My suggestion would be to test that with an opt-in page or normal sales page.  The goal here is not to sell one of your nicest images but rather to add them to your list of people who have expressed interest in your work.  While an option for an auction is great you have to have TRAFFIC to be able to auction the piece off at a fair market price.

So how would you use Ebay to begin your list?   Put something up in the Ebay art area.   It is competitive.  So do your research.  Use a print of nominal value that does perhaps showcase your style.  Like an unlimited edition kind of thing, small and mass produced.  You want something is the 25-50 dollar price range. What we are going to do is to use what marketers call an ascension conversion model.  Here is what it may look like.

An opt-in offer: a postcard or greeting card, something FREE. We capture the contact information which indicates they do have interest in you or your products.  Remembering that online sales is just like bricks and mortar sales.  They like you.

People want a relationship with you as an artist so you need to work hard to develop that.

This ascension conversion model is from Jay Conrad Levinson’s “Guerrilla Marketing on the Internet” book.

>opt-in offer Pad Thai recipe:FREE>five new Thai Recipes monthy for 6 months: 45$,>Thai Cookbook: $75, >The Cooking Home Course: $275>Private Thai Cooking Class: 500$

You get the idea here.   You want your prospect to opt-in to you a bit at a time.  It gives you the opportunity to show who you are and most importantly it gives them an opportunity to see if they like you.  Guess what, not everyone is going to move through to the top.  That’s ok.  Different levels of service can be met for each place where a prospect or client levels off. Hopefully that makes sense.   If not let me know and I will try to clarify it some more.

Later,

tim