Robert Manz Studio is a publisher of fine art photographs with a sense of place. I/we publish the work of our artists as calendars, note cards, posters and prints on card stock, coated (for inkjet) card stock and rag paper. As we build the collection there is an equal emphasis on the artist and the place - just what this means is one of the exciting questions we seek to answer on our journey.
At this writing we are publishing in Cape Cod and Maine and have been doing this for a few years now, working on our business model, cultivating our artists, and developing relationships with customers.
We are ready to expand geographically, and are interested in working with artists across the continental USA.
We have a business strategy that can be summed up as “micropublishing”, taking advantage of the low run cost effectiveness of high quality inkjet. This means that we build up a set of interrelated products, anchored by our calendars that we can produce cost effectively in low quantities. You don’t have to order 1,000 or 5,000 copies. Actually you don’t have to order anything as our payment model is royalty based - 20% of the selling price, whether wholesale, retail or in between.
The key to all of this is an aesthetic sensibility that can be summed up as “a sense of place”. We like artists who are working in “their back yards”, places they are intimately familiar with, have life experiences in, and a body of work that radiates with the intensity of that familiarity.
If we like your work, and you want us to, we will publish it. As a micro-publisher no place is too small for us, if there are people who love it.
We compensate artists by paying a 20% royalty on the selling price of the item we publish with their work - for calendars each month and the front cover are “an item”. For prints - posters and giclees on rag paper, the royalty is 50%. We also pay commission on referrals to our website and our wholesale business with merchants. The artist, of course retains ownership of their work, and since our license is non-exclusive, is not in any way constrained from other uses of their work.
All artists are welcome to purchase products with their work from us at wholesale discounts, although this is not our primary aim. We understand the pleasure an artist and customer gain from direct contact.
If you might be interested or would like to know more, please contact Robert at rmanzpho at his gmail. thanks ~ Robert