I started selling my artwork just last year, in 2011. Although I initially wanted to make my art affordable for everyone, I’ve come to the realization that as a business model, it’s unsustainable. The way that I produce my wares, where everything is done by hand just doesn’t lend itself to low prices. If I could get something mass produced, where I could get a 1000s copies of a 32 page book in a month instead of spending half a year printing 20 copies then yes, I would sell it for cheap. Unfortunately, this is not yet the case. Ideally, if I sell enough higher priced items, I can actually finance an offset-print project.
So how is the price increase going to work? To be fair, I’ll wait until a particular edition is sold out before increasing the price. So for instance, I have 5 copies left of my pop-up gannet book which I’ll still sell for $50 (+$5 including shipping), once those are sold, the book will increase in price as I’ll have to make a new batch. I’m still debating how much, but I’m actually not interested in that particular book” “flying off the shelves” because making it is literally a painful experience.