@Lexilooo
Well done so far, sounds as though you are off to a flying start. I do think you need to increase your prices though.
My husband is an artist so I know what goes into producing giclee prints. You need to account for your time as well as the cost of printing, take into account scanning, signing, producing certificate of authenticity, administering the limited editions, packing, etc etc.
Likewise your originals are a bit cheap. Allow at least £10 an hour plus materials and expenses.
You need to have enough in your pricing model to cover things like banking charges, Etsy shop charges, website hosting etc.
Remember that you need to register as self employed and pay tax too.
It is a very very crowded market. There are vast numbers of people trying to make a living from art and many end up out of pocket as they don't price their work correctly.
Having said that, I do like your work, I don't often comment on these threads as the work isn't great quality.
Having just spent the last hour packaging up 2 commissions and several prints yes! It is faffy and time consuming and I'd rather be doing something else. I am getting more efficient at it all though. It is, I suppose like any admin task, just finding the quickest/best way to do it.
I think price wise I am pitching it at an impulse-ish kind of buy for the prints. I have taken into account all the costs for each print (cello wrap, card, envelope, postage etc) and making OK on each one. It is, I suppose, more about a volume game.
I have been doing a fair amount of "Mates Rates" for prints etc - but I think that is just to help start me off. Still making about £5-7 profit on each one. This is leading to other sales (at full cost which is closer to £9/£10).
Commission/original wise for non-friends it would now be £125 for charcoal and £150 for pastel - but only if this is pet-portrait kind of thing. Because they only take up half the page (if that makes sense) they take c4 hours to actually draw. So add in an hour for the admin around it that is about £25 an hour. For a townscape/full picture I would not do it for less than £200-£250 - they are much more work as basically you have to fill the whole page and they take 6/7 hours. And make my hand ache
And @LunaHeather the commissions are a bit nerve racking...will the customer like it? You don't want to fuck it up 3/4 of the way in...cos you'll have to start again. Whereas the "draw what I want and see if it will sell" well...meh..it doesn't matter so much.
I think I may continue with a mix of the 2. The prints can just bumble along, hopefully bringing in bits and pieces. And I can play around and experiment. Draw what I like. If it is good enough, try and sell it...if not it doesn't matter.
And as for where the commissions come from - so far all of them have approached me from the back of social media posts...a couple of ladies I play netball with, a couple of closer friends and then also 3 or 4 total strangers (posted on the local town FB page). Not all have come back to me when I tell them my prices...but I have a job, a family, etc I am not dropping my prices.
I am also still really finding my style and preferences. These are all 3 I drew this week. The dog a commission, the townscape for my sitting room (also sold 7 already) and the hare for my bedroom. So all different styles. I may even have a dabble with watercolours...