articles/Paper/thewholerange-page5
by Mike McNamee Published 01/04/2010
Costs
The price of a media depends on the cost of manufacturing at the mill and, if made abroad, exchange rates. High-grade materials require stringent quality control; ensuring a media is acid-free, for example, requires careful selection of the rawmaterials to meet that requirement. Cotton linters are more expensive than plant-derived alpha cellulose and therefore the materials containing a cotton rag base are more costly to make. In addition the downstream costs vary, dependingupon calendaring, mould-making and coating, for example.
It is not surprising, therefore that the prices we have calculated vary from 39p to £4.20 per A3 sheet. The pack quantity also influences price and so we have calculatedeither the largest pack size up less than 100 sheets and the nearest to 100 sheets x A3, if the pack quantities run larger.
For the professional, the cost of paper and (an additional 40p or so for ink) should have little bearing on the profit margin. Your studio price for an A3-size print should be atleast £100, more typically £140 to £160 for a fine art print or a print framed in ready-made frame. The media costs therefore represent between 3 and 5% of your selling price - not animportant factor.
The paper is, though, an important selling feature of your work. Do not sell as an 'inkjet print', sell as a 'giclee print made on museum grade, fine art paper, madam'. If you cannotdiscern the difference between these two sales pitches you need to book yourself on some marketing seminars!
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