Hang onto your hats...

[bladespark]

...it's rant time!

So I was posting pictures of my flame gryphon everywhere that would allow such a thing to be posted. It's awesome, I must show it off! And, of course, I got a couple of inquiries about my making such a thing for somebody else. I gave my pricing (around $100 for the paint job, $30 for the gryphon. I really ought to charge a bit more, given how long it takes, but painting is a nice break from sewing, so I'm willing to give myself a slightly lower per hour for it than for a fursuit. Should I get enough orders for gryphon paint jobs that it compares in income, things would change, but it's not going to happen.)

Anyhow, the guy who asked originally on one particular forum had the response I expected, which was pretty much "YIKES! Expensive! No thanks." Which was my response exactly upon first seeing Windstones, but eventually I started buying them anyhow because they're just that awesome.

And a guy who I am rapidly starting to despise chimed in with a whole thing about how that's way overpriced. I explained that I must make a living, and painting takes a long time, and said that anybody who doesn't like my prices is more than welcome to go elsewhere. He showed me a photo of some rather nicely painted miniatures of the gaming variety that a friend of his had done him for a mere $50 for a set of five. And, he told me, that painting those took at least as long as my gryphon did! Just so I know, he said, just so I know, I'm not going to sell anything much at those prices when other people are selling for less.

To which my response is pretty much "so what?" I don't want to spend all day painting and drawing. I faced that prospect some time ago, and threw it out the window. That's not what I want to do with my life. My artwork is very, very deliberately overpriced compared to market rates among amatures like myself. (It's dirt cheap compared to a real pro, but I can't pretend to be one of those...) Any decent furry artist can draw you up a character sheet. A few will do it for free! Some rather talented ones will do it, with full color, for as little as $15. I charge $50. Not because I'm better, but because I don't really want to draw character sheets more than once in a blue moon. So far I haven't gotten any, which is fine by me!

Now sewing, that I'm happy to do all day, and in fact I throw in free character art with any fursuit, should the customer need it. Because I want my business to do well, and the small touches, the free extras, really make a difference in repeat business and reputation spreading.

Same thing with painting. If I sell a PYO gryphon once every few months, I'll be quite pleased. That's about right, really. If I wanted to move a lot of them, I could probably go for $50 a paint job, and get a lot of business, but I'd have to slave away painting all day in order to make the same profit I now make from sewing on a non-slaving schedule. And as every minute I'm painting is a minute that I'm not sewing, why shouldn't I price my time comparably? Sure, I'll get very few orders that way, but that's not exactly hurting me. There are other things I like more, and can get more for.

It's something I think of a "personal economics." The price I charge for an item is based on my own personal sliding scale. Materials costs go in there. Time goes in there. Market rates go in there too, and what I know others of my skill level are charging for a thing, but the biggest factor is my personal enjoyment of a task. If I don't like doing it, I charge more, plain and simple.

And it really annoys me when people fail to grasp this. I do not "have to" compete. I don't "have to" price my things so they'll sell if I don't want to! I don't have to price match with other fursuiters, or other artists. I'm not Wal-Mart! "Lowest prices" is not my motto. "Unique" is. There are a few people who enjoy my specific style enough to pay my prices for it, in costumes or in painting, and that's good enough for me. I'm not forcing anybody to buy anything of mine. Of course it's nice when somebody buys something, and I'll be quite pleased when my flame gryphon goes up on ebay. But you can get a billion bucks that I'm not going to start the auction at once cent less than I'd be willing to take for it. I'd rather just keep it than sell it for less than it's worth to me. And frankly, that strategy has paid off time and time again. Every time I've been faced with "sell it now cheap or keep it and wait" eventually the right person, the one to whom it's worth what I'm charging, has turned up. So why should I sell it now cheap?

Considering that I am actually making a living doing this now, I think I know what I'm doing!

(That has really got to be the biggest pet peeve I have. Or at least in the top three. People who do not make a living in my feild, telling me how to run things! Shoo, idiots, I know better than you do!)

Comments

[graydown.livejournal.com]

I don't remember where this quote is from, but it seems to suit your situation:

"If I wanted your opinion, I'd read your entrails."

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Heee. Nice! I approve.

[westly-roanoke.livejournal.com]

Venus Envy.

::Grins::

Least, that's where I first heard it.

[kainhighwind-dr.livejournal.com]

Yeah you see, the thing about the guy's attitude is that he's making a judgement on the appropriateness of price based on what a FRIEND would charge him. That's his first opportunity to make an ass of himself.

And I'd like to know, does this person who charges so little do this painting activity to make a living? I doubt it. Most miniature painters I know do it as a hobby, or for spare cash on the side (to buy more miniatures, or other non-essentials of life). So, if he wants to charge less than his talent and time are potentially worth, then good for him. It makes a difference if you're living in your mother's basement or attic with no rent, have some generous inheritance, or have a full- or even part-time secure job with regular pay to support one's hobbies. Quite another to have to worry about paying the bills off what you do and need to account for every hour not spent on income-generating activities.

Don't let him get to you. I see this all the time in my field as well, with newbie designers and students severely underselling themselves at not much more than minimum wage because they can, because they've got student loans or parents to pay their way... the list of reasons goes on. Then there's just those designers who are desperate for work, prefer to work 16 hr+ days to make ends meet, and charge less to compete in cut-throat fashion, never really making it big (only just making it, like those who charge more and work less). And the fact is, these kind of people devalue the very type of talent and service they seek to provide, making it harder for everyone to make a living in the end.

Artisans owe it to themselves and each other to demand a fair wage for what they can provide people. Real art and creative talent is not mass-produced; nor should it be priced to reflect that. If it was so very quick or easy and cheap to do these things, then why doesn't everyone do it themselves? Quite simply, they cannot... for lack of time, talent or both.

And that's why we do what we do for a living.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

And word on this one. If you have in demand, rare skills or skill that take time and effort to pratice and hone then they need to be sold at the value those skills are worth

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Materials costs go in there. Time goes in there. Market rates go in there too, and what I know others of my skill level are charging for a thing, but the biggest factor is my personal enjoyment of a task.

Amen! I will do far more work for the money doing something i genuinely am interested in (and will actually do work outside of ours for my own curiosity) than I will for something that I have to force myself to do

And you are making a living doing it. If it works, don't fix it. And kick those who try to meddle :)

[bobkat357.livejournal.com]

I agree the matrils and gas it cost to go to your choise of craftas store needs to be in there my Grandmom is a paintier, and she has been teaching me some stuff about oil paints. I mean 1 of the tubes of paint costs 14 bucks. I think the price is very resonable, also I like your work.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Ah, economics, how it confuses people. The following paragraphs provide adequate rebuttal (on their own, but put together it's practically devastating):

1) My oppotunity cost for each item is higher than your friend's. As such, to justify the time and energy expenditure of doing artwork, my prices need to be higher. (Also a nice way of saying that his friend is a lazy bum who really either doesn't have a life or doesn't know how to intelligently spend his time and saying that your time and enjoyment are very valuable to you).

2) The fursuit/miniature painting/artwork market is not perfect competition it is monopolistic competition. As such, I have power to set my own prices and should my business be sufficent, I have no incentive to reduce them. There is one prevailing fact about operating in a monopolistic competition: you do not worry about your competing firms, there are too many of them and they all offer a different set of products and services. Quite simply, you respond to the individual demand curve for your product and since I'm the only one who knows my product and the specific market for my product, I know my pricing model far better than you would. (Also a nice way of saying that you make a unique product and that no one else should be compared to you.)

3) I do not run this business purely to increase profit. As such, your talk of changing prices to increase sales or related comments cannot apply, even if they were economically sound (see above). Economic arguments do not directly apply to me and any advice that you give must account for the utility that I gain from having money over that gained through other means. As you have no access to my personal utility curves, your reasoning is by nature fundamentally flawed and you do yourself a grave injustice in pursuing it. (Also a nice way of saying you don't know me so just STFU.)

[silveradept]

Thanks to the course I took on economics this past semester, I understood all of that... without need for translation. Curses - I did learn something about economoics.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Oh I love the "I'm not Walmart" concept. I so do. You are soooo right. You don't "have to" price anything for less than you think it is worth to you in terms of time and materials and creative effort.

As you have probably guessed I make puppets and they are not cheap puppets but I always get one yabo per convention who tells me that my puppets are too expensive and another yabo saying that they don't want to buy one because they could make one if they really wanted to. I do bite my tongue and not tell them off in the Art Show but I so want to.

[silveradept]

The easiest way to respond to that is "It works for me. When it stops working for me, I'll consider changing it." You've got a solid grasp of how you want things to work, so why change it if it does, y'know, work?