Painting: Taurus by Karen Mckenzie
This week on TAA we’re providing two short, advanced lessons on displaying and tracking your art online. This first post is from the team at Big Stock Photography. If you’re a painter or sculptor, don’t run away! There’s a big bonus in this one for you as well! Today we’re outlining a couple of really neat plugins for WordPress that will show you how to add dimension and scale to your images online. Enjoy!
Loving what you do for a living is the best way to turn work into fun. Whether you are thinking about selling your art for a full-time living or just to supplement your current work, you should be compensated for your hard work. If you have a passion for art and don’t know where to get started with selling and marketing your artwork, here are some tips and suggestions to get you started:
General tips
Know your market: Most artists would rather just focus on what makes them happy, creating the artwork. However, having a basic business sense will help you connect with the customers that would be interested in your art. Think about the type of people that your art would appeal to and try to promote your work on those markets. If you can, find other artists locally or online that have similar work to yours and see how they are promoting their work.
Create replicas for less: If you are taking photos, painting, sketching, or any other kind of two dimensional art, replicas are a great way to make money off of your art. Invest in some high quality replicas of your art and sell them cheaper than the originals. This will allow you to continue making money off of one piece where as an original by itself is only one sale. I have noticed in the online market, prints tend to sell quickly as opposed to original pieces which can take longer as some people are still uncomfortable with the idea of buying original art online.
Network with local art vendors: While the internet is a great place to market artwork, there are many local coffee shops and art shops that love to carry local artists work. Many small business owners know other entrepreneurs in the area and can be useful connections for future distribution. Include a link to your website on your title cards below your piece directing those interested to more of your work online.
Use email and social media: Social media is a great way for creative people to connect and share their work online. These websites provide a platform to leverage all of your personal and professional relationships to connect with potential buyers. Finding art communities online and staying active among these crowds is a great way to market your brand as well as meet some great friends and contacts in the same industry.
Making it Bigger!
For talented photographers, stock photography is a great way to make money off of your passion. Photography is a unique type of art because you can store the picture digitally and resell it for virtually no extra variable cost per download. Stock photography websites provide a convenient way to connect with customers and set up a stream of residual income since high quality stock photos are in high demand. For those wanting to see the fine details, adding a zoom feature with high resolution photos will do wonders for the presentation of your art online (The DynamicWP team has created a WordPress plugin for just that functionality, which can be downloaded here).
Make it 3-Dimensional!
Since you can’t really download a three dimensional sculpture (yet! I’ve got my eyes on 3d printing), it is important to take high quality photographs with enticing perspectives and lighting to make the viewer feel like they are right in front of the artwork. Retail art shops have the advantage of being able to see and touch three dimensional sculptures. Selling your 3d art online requires that you recreate the experience of seeing the object in real life as much as possible. There are many plugins for your website that will allow you to put a full 360 degree view of your artwork online (One I have used personally as a WordPress plugin was WP Works 360 Degrees Viewer — cost $10).
Have you used zoom and 360 view features like this on your website before? What do you think? Does it enhance and make you more likely to buy?
For anyone looking to sell their prints or photos either on a marketplace or through their own website, be sure to either put watermarks on your images or use smaller images that would not work for downloading and printing. The stock photos sites do this for you but people often overlook this step when selling their art themselves. You definitely do not want to be giving away your prints for free.
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very informative article, thanks