Selling your work · How to start selling
Where potters actually sell, what to do first, and how to price a piece.
Without either insulting yourself or pricing nobody in. Make three things well and more than once, price them from the cost on the envelope, photograph them by a window, and sell them in one place until twelve have gone. Everything else comes after the first twelve, and each of those things is its own lesson.
Four steps with a tick list at each: the range, the price, the first place, and the box and the label. Six mistakes, most of them about doing the second thing before the first, and five videos from potters remembering their first year.
This is the short version: the range, the price, the one place, the box, each with a tick list. The reasoning, the bookkeeping note and the questions are in the comprehensive version.
Read it, then watch it
Why this is written down and filmed, both.
Starting to sell is a sequence of small decisions, and a sequence is what a page holds: what to make, where to sell it, what to charge, and what to do first. What a page cannot give you is the feeling of a first year, the spare-room shop and the first market table and the first refund, and that is the videos, from potters near enough to their own first year to remember it honestly. This page is the map; the rest of the Selling Your Work lessons are the territory.
Use both, in this order
Read the four decisions. Watch one first year. Make twelve pots, photograph six, pick one place, and sell one. Then come back for the next lesson.
The whole idea
Three things made well, priced above cost, photographed by a window, sold in one place.
Make a small range you can make again. Price from the cost on the envelope, plus a margin, checked against the market. Photograph it by a window. Pick one place and sell twelve pots there before adding a second. The other six Selling Your Work lessons are each one step of this, in full.
The five-minute version
The whole start in six moves.
If you have sold anything before and you just want the shape of it, this is the shape of it. Everything below is these six moves, slowed down and with the places they fail marked.
Before the first listing
What you need to start.
Six things, and none of them is a website. The notebook is the one people skip and regret in April.
Twelve pots you can make again, the cost envelope, six photographs, one place to sell, a box and an honest label, and a notebook.
Step one
Make three things well, in two glazes, more than once.
A shop is a repeatable pot. A buyer wants to see that you make the thing they want and can make another. Twenty different pots is a shelf. Mugs, bowls and small plant pots in two glazes, four of each, is a first shop, because those are the pots people use every day and buy for other people.
Pick the three you make best, not the three you like most, and make each one until the sixth looks like the first. Two glazes from the wall that you have fired enough times to trust, per the glaze problems lesson. Every pot with a ground foot, a checked rim, and the same handle on every mug. The one-offs and the experiments are not wasted; they go to a market table as one-offs, where a one-off is a virtue.
Making in batches is also the arithmetic: per the costs lesson, every extra finished pot on the same membership makes every pot cheaper, and twelve mugs thrown in one evening off the hump cost less each than twelve thrown on twelve evenings.
Step two
Know the cost, then price above it, then check the market.
Cost is the floor. The price is above it. The envelope gives one number per shape, and no price goes below it; a price below cost is paying a stranger to take a pot. On top, a margin, which buys the next bag of clay. Then a look at comparable work, and the higher of your floor-plus-margin and the market.
Pricing nobody in and insulting yourself are the two fears, and they cancel out. If the market price is below your floor, the fix is to make the pot faster or in bigger batches, not to price below cost. If your price is above the market, the pot has to be better than the market’s, or the photograph does, and often it is. Most potters who raise a price sell the same number of pots and stop resenting them.
Round to a number that looks like a price, not a sum: thirty-eight, not thirty-seven forty. Same price for the same shape in every glaze, so the shop reads as a shop. TaraLee’s video in the costs lesson is the argument for all of this; Jonthepotter’s is the arithmetic.
Step three
Photograph by a window, then pick one place and sell twelve pots there.
One place, until twelve pots have sold there. Instagram and a link, free and slow and where most first sales happen. A marketplace, which brings strangers and takes a cut. A market table, which is a day of talking and the best education in what people want. Pick one. A second place before the first works is two half-shops.
Before any of it, the photographs, per the photographing lesson: a window, a white board, light from one side, six frames per pot and one of them in use. On a screen the photograph is the pot, and a flat photo of a good pot sells worse than a good photo of a plain one. The listing is the photographs, the price, the size in inches, the glaze by name, and the claims you have checked.
Then the boring part, which is the part that makes it real: a notebook with what sold, for how much, what it cost, and what the buyer said. That notebook is the whole of a beginner’s bookkeeping and the thing the accountant asks for at the end of the first year. Selling is income, and the rules on when a hobby becomes a business are local; this page teaches selling, and the small-business office or an accountant is the person to ask about the rest.
Which first place
If you already post pots and people already ask, Instagram and a checkout link, because the buyers are there and it costs nothing. If nobody knows you yet, a marketplace, because it brings strangers who are already looking for a mug and takes its cut for that. If you like talking to people and want to learn what sells in a day rather than a season, a market table, which is the fastest teacher and the hardest work. All three are right; two at once is wrong.
Step four
Pack it, label it honestly, and then the next thing.
The first sale is decided by the box and the label. A pot that arrives broken is a refund and a review, and our packing lesson is the method: double boxed, two inches of padding, rims and handles protected. A label that says food safe or dishwasher safe is a promise to a stranger, and our claims lesson is what it commits you to.
Then, and only then, the next thing. A second place once the first has sold twelve. A market table with the one-offs, per the markets lesson. A shop or a gallery once there is a body of work that looks like one maker made it, per the galleries lesson. Each is its own lesson because each is its own set of mistakes, and each comes after the first twelve, not before.
What does not come next is the gear. A booth, a website, a thousand business cards and a heat press are the fun part, and none of them makes a sale happen. Twelve pots, six photographs, one place, one sale. Pottery to the People’s two videos below are a first year and then a career, in that order, and the order is the lesson.
Watch it done
Now watch five people remember their first year.
Watch this one, then go make twelve mugs.
None of these potters work here or know we exist. Between them they cover a first year from a spare room, the long view, the market route, the online mistakes, and one marketplace step by step. Nothing but the still frame loads until you press play.
Nineteen minutes from a potter who built a business from a spare room: what to make, where to list it, what to charge. The other four videos are in the comprehensive version.
When it goes wrong
Six ways it goes wrong, and what to do about each.
The three mistakes everyone makes first.
Pick the one that looks like your shop. The first three are price, range and photographs. The last three are the box, the label and the gear.
You priced below cost to be nice
A price that felt fair to a stranger and unfair to you. It sells, and every sale costs you money, and it tells the market that handmade pottery is cheap.
Cost from the envelope, a margin on top, a look at comparable work, and the higher of the two. Nice is a gift, not a price.
Raise it on the next batch. Most potters who raise a price sell the same number of pots.
You listed one of everything and nothing sold
Twenty different pots is a shelf, not a shop. A buyer wants to see that you make the thing they want, in the colour they want, and can make another.
Three things, made well, in two colours, made again. A shop is a repeatable pot, and the odd pieces go to a market table.
Take the shop down to the pots you can make again. List the rest at a market as one-offs.
Nobody clicked
Pots photographed on the pickup shelf under a ceiling light. On a screen, the photograph is the pot, and a flat photo is a flat pot.
Our photographing lesson: a window, a white board, light from one side, one frame in use. Before anything is listed.
Reshoot the six best pots this weekend. Relist.
The first online sale arrived broken
One box, some paper, and hope. The refund costs the pot, the postage both ways, and the review.
Our packing lesson: double boxed, two inches of padding, handles and rims protected, and a price that includes the box.
Refund fast, apologise once, send another packed properly. The review is decided by the recovery.
You wrote food safe, dishwasher safe and microwave safe on a label without checking
Each of those is a promise about a specific pot, and a stranger will hold you to it.
Our claims lesson: what each phrase commits you to, and how to test before you print it.
Reprint the label to what you can stand behind. Most of what you make can carry most of the claims, once you have checked.
You bought a booth, a website and a thousand business cards before the first sale
Spending before selling. The gear is the fun part and the selling is the work, and the gear does not make the selling happen.
Twelve pots, six photographs, one place to sell, and one sale. Then the next thing.
Use what you bought. Sell twelve pots. Then decide what the next purchase is for.
How it works here
At The Clay Hole, your work is yours, and so is the selling.
This page is written for potters everywhere. A few things are specific to our building, so you know before you start.
Three things to know here
Everything you make here is yours to sell, online, at markets, to shops, however you like. The studio does not sell members’ work and does not ship; the pot, the price, the label and the box are yours. The numbers under every price are on the site, and the calculators page does the sum.
Yours to sell
Members sell at markets, online and to shops, and always have. The studio does not take a cut, does not sell members’ work, and does not ship. The studio’s name is not a claim on your label; the claim is yours, and the claims lesson is what it commits you to.
Batches and the wheel
Twelve mugs in an evening is a Thursday on any of the 29 wheels, and the off-the-hump lesson is how. Shelf space by Level decides how big a batch can wait between visits; the membership page has the shelf sizes.
The numbers
Clay from $28 a 25-pound bag with Level discounts from Yellow up. Bisque free. Glaze firing five cents a cubic inch, $4.80 minimum, on the calculators page. Membership $145 to $275 a month by Level. The costs lesson turns those into a floor.
Photographs
Not on the pickup shelf. A sheet of white board in your bag and any table near a window, per the photographing lesson. The photograph is the first thing a buyer sees and the last thing most members bother with.
Questions people actually ask
The ones that come up every week.
Where do potters actually sell?
Four places, and most start with one. Instagram and a link, which is free and slow and where most first sales happen among people who already like you. A marketplace like Etsy, which brings strangers and takes a cut. A market or craft fair, which is a day of talking and the best education in what people want. And shops and galleries, which come later and want a body of work. Our lessons on markets and galleries are the two in-person routes in full.
What should I make to sell?
The thing you make well, in a small range, more than once. Mugs, bowls and small plant pots sell everywhere; they are the pots people use every day and the pots people buy for other people. Three shapes in two glazes, made again, is a shop. Twenty different one-offs is a shelf, and the shelf goes to a market.
How do I price without insulting myself or pricing nobody in?
Cost first, from our costs lesson: that is the floor. A margin on top, which is what pays for the next bag of clay. Then a look at what comparable handmade work sells for near you and online, and the higher of your floor and the market. If the market is below your floor, the pot needs to be faster to make, not cheaper; a price below cost is a hobby with extra steps.
Do I need a website?
Not to start. An Instagram account with a link to a marketplace listing, or a link to a simple checkout, sells a first batch. A website is for when there is a body of work, a customer list and a reason to own the shop rather than rent one. Buy the domain now if the name matters to you; build the site later.
What about tax and the boring parts?
Selling is income, and every state and country has its own rules about when a hobby becomes a business and what has to be reported. A simple record of what you sold, for how much, and what it cost you is the whole of what a beginner needs to keep, and an accountant or the local small-business office is the person to ask before the first tax year ends. This page teaches selling; it does not give tax advice.
Can I sell pots I made at The Clay Hole?
Yes. Everything you make here is yours, and members sell at markets, online and to shops all the time. The studio does not sell members’ work and does not ship, and the studio’s name is not a claim on your label; the pot is yours and so is the claim. Clay from our shelves, fired here, sold by you.
How long before it works?
Longer than a month and shorter than you fear. Most potters who sell say the first year was twelve pots at a time, one place, one photograph setup, and the second year was the same thing done faster with better pots. The skills on this page are learned by doing them once badly, and the pots get better regardless.
Related lessons
The other six lessons in Selling Your Work.
Three to read next.
This page is the map. Each of these is one step of it, in full.
That is the whole start
Three things, well, again. Price above cost. A window. One place. Twelve pots. Then the next thing.
Your first shop will have one of everything, priced by feel, photographed on the pickup shelf, and it will sell two pots to your aunt. That is normal, and it is also the whole lesson, because the second shop will have four of three things, a price from an envelope and a window, and it will sell to strangers. Nobody skips the first shop; they just make it small.
If you want the reasoning, the bookkeeping note, the market-versus-marketplace detail and the answers to the questions everybody asks, switch to the comprehensive version at the top. Otherwise, go throw twelve mugs.
Written for potters everywhere. Where our studio does things differently, the page says so.
Which version would you like to print?
Both print clean, with the videos turned into labelled boxes you can search for later.