Ah, the digital age – where artists are supposed to transform into business moguls overnight. If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve Googled “how to sell art online successfully” about 47 times this week alone, and now you’re here. Welcome to the reality check you didn’t know you needed.
And it wasn’t about posting a picture on the web and expecting the likes, as one would think about selling some art piece online. It is more like seeking to persuade complete strangers, cyberspace creatures, that their dollars are well spent to own one’s soul expressed on a canvas. Fun times, right?
The Beautiful Lie vs. The Brutal Truth
Let’s start with what those glossy art business websites won’t tell you: simply uploading your masterpiece to Etsy doesn’t automatically make you the next Banksy. In fact, learning how to sell art online successfully involves way more than just having talent. It’s about marketing, knowing your algorithms, and giving up your creative spirit to a social network.
The good news? It is a believable story, which proves the fact that artists like Sarah Cray made $100, 000 per year art business from a kitchen table. The bad news? She has actually resorted to spending more time making reels than painting in Instagram now. That’s the paradox of the art sales made through the internet, what a way to put it.
Building Your Digital Art Empire (Without Losing Your Mind)
Choose Your Battle Platform
When figuring out how to sell art online successfully, platform choice is crucial. Mind)
Thegood news is that you have numerous choices starting from involving it in the existing markets to having an online shop.
Etsy is perfect for tiny previews and prints – just consider Lisa Congdon’s experience. However, be ready to be charged rates that are felt in the eye. Saatchi Art has prestige, and yet it is much more competitive than a pride of artists near a gallery opening when croissants are left to be consumed.
Your own website? Fully customizable, free of charge, but equally free of traffic if you do not work as hard to promote it as a non stop performer in New York city.
The Price is… Complicated
Here’s where many artists trip up in their quest to sell art online successfully. One mistake, and you are the high-priced artist the people gossip about behind their backs. It is too low and all of a sudden everyone starts to compare it to Walmart of the art world.
Ashley Longshore takes this position because she understands the market for her pop art pieces which are priced in thousands of dollars. At the same time, thousands of gifted artists undercharge in order to create the art hoping that this would sell more pieces. Spoiler alert: it usually doesn’t.
Marketing: The Necessary Evil
Want to know the secret of how to sell art online successfully? Become a content creation machine. Yes, that means dancing on TikTok if that’s where your buyers hang out.
Social Media: Your New Best Friend
It looks like nostalgia for the time when artists could simply be moody and aloof is truly over. Those days are gone. Now you need to:
Document your process track the evolution of your work like Austin Kleon Apply storytelling to the art like Faith Ringgold Create or join a community like Peter Draws
It does not have empathy to think about your artistic identity from the other side of values. It considers such factors as engagement, working frequency and readiness to paint with a ceiling above one’s head and answer several questions about childhood.
Email Marketing: Old School but Gold
While the masses are doing whatever it takes to go viral, talented artists such as Jessica Hische are cultivating their email list. Why? Because people may disregard following a specific user, blog or company one day but their email address is never going to change.
The Technical Stuff That Makes Artists Cry
Photography: Your Art’s First Impression
Learning how to sell art online successfully means becoming a part-time photographer. Great! It may be stunning when seen live, but if it is accompanied by a potato camera shot, it ain’t selling.
Use better lights, do a basic photo editing course, and more importantly, please do not apply Instagram filter on product images.
Shipping: The Hidden Nightmare
Congratulations! You made a sale! Now, imagine you need to ship an exquisite, unique item somewhere in the country and it arrives looking like approximation of impressionism when it was originally painted.
Some artists such as James Jean even employ several people to manage them. You? You will find yourself popping bubble wraps at 2AM, pondering on why you made such decisions.
The Mental Game: Staying Sane While Selling
The truth about how to sell art online successfully that nobody talks about? It’s emotionally exhausting. Literally, you are not selling the product but parts of yourself, and rejection is definitely more personal if it is one’s creativity.
Dealing with Criticism
The world wide web industries regard internet as the oracle of fame, becoming ‘Net celebrities, or ‘Net idols overnight. You will always encounter someone who will consider your $500 painting to be $50 and that a five-year old child can paint it. You should recall the words of Frida Kahlo regarding her art: Painting a self-portrait is something that requires time since I am alone most of the time anyway. It’s not even about reading comments sections, she did not mention anything regarding that.
Maintaining Your Artistic Identity
The biggest challenge in learning how to sell art online successfully is not losing yourself in the process. If in a particular period statistics prove that cat paintings found more buyers than abstract expressionism, does the artist transform into a cat painter?
The Success Stories and The Cautionary Tales
Success looks different for everyone. Beeple, sold an artwork for $69 million in the form of NFT, but prior to that, he posted a piece of art daily consistently for thirteen years. It is usually a decade long process marketers well concealed under the Guise of an overnight sense of success.
Next is the artists who succumbed to trends, those that overdosed on advertising spending more than their reach, those artists who amassed big fans base but could not sell to them.
The Real Recipe for Success
After all this, you want the actual secret to sell art online successfully? Here it is:
Make the art that can have an impact for you Meet the people who appreciate it Establish real bonds Be persistent Change whenever you have to Accept the fact that there are months when nothing will be sold Sleep well when something is sold Persevere until success is achieved
There is a vast potential of the art displayed online on one hand and arguably brutal harshest marketplace on the other hand. It has democritized art selling while introducing new intermediaries in the form of algorithms and the influence of other people.
I need to bring up the fact that Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime. They would have been going viral on Instagram now with such sunflowers if one were alive today. Or it might be that he would be given a ‘shadow ban’ for being too obsessed with ear related posts. Who knows?
The point is, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to how to sell art online successfully. With empowering estimations of what to expect, the plans, and the flexibility to go in and out of plans as maybe needed, quite winnable is a possibility.
That will be all, use the knowledge you have now to go and take over the digital art world. And just to not forget to paint between all these promotional posts, meeting new people, taking photos, delivery, and sharing on social networks. That’s kind of important too.
