Normally, I would write a post highlighting the book or doll I’ve made and give a few details (or a ton of details) about how I made it. This time I thought I would share some thoughts on the photos I used in listing this item, instead. There will still be lots of lovely images showing off the new book, I promise.

Everyone knows that the first and most important key to selling online is to take good photos. Buyers are likely to be making a decision to purchase something based mainly on the photos you share and, only secondarily on the description you give. If you don’t catch their eye with the photo, then you’ve already lost the sale. I’ve recently realized how important this visual element is while doing some online shopping myself. I find myself hesitant to buy anything online if there isn’t a photo in the listing showing me what I’m buying. I’m talking about more mundane things, as well–not just artwork/handcrafted items (which is a no-brainer when it comes to needing photos) but also for things like supplies I buy online. Eyelets, for instance. They don’t normally look any different from one manufacturer to the next. Other than color or size, do I really need to see a photo? But I still find myself more willing to put those items in my cart if there’s an image associated with the description. I find myself going back more regularly to the online companies with color photos in their shops rather than the ones that have simple text listings of their items or even black and white sketches (although American Science & Surplus is one exception to this rule).

I’m not going to even pretend that I can tell you how to take better pictures from a technical perspective. Heck, I don’t even have the technique part down myself–I use the flash on my camera way too much because I’m too lazy to actually put my head into setting up a proper lighting and background set in my current studio.

What I really want to talk about here are teaser photos. Which is my name for those abstract detail shots that a seller uses as their main photo in their listing. The idea is to show just enough of the item to catch a buyer’s attention and make them wonder what the rest of the piece looks like. Do they always work? Probably not. And I’ve never done any in-depth, or even cursory, studies to see how effective they are. I have seen that my items tend to get more views if I use a more dramatic main shot for the listing rather than a full item photo showing the whole piece at once. I think that for some items, it’s more effective to show the whole thing and for some items, people will be more apt to check it out if they can’t quite see it all.

So, yes, I’ve been sharing various detail shots that I took of my new Steampunk Journal. One thing I do for my abstract shot is take several different ones. When I first started doing the detail shots, I would take one or, at the most, two different details. Occasionally, I got really lucky and came up with something excellent, like this shot of my Serenity journal (which could almost be considered Steampunk–velvet, leather, and a watch crystal on the cover):

I’ve found that I don’t get lucky that often so I started taking numerous detail shots to make sure I get at least one that I like. In this case, I like almost all of them but decided against a couple of them because they showed too little. The corner detail shots have too little of the book in them and I don’t feel like they inspire people to actually go look at the item to see the rest.

The front cover at an angle seemed to have too much in it–too much of the overall book and too much background. So I decided against using that one. I finally opted for one of the spine shots because it showed a little bit of a hinge rod, some of the copper sheet and hinges, a bit of the copper tubing and a tiny sliver of the clockwork design on the cover. The background is subtle enough to not get in the way.

But, depending on how long this one hangs around my shop and studio, I may switch out the detail shots to see how they affect the number of views I get.