Yesterday on Twitter, I asked how other artists worked out their pricing and I got some brilliant advice back. Contrary to yesterday, I no longer think I’m going to drop my prices – I’m going to raise them.

When I actually sit down and do the math on my art, I’m losing money. I may make back the cost of materials, but the time and effort? I never even accounted for that. I probably make about $2/hour.

To be honest (and this is going to sound awful) my pricing is kind of arbitrary. To be more specific, I made my current pricing choices back in 2008 because someone else told me to set my prices like that. This person had excellent intentions, and only wanted to help me sell more, but the fact of the matter is, I let someone else make a really important decision for me.

And once I remembered that, I remembered every other time that I let someone else dictate what my prices should be. I priced to please whoever yelled loudest.

Not exactly good business practice.

I never had any conviction in my prices because I never really understood that I could my price my art as a business decision – that I was allowed to make back my time, my materials, my effort. That I was allowed to be paid for my talent, my skills, my knowledge. That I was even allowed to be paid for the intangible value that I brought to my art – my passion, my love, my dedication. That these things even had value.

When I first started selling my art, I was told that the only way to be even vaguely successful as a starving artist was to paint bright, happy paintings for very cheap. And then I might succeed. As much as one could under the circumstances, of course. (Being an artist with a chronic illness, my success would, of course, be very limited and helped along by disability support from the government.)

So ever since then, any time I put my prices up, I’d feel this overwhelming guilt. Having older artists imply that I was getting rather “uppity” with my higher prices didn’t help.

Lightbulbs

Then yesterday happened. And it finally got through my thick skull that it’s okay for me to put my prices up and that it’s okay for this to be a business. It finally started to occur to me that what I do has value and that I’m allowed to charge for that value.

Of course, it took some serious (but kind) butt kicking from Adam King*, John T. Unger and Phoinix. And a very thoughtful listen to the latest Art Heroes radio show about pricing your art to actually make a profit.

And even though they all advised me to put my prices up, I’m still going to be pricing for me this time around. I think that’s going to make all the difference.

*Poor Adam’s been on my case about this for a while. I gotta give him points for determination. And gratitude for believing in what I do and not giving up on me. Thanks