Musings
One of the things I’ve learned while researching to start a business is that it’s very easy to want all the things. I want a Squarespace shop, I want an etsy shop. Get me into art festivals and contests. Analytics tools? Yes please. Let me buy all of them. It’s easy to let yourself get distracted and/or overwhelmed. YouTube is an amazing resource for research. If you’re having trouble understanding a concept, you usually have dozens of people explaining it, each in their own way. Sometimes it takes a while to find one whose explanation fits your brain, but when you do, that sudden clarity is immensely rewarding.
Another thing I’ve known but am more thoroughly internalizing as I’m putting together all the numbers, is that it’s extremely difficult for a landscape photographer to make a profit without an audience. My revenue goal for next year is quite modest: it’s to meet my break-even point of $4000 after taxes. To do this solely through my website, I would need to sell roughly twenty-two 8x10s per month or eleven 11x14 prints. That works out to 1-2 prints per day, every day, from April 1-December 31. I love my family and friends, but there’s no way they’re going to buy that many prints (though word of mouth may help).
So the only option is to diversify. An Etsy store is a logical extension. Etsy has far higher traffic, but also incredible amounts of saturation, making it difficult to break through. Product sales are nice but they are not, on their own, enough of a revenue generator. So what else is there? Quite a lot, actually. The best margin option would be to licensing images. That can greatly vary in revenue, though. Depending on usage, need, etc., a license could go anywhere from $10 for a one-time blog post to $100,000+ for a high dollar marketing campaign. This is an area I need to more thoroughly research.
My best bet is to provide photography and video services, especially as a drone operator. That’s something that is very useful for real estate agents, farms, construction companies, as well as businesses.
There’s a reason I’ve been telling people March 2022 for my business launch.
Til next time