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Hi, wonderful humans. Welcome to another episode of the Curated Muse podcast. In this episode, we are going to talk about when is it time to raise the prices of your artwork? And this question was prompted by actually an artist that we work with at Poetic Tiger Gallery who sent me a message actually today. And I thought, well, this is a great topic for a podcast. So if that artist is listening, we want to thank them for encouraging this podcast episode. So typically when we're thinking about pricing, it's often about how much should I price my work? Where do I sit? Do I price high? Do I price low? Do I price different based on galleries versus selling on my own? But a lot of people also don't think about it until they get into the art industry and they start selling about when is it time to actually raise your rates? Artists don't want to be selling artwork at the same price for the rest of their life. If they're selling work and they have a career and they're doing well, then they have to think about raising their prices. Who doesn't want to make more money for making art? People think art is just easy. But I think any artist that's listening to this would agree with us that making art is hard. It's a lot of work. And promoting work and selling work is also just as hard. It is a tough business. And we want you to get paid properly for it. That being said, when is it time? When should you raise your prices? So the question that I always ask artists first is, are you selling your work or are you not selling your work? So let's take 10 pieces of art. If you make 10 pieces of art in a row, are you selling 8 to 10 of them or are you selling 2 of them? If you're only selling two of them, that would tell me that raising your prices are probably not something you want to think about right now. If you're selling your work a lot and you're selling out of most of your work, then it might be time to consider that. The reason why I say that you don't want to raise your prices when you're not selling is because really the focus shouldn't be about your prices. Raising your prices isn't going to make people buy your work more. but it's more about you looking at securing more collectors so that you can raise your prices over time. The more that your work is collected, the more opportunity you will have to ask for higher prices. So if you're not selling a lot of work right now, you have to think, is it because I need to work harder on my style? I need to work harder on my voice? Do I have my own voice? Am I creating partnerships online or with galleries or collectives or within my local community? so that I do get more exposure. So those are some of the things you wanna think about if you're only selling a couple paintings out of the 10 that you're trying to sell. But if you are on the other side of it, and let's say you make 10 paintings and you're selling between eight and 10 of them and you're selling them like crazy, you're selling them by yourself or through galleries or through local events, then it would be time to consider raising your prices. The market has spoken and people are willing to buy your work and they're buying a lot of your work. But when you are going to raise your price, the number one thing that you have to consider is if you raise your prices you cannot take them back down. And of course you can do anything with your prices you want. I don't necessarily mean you can't because you can't. I mean, it actually will affect you negatively. And the reason is, is because when you up your prices and let's say you go from selling out all the time to upping your prices, maybe too high, then If you then bring them back down, people that bought that work at the price range much higher than you were selling before are going to feel a little bummed about that. It kind of hurts your collector base, and it also hurts the value of your work. A good example is going to an electronics store, and you buy some electronic for, let's say,$2,000. But a week later, They're selling it for$1,500. That does not feel good. And of course, they do price matching and all that nonsense. But think about it from a collector's experience. Let's say the majority of your collectors are spending$1,500 on pieces, but all of a sudden you start pricing them at$2,000 and you're not getting but maybe a collector here or there. Then you realize it's a bad idea. Like, oh man, I was selling out those pieces left and right, but now that I've raised my pieces over$500, I'm really not getting as many sales. So it'd be better to go lower and make a lot more sales than go higher and make very little sales. So then you want to drop your prices. But if you do, anybody who purchased them at that higher price point is going to feel not so great about that. because it's like they paid$500 more for something that was really only worth$1,500. So you have to think about when you up your prices to do it incrementally slowly and in a way that's going to benefit you so you don't price yourself out of the collectors that you've already secured or potential other collectors that have been watching your work. Because remember, even though people are collecting your work, there are also others that are probably watching you and watching your work and might wanna invest later. So it's not just the buyers currently, it's also your potential future buyers. And when you think about upping your prices, like I said, don't jump up$500. Jump up$100. And after a few months, if that's going good for you, then consider maybe bumping it$50 to$100 again. Do it slowly. Don't scare people. You know, you don't want your art to just stop selling because you've all of a sudden price gouged people and they're like, whoa, this is way too expensive. And we saw this with an artist recently who took their work from one price and and upped it almost four times the price in which their work was before. And it stopped selling. because the artist got a little greedy. Now, it's understandable if you're selling out all the time to want to maximize the ability to make money on your work and up those prices, but do it thoughtfully. Do it with respect to yourself and also respect to your collectors and those that support you. Make sure that they can come along with you and don't all of a sudden be shocked at what's happening. Now, of course, if you are like selling out like gangbusters and you can go and up your prices four times the amount and you're selling out like crazy, well, go for it. I would never encourage somebody to not take their success to the highest level in which they could. But most artists are going to have success in a gradual, incremental type of motion. It's just not like an elevator up to the 25th floor. That's just not going to happen for most people. As we know, some people get lucky and good for them, but that's not the way the world typically works for everybody. So I hope that this was helpful in having a better understanding of when you should up your prices, how it could affect your career, and also what So it's my hope that this podcast was helpful when you're trying to navigate where you are with pricing your work. I think it's so important for artists to value themselves and price themselves accordingly. But I also think it's just as important to price yourself in a place where collectors will start adopting your work so that you can grow. You want to make sure that you're calculated and you're thoughtful and everything that you do for your career is going to benefit you in the long run. All right, so that is the end of this episode. I will be doing episodes here coming up on pricing your work in general. And also, when you're a new artist, how do you even consider pricing your work out the gate? Because there's, again, a lot of variables. So look for those and other podcasts coming up soon. I also have some lectures and talks that I'm going to be doing that I can't wait to share with you. There's so much going on. And there's new stuff over at Hyperlux Magazine. A new issue is coming out, so September 2nd, a new show opening at Poetic Tiger Gallery. That is, I believe on the 9th of August, Victoriana, one of my favorite themes. And I will see you guys again in another episode very soon.