Nothing is easy, bit like fishing, the results are yet to be realized. I have bought several other photographer's works, and have exchanged with friends.
Framing has become expensive, more perhaps than the print today, unless you can cut your own mats and put it all together-- plus there are many wrong ways to frame and few right ways.
I have generally two prices for prints, $150 and free. If I had an exhibit, I would follow the local guidelines. $150 is low, but I am surely not an established photographer with any collector appeal nor do I expect to ever have more than a local following if any.
This is $150 to me. In a gallery, that is the minimum at which I would part with a print, less than that someone does not care for it enough. Gallery profit and framing in addition, probably bringing the price up to $350 and tax, still a great bargain, if they don't sell I would raise the price, it works.
Selling fine prints, unless the photographer is established, is difficult I think now because of an overload of material out there, and certainly it is difficult to judge a print for purchase from a screen.
The general population do not seem to understand the difference between a fine print and a snap, so they are often not respected. Even a good friend who accidentally ruined a borrowed fine mounted print simply suggested I just run off another.
If, for example, I see a print offered by Ctein, or locally by Herb Ascherman, I know the quality will be far better than anything I see on the screen and up to gallery standards. I know their work.
I have spent time in Paris, if you can afford it, I would recommend you find a restaurant or cafe that might hang your work and with some publicity you might gain your modest goals in one night. It would certainly be a venue to boost your on line reputation.
I agree on keeping your prints modestly priced at this time, and I would stress the hand crafted silver gelatin aspect along with archival processing, and I am sure you know the prints need to be good. It would not hurt to have them looked over by someone who knows prints.
I decided on another career to support any photography I care to do, because it is an extremely fickle environment in which to earn sufficient money from fine print sales to support any kind of life style, especially where I live. Commercial work is another thing, but the niche is still small.
That said, a good night at an exhibit in a cafe might achieve your entirely reasonable immediate expectations and I hope to see a post validating those wishes.
Reputation is quite normally slowly built, but if someone will not pay your asking prices, I would not want them to have one of your prints.
Do not worry about the wording of your posts, I am sure we know you speak one more language than most, and you might always have your copy proof read. Il n'y a pas de problem, vraiment. I must download a spell check in French. ;-)
Regards, John
