The internet has become, in some ways, the ultimate equalizer. In the old days, if you were a painter or sculptor, you had to get in good with a gallery if you wanted to get noticed.
If you were a musician, you needed a record label and a recording contract. Authors needed agents and editors. Note that the one thing all three of those have in common is that there were people who served as “gate keepers” that kept the artist separated from those who would enjoy the artist’s work.
It has never been as easy as it is now for the artist to reach out directly to his or her intended audience. All the traditional barriers that used to stand in the way are now gone, but it doesn’t mean that success is guaranteed, of course.
Selling your work by yourself
With all of the barriers removed, it means that if the artist wants to reach his audience, he certainly can, but that to do so, he’ll have to also do all the work in getting his name out, and that can be a daunting task indeed.
There are many factors to consider if you’re an artist and you want to start selling prints of your work online, but the first of these is: Do you plan to sell your work on your own site, or through another company (or both)?
Whatever your choice, there are advantages and disadvantages to consider. If you opt to sell exclusively from your own site, then of course, there is the matter of buying the domain and building the site. You’ll either need to do that yourself, or pay someone to do it for you.
While the site is being built, you’ll also need to address such things as how to display your portfolio, and how to allow people to purchase from you (you’ll need an eCommerce app with a shopping cart function, some means of processing payments—and on that note, will you take credit cards, or just PayPal, or something else?).
Even after you get everything set up, there’s still the matter of marketing your work. Since it’s your own personal site, you don’t have anything to leverage against to get an initial boost in exposure, so at a minimum you’ll need to set up Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest accounts, then link from these to your new site to get some exposure, and of course, work steadily on increasing the number of followers you have on the social networks so you can keep your site in front of as many eyeballs as possible.
If all of this is beginning to sound like a lot of work, that’s because it is! The barriers might be gone, but nobody said it was going to be easy!
Making it easier
Of course, you could opt to go another route. There are a number of companies online that specialize in helping artists sell their work directly to their fans. If you go this route, you can rest at least a little easier knowing that some of the details will be taken care of for you. The sites offering services like these usually have a template based system that makes building your virtual storefront fast and easy.
They usually handle details like how to display your products and handle the payment processing and so forth, and depending on the site, you’ll probably get a bit of a boost in the exposure department.
That is because these sites live and die via the success of the artists selling under their banner, so they will do at least a bit to help you market yourself, and the simple fact that you’re on a site with other artists means you’re bound to get at least a little traffic as people browse the site generally, just looking for hidden gems.
Nonetheless, don’t make the mistake of thinking that you’ll be able to just build a portfolio on one of these places, then sit back and start collecting money. If you think that way, you will almost certainly be disappointed.
At the end of the day, your art is your business and your brand. You have to treat it as such. If you do that, and spend the time necessary not only to create the works of art, but also to create and nurture your brand, to gain exposure for what you create, then over the course of time, you will succeed.
It has happened to thousands of other artists before you. It is happening right now as you read these words. You need only to commit yourself to the process and get started!
Plan carefully, explore all your options and focus your efforts on the things you feel will produce the biggest returns for you. We’ve put the following list together to help you in your search:
Places where you can sell your prints
Society6
DeviantArt
InPrnt
Spreadshirt
Threadless
Big Cartel
Bouf
Storenvy
Storemate
Etsy
ClickForArt
RedBubble
1xrun
GelaSkins
Artweb
Fotomoto
Zazzle
CafePress
Cargoh
Meylah
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