Improve Your Online Art Sales

Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

by Leigh-Ann Lemire

When researching online, I found many entries that gave advice for pricing art that mentioned you should go to Etsy and eBay to find comparable art and price yours the same way. This is a pretty good rule to follow but there are things to consider when pricing your art so that you make a profit.

Within your price, you need to include replacing the materials that you used otherwise you will not be able to make more art to sell. Additionally, you need to tack on another five percent so that you can get extra supplies to grow your art business. Your talent, skills and time that went into creating your art should also be taken into consideration. You are very valuable!

To boost your sales, write a detailed explanation about your piece of art. Be specific about the manner in which you created the work, the supplies that you utilized and interesting things about the piece or what happened when you were creating it.

What is the story about that piece of art that you created? How did you get inspired to do it? Weave a tale and it will enable you to sell more art online.

The most important point to know when selling your art online is - take great pictures. Taking great pictures tells a story that words alone cannot convey. It isn't hard to take great pictures of your art. To do so, place your creation on a black matte material on a flat surface such as the floor or a table. Then climb up a step ladder and take the picture from above.

Take many pictures, take close-ups of different parts of the artwork and be sure to include the full piece as well. Crop your pictures so that each one is the same width size so that the pictures line up neatly within the description.

You want to go for professionalism in your description, so photographs that align are one key point to keep in. Having photos the are different widths from tiny to huge looks unprofessional. Maintain consistency on the width to create professionalism.

As a note, the height can be different as long as the width is the same. The width should be between 400 - 500 pixels wide but no more. Doing so creates some white space around the photographs which makes viewing on a computer screen easy on the eye which means more likelihood that a person will be interested enough to read your description and look at your pictures.

The finishing touch of your online sales copy to sell your art should be to speak about the benefits of owning the painting to the potential buyer. After-all, you didn't do the piece of art for yourself, you did it for an audience. Don't focus on only speaking about yourself, write as if you are speaking to a single person.

You want your art to be owned by the person that it communicates the best to - so speak about the benefits of ownership such as pride, that it's original and no one else has one like it, it's signed, the colors are a perfect accent to a home or office and so on. Think of as many reasons you can that a person would want an original painting and add the info to your description.

A good idea is to add a short bio about you and your works. Make it two or three sentences maximum. This give your potential buyers more confidence in you.

To give an overall professional appearance to you text and picture presentation, create short paragraphs of no more than 4 sentences. Doing so makes the entire presentation more easy to read because of the amount of white space.

Have a great time selling your artistic creations and may you prosper.

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Know the Competition When Selling Your Art on the Internet

Image by cinnablythe via Flickr

by Leigh-Ann Lemire

Knowing what your competition is actually doing is beneficial when it comes to selling your art on the internet.

Corruption in the art world and making a profit off of the hard work of artists is not a new subject. Artists copying the works of famous painters, including the signatures and then selling the works for a huge profit and factory hand painted art are just a few of the things your "competition" is up to that you need to watch out for.

An Imitator Selling for Less

Some years back, I knew a very talented artist that sold his art in an area for artists to sell at the ocean in Southern California. His style was western art that was textured and colorful with incredible sunsets and lighting. It went with any decor at home or in a business. He sold a lot, had repeat customers and referrals.

The area had many artists with booths. One of the regular artists saw the success of the western style painter. Instead of staying true to himself, he copied the work of the other - it didn't look as good. To make matters worse, he set his prices lower and took away business from the western style artist.

You can find the same thing now occurring online. Spend a while each week to look at what other artists are doing to ensure that you are not being copied. When describing your art, be sure to mention that it is original and that you have painted in the same style for a number of years.

Factory Produced Original Art

There are assembly lines of people that have one part of a painting to do before sending it on the conveyor belt to the next person who adds his part. The "artists" are trained to rapidly paint a certain part of a painting. The entire painting is done within a matter of a couple minutes.

You may find the most incredible huge painting that is framed for less than a hundred dollars - something just isn't right with that. A real artist is unable to purchase the supplies such as canvas and paints for the price the mass produced painting is sold for.

When you next see a seemingly gorgeous piece of art that is being sold for an extremely low price, you can guess it is created by the competition as above.

The Make a Buck Off Art People

I recently read an artist on how to sell art online thinking that there were going to be tips for artists to sell their works. The article was not about helping artists, it was about exploiting artists to make a living. It went into how to find cheap art and then sell it for a profit. It outlined how to find art at auctions, tag sales, thrift shops and other places. The article went on to say how it was more profitable to get paintings that were signed as you can get more money that way.

The article writer explained in detail how to take advantage of artists for your own profit. When selling your own paintings and creations, be sure to mention that it is an original painting that you created. Say that you are an artist that is selling your art to make a living.

Cut Rate Pricing

While researching, I found an original artist selling his works on eBay. For an artist, eBay has a huge amount of competition from low prices to the quantity available. Then there is the competition from the sellers of art that are explained earlier in this article.

This artist made sales but not in a way that would help him to stay in business. One of his auctions was for a matching set of three paintings. He did as his competitors did and put free shipping on the auction. The auction started at a ridiculously low price and ended at $150. For the size of the canvas and supplies - even if he got them at wholesale, plus pay for the shipping, the artist did not make any money. He didn't get any payment for his time. This artist in business was creating a "losing" instead of a living with his art.

Point out what is good, special and original with your art and forget about attempting to keep up with the competition. Know what your competition is doing, but don't do the same. You are your own real asset because you are authentic, original artist - you are very valuable.

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