I recently had a great phone call about how to sell art online with Tim Aldridge and Leyl Black. Tim is a painter and avid Imagekind user, and he was kind enough to share with me some of his top money making tips for Imagekind. Here’s what he had to say.
ImageKind offers an easy way to sell your art online. You can set up a regular web site yourself, but if you donʼt know how, don’t want to spend the time and money, or deal with managing an e-commerce operation and dealing with shipping and framing, ImageKind could be a great solution for you.
Imagekind selling tips
Promote yourself! Imagekind won’t magically sell your art. Include your ImageKind store URL in email signature lines, Twitter bio, FaceBook info, and on your business cards.
The Marketing Tools page in your account administration area has Google marketing Tips, ImageKind web Banners, Sample Kits that show off the different papers that ImageKind uses and the quality of their printing.
Check out the Forums as artists are sharing tips how they are selling their art.
Categorize & Tag correctly and add keywords for your work. You should, at the very least, include the main colors in your keywords as there is a search tool for customers that searches based on colors:
Holidays. Work w/ Imagekind Promotions around holidays, ie. Mother’s Day:
-mark down selected pieces that are relevant to the holiday.
-combine your reductions w/ ImageKind free shipping/ reduced framing offers.
-send out mailer announcing timely deals and new art (most of my sales have come from this method).
-Being able to sell prints at a lower price point will help sell to an audience that might not be able to afford original art. This way you donʼt have to discount your original art to make a sale. You can even set up an Imagekind kiosk at your art shows so people can order prints of the originals on the spot. Everyone who comes to the show has an opportunity to walk out of the show having bought something, no matter their price point.
Read the FAQ. An easy one that a lot of people forget.
Image Sizing/Prepping for Upload:
Read the Imagekind instructions. Make sure you have enough pixel resolution for the largest print dimensions that ImageKind offers. Once I photograph or scan my artwork. I keep a high resolution image (TIFF or PSD) locally and use Photoshop action droplets to automatically convert the large files to an ImageKind ready (correct sizing and resolution)
JPEG w/ an embedded color profile.
There is an image uploader (only available for the PC at this time) that you can use as a desktop application.
Pricing Strategies/ Markups:
– The artist gets 5-15% ( depending on their membership level) of any custom framing purchased with the print.
-You can set a default framing for your pieces; a good frame and matting can really enhance the presentation of
your work and make it more attractive to purchase.
-Cruise around and look at other artists on ImageKind and figure out what their markups are.
-Of note, if you mark up your work over 100% beyond the base price, they tack on extra 5% fee for the buyer. UPDATE: This simply means that if the artist marks up their price more than 100% beyond the base price, then Imagekind retains 5% of the markup overage as a fee for processing the transaction. Thanks to Nate from Imagekind for the update.
New ImageKind Storefront:
-3 style templates offered but there is customizable CSS code and more control for power web designers.
-Google Web Analytics and Google Adsense tie-ins
-Basic Mailing List ( for Newsletters, Updates)
Hey Cory,
Great post thanks for the helpful info! One thing I noticed is I think there is a bit of confusion with the 5% bit. Artists set their price of their work on Imagekind. If they set the markup above 100% of the base price, Imagekind will retain 5% of the markup overage for processing. This is to cover credit card processing, etc.
Hope that clears it up.
Best,
Nate
Hey Nate,
Thanks for clearing up the 5% overage- now I understand what it’s for.
Best,
Tim
This “clears it up” only if one knows what the “base price” means.
Please clear that part up, OK?
thanks for this page and all the suggestions. i used to get all my imagekind uploads published to my facebook, but they don’t do that anymore. anyone know how to do that now?
–jen
Hi Jennifer,
Having your ImageKind uploads published to your FB profile is handled by Facebook Connect- this post might help you get it working again:
http://www.imagekind.com/community/forums/posts.aspx?sid=1&threadid=1249
Cheers,
Tim
First things first, thanks for explaining imagekind in detail 🙂
.-= Computer Maintenance´s last blog ..Uninstall Unwanted Programs =-.
You may also want to get a facebook fan page. It’s a great way to get free advertising, while keeping your personal page separate.
Here is mine http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vel-Verrept/187279858743
Excellent post on Imagekind. I have been an Imagekind member for 2 years now and it’s a great platform for hosting your art and selling Print-On-Demand.
Your selling tip on working with Imagekind Promotions around the holidays is a great Idea! I’m going to have to try that one out.
Thanks for a great article!
Joelle Rene’
http://www.artmarketingsuccess.com
Can you help me with how to contact them? I’m on the free account and have emailed with no replies. I can’t even update my images. I try to delete. They delete. But they are still putting them out there to the public.
I met an amazing 70 something artist today named Joanne, she was having a garage sale and her son was so proud of his mom’s collections INSIDE the house he gave me a tour…OMG! This lady is a prolific artist, has done all sorts of oils, acrylics, carvings, drawings, water-colors and has never tried to sell or show anything. She said she would like to, but she’s too shy. I would like to help direct her and her son into a good direction. Her caliber of work seems like glicee prints would be a good fit, but I don’t know much. Any ideas or places to start? This is a tangled web of information.
Hi, i really found this post usefull 🙂 i am a first time art sellor, I actually havnt signed up for the website IMAGEKIND yet because i am unsure of what type of currency they use. I have searched their Q and A but i have not found the currency used. I am from canada and i would like to use an account in canada. I was on another website they only used Us currency. I would like to know if they use Canadian currency
I signed up to Imagekind years ago – around 2009. It was the free membership.
I deleted some of the images from my gallery some time ago because I didn’t want them out there. Now I find these images are still on the Imagekind website for sale. I don’t know if they are actually selling any – they may be without telling me. I have not received any record of payment from them. They don’t reply to my emails for a request about updates on my account. So I’m pretty annoyed. L