How To Sell Your Fine Art Photography – Interview With Karen Stiles

Through my work as a business coach for photographers, I’ve learned that many of you enjoy creating fine art photography, yet are finding it very difficult to break into the market and develop consistent sales of your work.

In the vast majority of cases, poor sales can not be attributed to substandard work, since the quality of the art that I’ve seen has been nothing short of amazing, and I think it’s a terrible shame that so many of you are struggling when you so obviously have great artistic and technical skills.

So, you can imagine how thrilled I was to discover one photographic artist who actually is enjoying success with her fine art photography. Karen and I first met through the Photography Business & Marketing group on LinkedIn, and I was even more excited when she agreed to an interview with me, to pass on some of her “secrets” and tips on how to market and sell fine art photography!

Introducing Karen Stiles – Fine Art Photographer

Karen chose to follow her dream as a professional fine art and travel photographer, and has studied at San Diego City College since 2007, focusing on the digital arts, nature and landscapes, portraiture, black & white techniques, lighting and the business of photography.

She began her professional career as a sports action photographer for youth soccer, baseball and football. Other projects soon followed, including weddings, lifestyle portraits, fine art landscapes, architecture and journalistic/documentary projects.

Karen has won several awards at national photography competitions since her first entries into the contest environment in 2007. This recognition and consistent sale of her work has inspired her to move forward with her endeavor as an artist.

Karen is the sole-proprietor of Stiles Photography, established in San Diego, California, in January 2009. You can see more of her work at http://www.stilesphoto.com, where you can also find her contact information if you have any specific questions for her that were not covered during the interview.

Marketing And Selling Fine Art Photography

The most important point about selling fine art photography, as with any other genre, is that our photographs will not sell themselves! We still have to have an effective marketing strategy in place, and there is no escaping the sales process, even if you’re selling online to someone you may not meet face to face. Contrary to popular belief, fine art photography can be one of the most challenging types of work to sell, yet so many photographers make the mistake of thinking that it’s going to be easy, and are then disillusioned when the sales don’t materialize.

Karen did a great job of addressing how she markets and sells her work, and how she is making a great living from it. If you follow the same steps and strategies she has, then you have every chance of doing the same.

Site members can listen to this great interview here:

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Thanks for listening, and I hope you were able to get a lot out of it. You may find that you have to listen to this several times to make sure you extract everything you can from it, and I know you will hear new things each time you do.

Here is a link to the great book that Karen mentions in the interview:

Taking The Leap: Building A Career As A Visual Artist by Cay Lang

I would love to know your thoughts on this, and whether you find the interview format useful and interesting. As always, please do leave a comment, and share the article with your friends or anyone you feel might benefit from it.

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