Redbubble - A Service for Photographers to Sell Their Photos
Selling Your Photographs on Redbubble.com
General overview of Redbubble.com:
Redbubble is a website for artists that are interested in showing and selling their work, whether it is their art, photographs, clothing, or writing. It is free to join as a member and to upload work. Like most related sites, the art on Redbubble.com can be filtered and browsed in specific categories or “Groups” and the art can be commented on and favored by other users.
The Art, Clothing, and Writing navigation tabs allows a user to browse through Featured, Popular, or Recent Submissions to the category. The Art category allows users to go another level into the works be separating them by Wall Art, Posters, and Cards.
Clicking on the Groups tab allows users to view a listing of the groups that they belong to as well as Groups that are Featured, Recent, Random. and Specific. You can search for groups that focus on a variety of content, including equipment brand and type (cameras and lenses), colors, and themes. This allows for specific categorization of the content of the site making it easier to find what you’re looking for.
The My Bubble tab opens up a much more thorough navigation bar that covers the specific areas of interest for the artist managing their collection. These sub-tabs show the artist all the information that allows them to see their photographs, groups, and how it is being maintained on the site.
Selling Photographs on Redbubble:
When a photograph is uploaded to Redbubble, the option of selling the work as a card, print, or poster as well as other options such as gloss, matting, and framing can be selected during the upload process. The artist also has the option of designating what Group the photograph will be assigned to. Filtering the works into Groups increases the probability that the photograph will be seen by the intended audience and therefore, bought.
In effort to increase the visibility of the artists, Redbubble provides each user a code for widgets that can be posted on websites or blogs as well as their own customizable “Bubblesite” in where they can display their galleries and their work for sale.
There are fixed costs associated with the production of any work set forth by Redbubble. The costs depend on the size and layout of the work chosen by the customer. Redbubble allows artists to set their own commission values on top of these set prices so that the artist can profit from the sale of their work. The default setting for the site is a 20% markup over the cost assigned by Redbubble but this can be changed by the artist at any time.
Getting Paid:
Funds from sales will be automatically routed on or before the 7th day of each month for the previous month’s sales by direct bank transfer (PayPal) or by check. Depending on the type of payout chosen, there are different amounts that must be in an account before dispensing of the funds occurs. There is the option to be paid immediately no matter the balance in the account but such a payout has a fee associated with it.
Copyright Concerns:
In order to protect the copyright of art added to the site, Redbubble only displays low resolution previews of the works being sold. Nothing is going to prevent people from saving these images but they will not be of sellable quality. If this is still a concern, Redbubble also provides the artists the option of adding a watermark to the images that are displayed.
