My brand new small business

robatwork

To be honest I wouldn't consider paying more than £50 for what you just specified. Not sure you can make a living given the time you will need to put into each one and the expense of those frames.

paddyrg

I'm also wondering if your business will actually scale well as it sounds like it might cap out at sustenance levels, with such high costs, and you are limiting some of the very personal taste options like the frame to high material cost ones. You may also inadvertantly limit your supply, which could cause you problems later.

I'm sure the pictures are great, and maybe you do have something people will pay for, but you'll need to strip a load of cost out if framing and postage account for say £30 or more (allowing for reprints and damages and lost orders and so on), and need some sort of approvals process before printing (so dealing with people and time), which means doing some of the Photoshop work on spec before getting approval...

So, stripping costs - why do 4 characters, could you do one large one instead? Choice of frames too, maybe? Look at robust, low labour packaging and find a courier who'll actually carry frames without leaving you uninsured, etc. At the moment, £89.99 sounds like reverse pricing, so may leave you profitless.

If you do want to post pics, by the way, leave some spaces in the URLs and people can reassemble links if they choose

looknohands

I'd personally pay Quentin Blake £1000 to draw a picture of my kid (though i'd imagine he's more expensive than that). Really it depends on your profile, and the style of your work.

I have a lot of friends who are relatively unknown illustrators, they sell pieces on Etsy for around £50, these vary from ceramics to custom fabrics etc, an illustrator I know does custom water colour paintings of peoples pets for £100+, these are paintings not prints quite small, but she sells well.

An illustrator Mr Bingo was doing a project where he sent custom hand drawn postcards with offensive images on to people called 'Hate Mail' loads of people bought them (I did) for £30 a pop and now he's published two books with them in that sell like hot cakes. He had a huge profile before he did this work, he'd worked for big commercial clients such as the New Yorker.

Assuming you're an unknown illustrator I think you need to build a profile and promote your work everywhere before you'll make much money from this, get on Instagram, twitter etc set up a store and keep pushing your product showing people what you can do, if it's good enough it will sell.

I'd like to see some images, but even if they are amazing that's just the start, starting a business selling illustration is all about self promotion and building a following.

Savvy_Sue

You can put your website in your profile, but you can't shout about it being there. See the forum rules if in doubt.

soolin

Can you get anything out there in time for Christmas , smaller items perhaps with a compromise on the frame (Ikea do some lovely bleached beech ones that can be painted). Then perhaps build up a few customers that can recommend you and who perhaps might be persuaded to like you on facebook and post your shop page on their own page? Then in the New year if you've made any money use that to go with the full blown idea?

The downside would be you would need to register with HMRC sooner rather than later, but at least you can start accounting for some of your set up costs.

Wet_Weekend

lowndsy wrote: »

Hi folks. I have been a long time lurker, but recently I have been turning to this forum to read us as I launched my own business, so I thought now it is live I would run it past you and ask an important question.

I won't post the link because I don't know if that's allowed, but basically I sell super customised gifts aimed at kids and their parents. With just a few photographs I turn your little one into fantastical characters like an Astronaut or Fairy Princess. Each gift contains 4 separate characters in a really nice frame. It is meant as a special gift for events like Christenings or landmark Birthdays.

My question is around the sale price - with a quality frame and the amount of work that goes into each gift I have to charge £89.99 (free P&P). The odd discount is possible, but as a RRP how does that sit with you?

Thanks,
Steve

I'd suggest an RRP of £189.99 ... and then you can offer punters a ton discount
Stand by for the rush, what with Christmas and all...!

Newtonj

Would there be a market perhaps to convert the art you have done into say wallpaper or border for a kids room?

I think personalised kids books are becoming more popular and affordable too.

My gut instinct is £90 is a high price point for a framed picture.

sequence

I think it could work if you can find the right customers (ie, not MSE cheapskates ). There are plenty of similar items that command a high prices. Finding the right customers will be key. Is there no way you can outsource some of the work to cheaper countries, through freelance websites ?