Here is a little fact that many of you don’t know, my Image Portfolio 1.03 Superhero with the over 15 pieces of artwork in it (mostly half page or larger, black and white images) cost me a whopping $200 to purchase the full righs from the artist. Roughly less than $13 per image with all the rights to resell the art to other people. Did you get that part? Full and complete rights for only $200.
There are a lot of people who head’s are exploding over this topic. Many are saying, “It is not fair to pay people so low,” or “how can an artist sell away his artwork so cheap?” or my other favorite, “ You should pay people more.” So you think it is better for me to have to charge more for my product to my customer (meaning I will get fewer sales) and then pass that money to the artist is higher wages? And people wonder why 9 out of 10 businesses fail in the first year. Now if that previous stuff made you head almost burst, it is about to get worse for you…
Image Portfolio 1.03 Superhero is a silver level seller at RPGNow (meaning sales between 101 – 249 copies) on DriveThruRPG it does have a metal rating (meaning sales 1 to 49 copies). So if you take an average of both numbers you can “guestimate” that Image Portfolio 1.03 Superhero sold about 200 copies. 200 copies at $8 each comes to $1,600 minus $200 for the artist means $1,400 in profit for LPJ Design. Why would an artist sell his artwork to me $200 and lose out on $1,400 worth of profit by not doing it himself? Good question. I don’t know and personally it does not matter to me. That is not my job. My job is to keep my business afloat. But here is an answer for those that have to have one: Maybe he knew it was better to have $200 when he needed it, instead of waiting 2 years to “possibly” get that $1,400 of profit that I made. A “bird in the hand, two in the bush” type of situation.
Now to make your head really explode: When I was kicked off of RPGnow back in November 2005 and came in late 2006; all my previous sales at RPGNow from 2001 to 2006 were erased. So my current sale info of Image Portfolio 1.03 Superhero is only from late 2006 to now. So how many sales did Image Portfolio 1.03 Superhero have from 2002 to 2005? Well after checking my personal records on sales units on Image Portfolio 1.03 Superhero was more than 800 copies sold. So LPJ Design really made over $4,600 on that artwork, which is still for sale today. Best of all, this product isn’t even in my top 10 most profitable products from LPJ Design. Just something for you to think about. Talk to you later…
PS: Any of you RPG publisher who are in need of good and inexpensive artists, just let me know and I will help you get in touch with them. You have seen the guys who do my artwork so you I am dealing with good guys. Your welcome!
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