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Reward

This page looks at limited edition prints, we don't here look at marketing originals, artist then get a far larger share of the single price. A limited edition however often earns a larger amount for the artist than the original.

With the prices that art prints sell at and with a franchise marketing network set up to promote them, you might get the idea that artists were all about to become extremely wealthy.

On this page I want to explain how the pie is cut up and what slice each of the many people involved gets.

There are a number of prices involved, so lets first explore these.

There is the price the client pays. If purchased from a gallery this is about 2.5 times the cost the gallery bought it at plus vat. So about three times the galleries purchase price. So if the gallery paid £200 the client has ended up paying £600.

The trade price, this is what the gallery would buy a print at. So in the above example £200.

The publishers received price. This is about half the above trade price, 45% of the trade price is used up in the discounts to franchises and 5% in supporting brand coordinators, and other parts of the promotional structure. So in the above example £100, or there about.

Out of this the publisher has to pay for the production and despatch, and a number of other costs, as well as recovering investment put into the brand and to setting up and training all involved. Given that you could not go to a framing shop and get work produced to the standard that we insist upon at anything like the budget available here, let alone cover other costs, you can see only by commissioning wisely and buying well, can a profit be produced, and then only when volume is involved.

The artists royalty. Like authors and some others, published artists usually are paid a percentage royalty, and this is usually based upon publishers receipts. This may vary slightly between brands but is around 6%. While this does not look a large amount, you have to remember that you have no costs associated with the production, and no risk. And if your edition is out of 500 then you stand to make 500x6% on this image and on each other one. Even at this price it means you are getting around £3,000 per image published over time. Of course many images will start at a higher figure and therefore everything down the line, including the artists royalties are larger.

Comparing this with other publishers, the royalties are about the same, but as the quality is higher and framing always involved, the artists royalties are on a higher amount including framing, so the artist gets more. With increased sales this is also improved.

So who stands to get the largest slice.

Of each individual sale the local art consultants (franchises) take by far the lions share.

Look at our example again, the local area franchisee is getting the edition with a 45% discount so at £110, if selling at an exhibition he has put on, he may sell at a lower rate than galleries say at twice trade, therefore £400, making £290 profit. The consultant may make 10 to 30 sales of this type, some at a higher price and therefore larger margin over an exhibition lasting a day or two. He however has the costs of putting it on, promoting it and delivering and often hanging the work for the client.

Everyone else in the chain makes a far smaller percentage but over time probably on far more sales.

When we first started to look at putting this project together it was to be an artists co-operative, with all members both putting in work and selling work. Where this would have failed would have been that artists generally are far more interested in creating work than selling it.

If however you are one of the artists that would have enjoyed servicing clients, helping them to choose the right works of art and helping them to hang them then the answer is to look further into the franchise opportunities on the local team. The franchises are probably unique in that they have no franchise fees.

GB Pictures is a non profit company, a company limited by guarantee with no shareholders.

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Images on this website are from one of our brands - Camera-Images.