Thinking about pricing my own art was something that up until now was a dreaded and despicable thing.
I hated everything about it. In the past, I’d rather drink a gallon of sour milk than assess my own self-worth as an artist.
Pricing my own art was mostly a problem of self-esteem. And to be honest, I never had a lot of that to begin with. I don’t understand the roots of low self-esteem (if I did, I wouldn’t be writing this), but it is definitely something that is horrible and damaging. I made up my mind that I would find a way to solve this problem in 2020. I did solve it and I’d like to share with you how I managed this. First I’m going to outline the core problems, then at the end give you my own solution.
Problem of Pricing My Own Art:
Trying to slap a number on something that I do naturally seemed completely absurd. I have struggled with this for my entire life. I think it’s because I never went to art school, am completely self-taught and I discovered drawing by accident as an adult during college. Before then, I had classified myself into the “I can’t draw” camp. I thought I had to be “special” to consider myself an artist.
I'm also a perfectionist, and I struggled with perfectionism for most of my adult life. These things are all related. It’s also part of the reason why I start many paintings/projects and rarely finish them. Finishing something feels like a sort of death to me. It’s the end of the dream. It’s the end of the the possibility of it ever being “perfect”. I know better now though. I have identified my core problem of never finishing projects as something I’m going to master this year. And I am already doing much better in this area. Now I force myself to finish stuff.
Ok, now that you have a background on my psychological makeup, let’s delve into how I solved pricing my own art. For me, I can tell when I ‘put my all’ into something or when I make something on impulse. These are two different types of art and require two different pricing tiers. I price my impulse art cheaply, and my “all in” art much higher.
Example of NFT made on impulse (this one ended up selling for .2 ETH though):
Elite Trash
1/1
Sold for .2 ETH
Example of putting my all into an NFT which sold for 2 ETH:
THE NFT
1/1
Sold for 2 ETH
https://makersplace.com/metapurse/the-nft-1-of-1-36175/
When I first started minting my art, I kind of lost my mind and minted a shit ton of crap art. I literally had impulses, and just minted them. In short, I went crazy and wasn’t thinking too rationally. I’m still going to allow myself this freedom, but I am going to be very specific about where I mint my different kinds of art now. On the curated platforms like Makersplace, I’m going to mint only my absolute best work. On Rarible and NFT Showroom, I’m going to mint anything I want, even so-called crap art. I want my cryptoart to be accessible, so I always want to have a variety of prices.
But let’s get back to the topic. I’d like to show you some examples of how I now price my higher quality art, which comes down to these 4 factors:
- How much time I spent on it.
- How I feel about the art piece
- How much of my soul I put into it.
- Is there a complete story contained within it.
If all 4 of these factors are registering as HIGH, I will price it at 2 ETH minimum.
Here’s why: some of my animations take over 30+ hours to create. This is because I paint each frame by hand (on the computer) and then fuse them all together. for some animations I am literally painting 34 different images! This one for THE NFT was composed of 15 images that were run and reversed:
https://makersplace.com/metapurse/the-nft-1-of-1-36175/#
My very first NFT artwork that I decided to price at 2 ETH because I registered very high on all 4 factors:
- How much time I spent on it: 30+ hours and 3 full days
- How I feel about the art piece: I love the blinking eyes and the red drippy tears
- How much of my soul I put into it: A TON
- Is there a complete story contained within it: Yes, it tells the story of how artists bring code to life. Artists breathe emotion into stagnant code. This art shows that in her tears and also her huge heart that goes up and down, over the opensea.io code (her body is made up of code from opensea.io Github)
This NFT is special to me because it was the first time I really felt that I valued my art at 2 ETH.
And once I minted it, I decided that I would not sell it for less than 2 ETH. I was willing to keep it for myself forever if no one bought it for 2 ETH. And I didn’t say this in a hollow way, I actually meant it.
After a few days, I checked Makersplace and I found out that Metapurse had purchased my art for 2 ETH, I was ecstatic! I felt like I found someone else who agreed that it was worth 2 ETH. It was a huge day for me. It was the turning point.
It’s titled THE NFT because it tells the story of how cryptoartists bring to life the code that exists within the NFT itself. Without artists, I think the blockchain would be quite boring. In fact, without artists, life would be incredibly dull.
Once my test turned out successful, I decided to use this 4 point factor test on all my art from here on. I don’t expect it to be successful 100% of the time, but it’s my guide to navigate pricing my own art. My impulse art will be around .1 -.3 ETH, and my higher quality 1/1 animations that take 30+ hours will all be around 2 ETH. I'm focusing now on single editions because my output is pretty high.
Did you write this piece for me? ;<)
It sounds like the story of my life.
I have undervalued myself for such a long time and struggled with lack of self esteem for ages ( still working on it, aged 39 ). I'm also a perfectionist, trying to be the opposite too, who often doesn't finish things.
Like you, I never went to art school ( although I studied film ( theory ) in Uni ) but I have been a creative since I could draw and write. I never felt like an artist though, merely like a struggling creative who didn't manage to make a living on his art and lost his soul and health in non-creative jobs.
Doing better lately but it's a daily fight to make up for decades of suppressing myself and my creative side way too much.
I'm happy to have rediscovered your blog. People like you inspire me!
yeah, i guess i did write it for you and others who are like us. I had to face my perfectionist tendencies today too, as I finally forced myself to finish Chef Nomi, after rewworking it to death........i even tried animating it twice, both times were a fail. So then i finally decided to release it as Augmented Reality...LOL, i am ok with end results, it's not perfect but oh well!
yeah, perfectionism is a real killer for us. I encourage you. to finish things and mint your art. You will learn a lot about what people like and what people don't like.
i suck in priceing any of my work. and i know i need to change that, and i don't. And one of the problems you mentioned, a lot of that feels natural, feels nothing special, and most of the times maybe i am right. especially because people look on photography as, you must have a good camera.
even the quote is most probably fake, it sounds nice (popped in my mind when you said life would be dull with no artist)
Just starting the process is good. it took me ages to find some solutions.
Hi! I experienced the same difficulties in pricing! When I started, I never put a price, just waited for offers. Because I was lucky to be in good community, strictly related of this new for me things a year ago or so, people's asked me to mint the images that I published in it ,withdraw knowing nothing about NFTS. I sold my first token in a 10 min after the minting for value of 5 $ ( the eth price was different)This was my start! I gifted many of my works, just because people supported me in the promotion. After some months I started to publish my art not only in my opensea storefront, but in platforms like Makerplace and Known origin. There the prices and my notoriety risen up,and I started to put prices different, depending of what I minted: only digital and small dimension 3-5 copy works are always lower that traditional art( that were collected by big known collectors) high, and 1 copy art- very high ( I don't like the trend of minting 1 copy only, because the art is born to be seen, not to be in the wallet in one person). Then my prices varies depending of the platform where I minted them. My problem is when my collectors of low range prices want to buy at the same price like in the past. I respect all of my collector's, the whales and the others. And I am entering in conflict = it is too sad for me to reject offers to my old time collectors when some big collectors bought already,because if I accept, my new collectors will feel bad,if I reject- my all time collectors will feel bad...etc.. so I prefer to put always prices.
I am giving a loyalty points ( social tokens) to my collectors and I hope that this will make all of them happy.I am still worried about the difference of the price in the different platforms, so I
am minting my best works in the best promoted platform, and the problem is that in this way,the remaining platforms sells not so often, that is not good in long term, but I will slowly make my prices similar. I noticed that the diffent collectors too have preferences where to buy. This happens when I mint on commission.P.S. I still keep my prices low, because of my low start. This is not problem, I am not avid. I am selling well and because I am all time artist, that makes art all life long, for me the satisfaction of the people's apreciation sometimes is bigger that the income. My strategy is to give chance to everyone to have piece of my art, before the art is not only product to sell, but mainly the pieces of the hearth of the artist. The success will come itself. Thank you for your post!
you're welcome, glad it was useful to you
Its quite give pleasure to be self taught, and perfectionist make all the things better, you psychological attitude already appeared on your art and makeup which definitely impact on a unique signature about your art and lifestyle.
Thank you for sharing your story and suggestions🖤. I think that many artists can feel very connected with those anecdotes; it is interesting to see that i am not the only one who leaves many drawings unfinished or pressurizes me to try to achieve some perfection (although it is not entirely negative, i think that is how we end up improving every day because we love our work).
The issue of setting a price on my work has always been a problem because my emotions begin to mix there and more when i begin to calculate the amount of hrs that took me with my traditional drawings, in many occasions i rejected offers (not in the market nft because i am new there ) because i simply could not set a price on them and i really did not want to lose my drawing forever, this is one of the advantages that i love of cryptoart, i will not lose my original pieces forever.
yeah you are not alone. It's the demons inside that have to be wrestled!