Sacrity matters

The more prints of yours are ​in the possession of various people, the less valuable they become (all other things being equal). If your artist brand is perceived as high luxury, you'll be able to print as much as you can buy ink and paper and still command high prices. Just like those brand t-shirts made in a basement for 3 dollars and sold at 100 in the local mall. But building a brand like this requires a huge amount of work and money. And: is that really who you want to be?

It is far more interesting and useful to work the other way around, by limiting series to a minimum and being very strict in your curation process. It's far more ​valuable to sell one print for 1000$ than 100 for 10$.

​And it's a question of mindset.

A mindset of scarcity that can be mutually beneficial to artists and collectors or hurt both.

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is one of the biggest forces in modern marketing. Ever found yourself facing an advert in which an 'incredibly good deal' expires in 3h 14 min and 26 sec? Tic toc tic toc. Do not miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity! Yeah, right. Go back to the website the following day / month and, guess what ?

Social media hinges on FOMO. Unplug for one second and you'll miss that friend's story and will never feel good about yourself ever again.

FOMO also makes us number our prints in unrealistic fashion. How many 1/50 prints have you sold? How many 48/50? The ​fear is ​we might miss out on potential sales by chosing low edition numbers. The reality is that a series of 10 is far more attractive than a series of 150. So, with a series of 10 you might actually sell out the 10. With the series of 150, you may never start the counter.

​Positive scarcity, however, can be a powerful ally.

​Say you have 10 good photographs in editions of 10. The best ones start selling a bit. The very best gets sold out after a few months and this puts pressure on the others, the 'only remaining ones'. Eventually, you may actually sell 100 prints. How nice would that feel?

For the collector, it's a sweet deal as well. You may not be famous, yet, but she likes your work. And she's getting something pretty rare and high quality (an unspoken requirement for all Phr prints). That still doesn't necessarily make your prints a good ​investment​ but it gives them pyschological value.

While the first 100 are slowly selling, you can take your time to think about and get started on a new series. By the time you have enough of it to start selling it, quite a few people will have cared enough about your work to actually collect it. They will be following you. You will have a relationship with them. Those first low-number editions help you get the ball rolling.   ​​​

If you're on the fence, knowing your photographs are in some demand, there is a way to use scarcity to increase the financial valuation of your prints: incremental price increases as the series gets closer to the end.

​For example, you could price #1 & 2 at 200$, ​then add 10% every subsequent print. So, #3 would be priced 220%. #4, 240$. #5, 270​$. #6, 290$. #7, 320$. #8, 350$. #9 & #10, 390$. By offering a cheap #1, you're creating a strong incentive to buy the first edition, which often release a mental block for the rest. Particularly knowing the resale price might ​increase ​if people are buying the rest of the series at higher prices. A cheap #1 is also a way of thanking the first people to trust you and acquire your work. And, as the edition gets scarcer, the interest generated in other people's minds by the first sales can overcome the price increase. ​Ideally, everyone want to get in before it's too late.

Should you use this? That's for you to decide, ask other members what they think as well. It's a more aggressive approach to generating first sales. It's a win for first-movers. There are no hard rules for this, you have to feel happy with it. And you don't have to use it for all your series. For instance, you can have a cheap series where you apply this principle and a more limited run of more expensive work at a constant price?

Both this incremental pricing and limited editions work on the same level of scarcity. And both have much more pronounced effects when you are already famous. Most of the highest-priced photographs ever reach those auction peaks because only 2 or 3 are left in the market and the author is very highly sought after. But you can still use both at the beginning of a carreer.

This one is subjective, try to be honest with yourself. Give yourself a low score if you do nothing to increase your fame but multiply availability, and a higher score if you try to spread the word about your work but keep it limited in numbers.