Simple Tips on How To Sell Your Artwork and Become a Paid Artist
It used to be that the only way an artist could sell their art was through a professional gallery. Thankfully, with the tools on the Internet, artists are selling their artwork online and doing it themselves. I always dreamed of becoming a paid artist and after lots of research I have now sold several paintings online. Often people ask me, “How do you sell your artwork online?”. So I thought it would be nice to share some of my thoughts and tips on what I’ve learned about becoming your own online art gallery.
Let me first state that the following information is directed toward anyone who wants to sell his or her artwork and doesn’t care if it is done through a gallery or not. This is more of a ‘do-it-yourself’ technique.
You can start off by creating a personal website to showcase your artwork. Nowadays, you can build it yourself with custom template sites (such as Names Direct.com or Go Daddy.com) or you could hire someone to do it for you. I suggest you do it yourself, that way each time you want to add new content to your site you won’t have to pay someone else to do it.
Don’t forget you’ll need to purchase a domain name and can do so with several different companies online. Just google search ‘domain name registration’ and you’ll find plenty of options. As an example, I have two domain names – GaylesPaintings.com and GayleEtcheverry.com and they both point to the same site. I decided to use two because my name is sometimes hard for people to pronounce.
If setting up a website seems a bit too daunting, then consider starting a blog instead. Blogs are free services where you can upload photographs, links and text about your artwork. A few of the bigger most popular sites are Blogger.com and Wordpress.com. Your fans, friends and family can stay updated on all of your new additions with a feature called an RSS feed. This could be a great place for you to make your start!
In order for you to upload photographs of your artwork, a digital camera will work the best. You don’t have to invest thousands of dollars in a camera. I bought my camera two years ago and it still works great. I paid less than $300 and it works like a charm!
A couple of options for places to sell your artwork on the web are EBay and Etsy. These are favorites for many because of the massive number of hits they receive from buyers each day. Buyers from all over the globe search for & purchase artwork for a range of prices and styles of art. This gives them the ability to buy original artwork no matter where they live. To use these services you will be charged service fees, but they are much lower than the 50% commission charged by galleries. And, you can use PayPal for quick credit card transactions. To help with traffic, be sure to add links between these listings and your blog/website.
Some artists just sell their artwork directly on their website and go without sites like EBay or Etsy. I’ve personally tried both. Mostly, I sell paintings on my site, but sometimes I do list paintings on the other sites. But if you are new to all of this, starting out on a site like EBay or Etsy will make it very easy for you.
Finally, for the most important part – you must become a skillful networker. What is a networker you may ask? A networker is someone who connects with other people and helps to find quality referrals for each other. This is what you would call a win-win business relationship. Zig Ziglar put it best when he said, “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”
From now on, you should always be ready for the possibility of networking with people you meet out in public or online. You’ll ask others what types of business referrals they are looking for so you can better help them find new business. Then, be sure to tell them you are looking for people who like to purchase original, unique artwork from artists such as yourself! Immediately tell your friends and family your plan to sell artwork online and ask that they tell their friends and family too. Keep this number in mind – for everyone one person you know, they have at least 10 referrals for you! Be sure to have your own personalized business cards on hand at all times. These should have your blog/website address and contact information on them.
Since you’ll be spending more time online, you ought to sign up for some free networking websites. There are thousands of these available on the web. Some of the obvious are Myspace and Facebook, however there are many other sites out there that encourage you to post messages and links to your business sites (one such site is JasonsNetwork.com). Most importantly, you have the capability of meeting thousands of people all over the world – people that could turn into future clients!
This may sound a bit cheesy, but it is very important to stay confident and never give up. Continue to make your art, upload them to your website and plug away at promoting yourself. Ask people if they would like to join your subscriber list to stay notified of each new piece available for purchase. When you send these emails out, be sure to add active links to the artwork you are promoting and encourage your supporters to forward your email to anyone they feel would be interested in your art. Again, stick with it, it may take a little bit of time to get the word out there in the world, but in a little while you’ll build your subscriber list and begin to sell your art. You’ll be a paid working artist in no time!
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Great post with a lot of useful isgniht! You\’re absolutely right about things being unfinished hadn\’t thought of it that way before. If you can\’t even be bothered to finish your profile what makes a viewer certain you\’ll dedicate the necessary time to their project? Luckily my profile is pretty finished , so it did not create a panic to go back and fix it. I think the quality referrals are going to be a game maker for certain profiles. If employers are scanning thousands of similar-themed profiles for candidates, things like this guy has gotten a ton of good press could be a deciding factor against a dozen otherwise hard-to-choose-between people.