably last listing for ACEOs for a while. I’ll keep doing cards but probably geared more for sale at MFF con in November.
I just spent $25 on two cards! You have to be making SOME money! 😆 I do think the PYOs are much more lucrative, though they do take ALOT more time.
I do plan to make more moving tail kitsune cards…just haven’t been able to put the extra time in while painting Windstones Too. Moving parts cards always take much longer to do, though I do plan to do more and also make moving prints of the ones I already did. So if you’d like prints, Lamortefille, just let me know in the meantime.
Also, yes I have made some decent money on cards when you look at it as a lump sum of extra funds, especially when people buy more than one (Thanks Ski!) and I can save on the shipping…when the post office isn’t a jerk. Sorry Ski, I need to re-ship your cards because I didn’t put enough postage on apparently. I know it seems like a minor thing, but it normally takes me about 2-3 hours for these cards each, and almost double that for anything that moves or is especially detailed, so I try to get a profit of at least $8 on any card priced $10 for sale, $12 for anything priced $15, etc. At the end of figuring all this out, I realize I can be doing better things with my time by painting more Windstones, and saving more of my original cards to sell direct to people at a convention where I don’t have to ship or loose money to EBay.
Maybe I just seem greedy but I’ve come to realize I’ve really been putting myself out there and not taking into consideration what I should sell for. I’ve always been the type of artist that would take whatever money I could get even if it means $3 or less per hour but I really decided that this year I would try to be more professional and not sell myself short like that. I really have to gear myself towards areas where I can make at least minimum wage. That’s my OTHER goal for the year…to make at least minimum wage off art. And if I cannot meet that seemingly simple task, to go find a job somewhere and just do art as a hobby. This is my deciding year. It’s really scary for me, but it is what it is.
I won’t be stopping making the cards by any means, but I won’t do them every day when I could be doing something more lucrative. I’ll do the cards on days I don’t feel like painting and spend more time making more moving part cards and not focus so much on quantity.
The post office really got to me when Ski’s cards came back at me. I re-evaluated everything. The holders I put them in don’t cost much since I bought them all in super bulk…so like 5 cents each…and they are awesome nice holders but I guess they weigh more than the post office would like, so I can only ship one of those in an envelope, not two or more, for the standard postage weight. What gives! I sure won’t skimp on those holders though. And to think USPS will be raising its rates yet again soon…
But if anybosy wants to try making cards to sell, please do! Making the cards is really fun to do on the side and can give you some extra pocket change if you don’t mind what the cards go for or don’t have a set goal or anything, lol. SO give it a shot. Tons of artists sell cards on Ebay.
Wow, that got long-winded…sorry guys.
Yeah, there is a careful balancing act of charging enough without charging too much. Again it comes down to people not understanding how much time and effort it takes to do art, and what it’s like supplying all your needs with your freelance work. I say, if they think it’s so easy and fast, then why don’t they do it themselves? Good for you in deciding to accept no less than minimum wage; that is definitely within your right as a working artist!
Even the art of layout and design suffers from this. I am considered on the cheap end of the scale at $30-$40 per hour (most pro designers charge $65-$75 per hour–this is all Canadian by the way) yet I still get the attitude that I should be doing it for $10-$15 per hour… heck, why not for free, for that matter?! It’s not like I get to pocket a whole $40 for every hour’s work. Computers need purchasing, maintenance, and software; the office needs electricity, cleaning, and repair and furnishing; there’s printing/repro, shipping and gas costs; paperwork needs to get done (by me or someone I would otherwise hire); I have medical bills, and an investment/savings plan… all in all, I probably see $10-$15 per hour if I’m lucky, and that’s LESS than what an entry-level production/prepress tech can expect to be paid (with benefits tacked on, to boot!) with a good publisher or print shop in my area. I do design AND prepress, for that matter. And, my job is not full-time or guaranteed work, so I don’t get paid for nearly as many hours (doesn’t help that I work exceptionally fast and accurate, either).
There’s a whole lot more than just the costs of the materials and production time in any venture of course. And people with a full-time job just don’t seem to see the extra value of everything else they are entitled to when comparing their wages to a freelancer/contractor. So again, good on ya if you choose to uphold your rights to decent pay, especially as an artist. You do well by every artist by refusing to yield, and charging a fair rate for yourself.
Well I am certainly relieved to hear you are not stopping all together! 😀 Sorry about the PO… they can be a PITA. 😕 I love your cards and they look perfect in person. I will be on the lookout!
DigitalDragon wrote:…yet I still get the attitude that I should be doing it for $10-$15 per hour… heck, why not for free, for that matter?! It’s not like I get to pocket a whole $40 for every hour’s work. Computers need purchasing, maintenance, and software; the office needs electricity, cleaning, and repair and furnishing; there’s printing/repro, shipping and gas costs; paperwork needs to get done (by me or someone I would otherwise hire); I have medical bills, and an investment/savings plan… all in all, I probably see $10-$15 per hour if I’m lucky, and that’s LESS than what an entry-level production/prepress tech can expect to be paid (with benefits tacked on, to boot!) with a good publisher or print shop in my area. I do design AND prepress, for that matter. And, my job is not full-time or guaranteed work, so I don’t get paid for nearly as many hours (doesn’t help that I work exceptionally fast and accurate, either).
I’m there with you, though I make considerably less. I’m lucky to see $3-5/hr after all is said and done.
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My art: featherdust.comYeah to be honest I’m not sure how much I ultimately make, that’s just an estimate on my part. I seem to have enough to just pay bills, and that’s all that matters to me!
I used to not keep really great records myself but over the past few months it’s become my new thing, and now I KNOW, painfully in some cases, how much I make and I think you really SHOULD know what you make. And I know about book layouts…don’t get me started!
Yeah it’s definitely the only way to determine what to charge. I did my calculations on what I would need to charge sometime ago, hence why I can’t remember. 😉 My financial needs are probably different since then as well. Apparently, $50/hr would have cut it, but I wanted to make sure I stayed on par with what others were charging as well. I should redo my calculations to make sure I’m still doing well.
Even more off topic, and not to ‘get you started’, but did you do some of your own layouts, Water? I remember ‘Moki Macaroni’ and ‘Pig and a Pug’ (and one other one of your own, with the coyotes I think) when I was working at Trafford, but I think those were in-house layouts for the authors in the first two cases (you’d know better than I ;). At any rate, I wasn’t in charge of the production for those, but I remember checking over the scans and layouts.
Wait, you WORK at Trafford?! I didn’t know that! Maybe you told me but I can’t remember. How awesome! All the layouts for books I have done for other authors are layouts I did with the exception of one, “Frieda and Friends.” All the rest I did. The worst one was for “Run, Rasputin Run” because I did an entire layout for that novel for only $15 a chapter…which later came out to me spending days upon days doing that layout with all the images inset and all. However, I design the layout but then Trafford has to follow that. So they sorta re-do the layout as I design it. Now I charge a flat rate of $200 per children’s book for layout which includes an electronic layout page-by-page and the hard-copy layout mock-up.
Well, ‘worked’ at Trafford (sorry if it wasn’t clear). I first mentioned it briefly in my introductory post in the Community section, and it was promptly buried in other posts, so that’s probably why you missed it. That or I worded it ambiguously. 😉
Yeah, I worked there for almost three years, and left just over two years ago to do the freelance thing. I was the third technician to be hired on there (they had only one or two for a long time) so I was one of the senior tech ‘oldies’ who was there since the ‘early’ days. Quite a few more than three techs there nowadays!
But yeah, I suddenly realised who you were when you listed your book titles several months ago! Small world indeed. 😉
Yeah, unless the books came in all laid out in InDesign and were perfectly ready to go, we would construct the complete layout based on your mock-up. Oh yeah, and often scanned peoples’ big@$$ oversized artwork on a tiny scanner *LOL*. I wondered if you had to do the production part as well (all the typesetting, scan and colour adjusting, file output, etc). That’s the tedious and tricky part.
Ah, yet again we get to all gripe about how awful it is to try and make a living at art.
And it is! It was kind of funny seeing the “sticker shock” at the convention when somebody looked at the $60 tails. And yet $60 is SO VERY CHEAP for something like that. ($60 is the price for my extra-jumbo poofy fox tails, which are nearly as wide as your butt. Unless you have an extra-jumbo butt, that is.)
Anyhow… even though this doesn’t pay all that well, ti pays more than some things I’ve done, and is definitely more fun. So I’ll be sticking with it anyhow. And the ones who go “ZOMG! That’s sooooooooooooooooo expensive!” can just not buy anything from me. Their loss!
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