Astra, Karen, thanks. I try very hard to respect other peoples feelings and rights to have differing perceptions and get upset when I think I have blown it. coming back to earth now and moving on...
It is a really good point about making money to finance the next project. As artists we are always trying to find a way to be able to spend more time doing our art instead of having a day job!
With my limited edition, I am hoping to put away some money to at least start on what I will need for self publishing if that becomes necessary.
A couple of artists have been very up front about the monetary aspects of publishing a tarot deck.
Arnell Ando documents publishing the Transformational Tarot in the articles section here:
http://www.arnellart.com/frm-main.htm
Sarah Ovenall has a diary on her website that covers the process of pblishing the Victoria Regina tarot with Llewellyn. Go back and read the older entries here:
http://www.ovenall.com/diary/
Of all the people I have talked to and who have told me privately what they made off of their decks they seem to fall into 3 categories:
1. Small run, handmade editions. Break even or small profit depending what is charged compared to what materials you choose to make it.
With mine for example, if you were to count what I have spent in materials to make the original art it would about break even. It would be at a loss if you calclated time. I am not calclating either of those since I still hope to commercially publish the whole deck when it is done so I would say I plan on making maybe a few thousand dollars. I know my price is considered at the high end of the range at $65.00 per 27 card deck.
If I were to have created my deck planning on doing exactly what I have done so far but not planning on going the last step and commercially publishing I would be at a loss. Also, if I charged like 25-30 a deck I Would be at a huge loss.
2. Medium run, self pblished, make by a professional printer. I have been told that these usually end up at a loss. Arnells deck for example, she talks about how she didn't take into cosideration the deep discounts for distribution.
3. Published by a major tarot publisher with wide (for tarot) distribtion. Not including decks that were paid as a work for hire, or for art outright purchased it seems the average pay has been about 1-3,000 at signing of contract, the same at completion of the deck and sometimes again at publication. And thereafter you get royalties every quarter which seem to average 1-3,000. So that's about 4,000 to 12,000 a year.
Of course this isn't a perfect sampling, just an average of the people I have personally talked to., maybe 15 decks out of the hundreds or thousands which have been published.
I have no clue what the publishers make off tarot but I doubt they are getting rich either.
******NOTE I don't believe I am giving away any secrets here, but if anyone feels I shouldn't give out these figures or that I am grossly misrepresenting them, let me know and I will edit this post.
So, I hope this gives people a better understanding of what you will make from a tarot deck!
Marie