Photographic Art by Russel Ray Photos now available at Fine Art America

My wise old grandmother told me many decades ago not to stretch myself too thin. I had no idea what she meant then. I realized the meaning of her words around 1984 when, by necessity, I was forced to go into business for myself on a full-time basis. Previously I had always had a full-time job working for someone else, with spare time occupied by various hobbies, which sometimes were known as second jobs or moonlighting.

With over 500,000 photographs in my collection, I have been looking for a way to make some residual income from them. Becoming a local starving artist hasn’t worked out yet after six months of trying because I really do need a California reseller’s certificate and a sales tax certificate so I can collect sales taxes. Those aren’t coming my way anytime soon. Long, complicated story.

Thus I turned to print-on-demand sites:

• Artfire
• BigBlackBag
• Etsy
• Fine Art America
• OpenSky
• PhotoShelter
• RedBubble
• Shopify
• SmugMug
• SquareSpace
• Zazzle
• Zenfolio

While it’s tempting to be everywhere, there’s not enough time to do an exceptional job everywhere. There’s probably not enough time to do even a mediocre job everywhere! Remember not to stretch myself too thin….

Some of the sites were places to create photography portfolios, which is not what I was looking for. Shopify wanted $79 per month! That’s not happening in this lifetime…. unless I win the lottery…., and since I don’t play the lottery……………

After dozens of hours of research, I narrowed my choices to RedBubble, Fine Art America, OpenSky, Zazzle, and Zenfolio, finally settling on Fine Art America and choosing their Premium plan which costs $30 a year. Much more reasonable. Unfortunately, the problem with things whose costs are reasonable is that there are thousands, millions, even billions of people competing with you. Fortunately, this is where I believe my blogging experience in knowing how to use keywords, tags, and search engine optimization will come in handy.

So my new Fine Art America print-on-demand store front is now open at http://1-russel-ray.artistwebsites.com/. While I don’t like the name they automatically gave me, at least it’s not 9-russel-ray. I like being #1!

I uploaded one picture yesterday…. Photographic Art of my favorite fine, furry, four-legged, feline friend. Looks like this:

The Stare

One way to differentiate myself from everyone else at Fine Art America is simply to have more products available. Thus I’ll be dedicating a lot of time to uploading Photographic Art to Fine Art America, which will probably take away from my blogging writing and reading time. I have to remember not to stretch myself too thin.

Since my goal is to make enough money from Photographic Art sales so that I don’t have to rely on public assistance when I’m no longer physically or mentally capable of working, I need to dedicate enough time to this venture to make it work. As my wise old grandmother also said, “You can make it work if you dedicate yourself to it.”

Once I start making millions of dollars with my Photographic Art, I’ll be able to dedicate most of my time to my wonderful followers and the wonderful blogs and people whom I follow. So don’t give up on me! And wish me luck. And follow me at Fine Art America. And buy something!

Need a unique gift?
Consider Photographic Art!

Visit Russel Ray Photos.

Visit Photographic Art by Russel Ray Photos at Fine Art America.

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