Selling Digital Art: Easy Ways For Artists To Start Making Money
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Discover The Best Tips And Places To Start Selling Digital Art
What is digital art?
Digital art refers to artwork created using digital tools and technologies, such as computer software, tablets, or digital cameras. It encompasses a wide range of artistic forms, including illustrations, graphic design, 3D modelling and animation. Digital art has opened up a whole new world of creative possibilities, allowing artists to manipulate and combine traditional art techniques to create new innovative outcomes. Some critics like to separate digital art from the rest of the art world – perhaps in an attempt to regrade its credibility. However, given its growing popularity; digital art looks to be sticking around.
The growing popularity of digital art
Digital art has recently witnessed a huge surge in demand; mostly due to its accessibility and unique characteristics. With the rise of technology, digital art offers a new medium of expression that resonates with modern audiences around the world. It allows artists to explore endless possibilities, experiment with various styles and easily share their creations with a massive online audience.
Additionally, the growing interest in NFTs (non-fungible tokens) has further propelled the demand for digital art, offering artists new avenues for monetisation and ownership in the digital art realm.
With its popularity soaring, we’re seeing an increasing market for digital art. A lot of artists are turning to the practice as a way to monetise their creativity, with others being completely new to art as a whole! The world of digital art is rapidly growing – which is why we’ve put this helpful guide together for you.
How do I sell my digital art?
It can be confusing to know how to sell your digital art. It’s definitely not uncommon to see giclee prints on sale – but how can you sell art that isn’t physical? Artists find ways to tackle this new demand; selling digital art in a variety of forms. Let’s explore these different digital art forms below:
1. Digital Downloads:
Artists can sell high-resolution digital files of their artwork, allowing buyers to download and print the art themselves.
2. NFTs:
Non-fungible tokens have recently gained a lot of popularity in the digital art world. Artists can mint their artwork as unique tokens on blockchain platforms, providing buyers with proof of ownership and authenticity.
3. Licensing:
Artists can licence their digital art for various purposes, such as commercial use, merchandise, book covers, or album artwork. It means that you have control of the making of the art, but someone else decides how they want to use it.
4. Merchandise:
A popular choice for selling digital art is through the production of products and merchandise. Artists apply their digital art to various items, such as clothing, phone cases, mugs, or posters, and sell them through online stores or print-on-demand services.
5. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) Art:
For those artists who are skilled in the technology, creating immersive digital experiences using AR or VR can be a good option for monetising your digital art., allowing buyers to engage with their artwork in virtual spaces.
6. Animated Art:
Lastly, artists can also consider selling animated digital art pieces or creating GIFs that can be used for online platforms or shared on social media. This is a great idea for illustrators and graphic designers who can work with moving image work.
What are NFT’s?
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are like special digital certificates that prove you own something unique. This could be a number of things such as digital art, music, or even virtual real estate. They’re different from regular files because they have a special code on a ‘blockchain’, which is like a digital collection that keeps track of who owns what.
NFTs give artists a way to sell and protect their digital creations, as the demand within collectors continues to rise. In a sense, it’s like having a special digital collector’s item that can either increase or decrease in value.
Places to Sell Digital Art
Now you’re interested in selling digital art and understand the forms in which it takes – it’s time to start exploring the potential sites, places and platforms available.
Etsy
Etsy is a great art seller platform all round, whether you make crafts, paintings, home decor, jewellery or digital prints. This means there’s many different forms you can sell your digital art as on Etsy. Common examples include prints – but digital artists are also selling instant downloads of their artwork that customers can go on to print themselves. This makes it more affordable for customers and takes the hassle of printing away from the artist.
When considering what style of digital art to sell on Etsy – take a look at the best sellers. This will give you some kind of indication on what’s popular but don’t change too much. It’s important to stay true to yourself when you’re making artwork, whether you plan to sell it or not.
Society6
Society6 is an online platform where artists can sell their digital art onto a variety of products and merchandise. After creating an account and uploading their artwork, artists can choose items such as prints or phone cases to make available to consumers. They then set their prices and add tags and descriptions to optimise search visibility.
Society6 handles all the printing, shipping, and customer support; while artists earn royalties on each sale. They have a built in audience that sellers can tap into – but it’s helpful for creatives to promote their art products through social media aswell.
Redbubble
Redbubble is another online platform for selling digital art that is very similar to Society6, amongst others. Artists can create an account, upload their high-resolution designs and choose from a variety of products to sell, including prints, stickers, and apparel.
They can customise product options to suit their preferences and remove ones that they don’t want. When an order is placed, Redbubble will handle printing, shipping and customer service, while artists earn a commission on each sale they make. It offers a user-friendly interface for digital artists to showcase and sell their creativity to a global audience they don’t already need to have built.
Creative Market
Creative Market is a great marketplace exclusively for designers – with everything on sale from templates, images and typography. Artists can easily set up their own shop, uploading their digital artwork with the freedom to set their own prices and maintain control over their intellectual property.
The online marketplace provides a wide range of categories and subcategories, allowing customers to browse and purchase various digital assets. Similarly to the other platforms, artists earn a percentage of each sale, making it a lucrative platform for monetising their digital creations if you come to sell enough. But Creative Market can also offer a supportive community, with resources to help artists grow their businesses and connect with potential buyers.
Rarible
Rarible is a different kind of selling site to the ones we’ve explored so far, as it focuses on NFT’s. Selling digital on here involves ‘minting’ your artwork as unique tokens on the blockchain. It’s like creating a digital certificate of ownership for your art. You can set your own prices and sell your art directly to many collectors.
Rarible uses cryptocurrency called Ethereum, so this is what buyers will have to use to purchase your digital art. It’s an exciting platform that combines art and technology, allowing artists to showcase and sell their digital creations in a new and developing way. For those with knowledge in NFT’s, it’s definitely a good place to turn to. If you’re not already up to speed – take some time to research the world of NFT’s and Rariable.
Craft shows
So far, our examples have all been online platforms and sites, which makes sense when you’re selling digital art. However, you should also consider attending various local craft fairs, especially if you’re interested in producing physical copies of your digital work. This could be in the form of many products; prints, t-shirts, tote bags, mugs and more.
As well as selling digital art at craft fairs – they offer a great networking opportunity. Before you head to one, make sure you have an up to date website and social media account. People may walk past your stall and want to enquire further down the line. Having an online shop or website will be vital in converting interest into digital art sales.
Printful
Printful is a very popular print-on-demand service that works similarly to the examples we’ve explored above. However, one major perk of using Printful is that you can easily integrate it into your existing e-commerce store. This means that a customer can buy your digital design on whatever product you list, without even knowing that Printful was involved in production and shipping.
When you’re selling digital art with Printful, they do take a percentage of the profit to cover their own costs. How much artists can make with this method depends on how they set their prices – so spend some time doing the maths.
Using Instagram to sell your digital art can take various methods. Artists can utilise the in-app shopping platform, which provides customers with an accessible and easy buying experience. To buy from you, they won’t even need to visit a website or online store – everything is done from the Instagram app. Prints are a popular example of how artists monetise their digital art, but you could experiment with other products too.
Alternatively, you could use Instagram as the driving force that sends customers to an external shop. Clever marketing and advertising will be instrumental, as your goal is to stop customers in their tracks and send them to your relevant links. However you choose to use Instagram, just don’t forget its great influence.
Zazzle
Lastly, let’s explore the options that Zazzle has to offer. Selling digital art on Zazzle offers several benefits for artists, with its user-friendly platform and range of customisable products. Like other print-on-demand services; Zazzle takes care of the printing, production, and shipping processes, relieving artists of production burdens.
Artists have the flexibility to set their own royalty rates, giving them control over their digital art earnings. What’s more, Zazzle comes with a vast customer base and robust marketing tools, offering artists a great opportunity to reach a larger audience even if they’re a beginner.
Can you make money selling digital art?
Before going into a new business venture – every artist wants to know if it’s actually going to make them money. The truth is, a lot of creative projects can be hard to lift off the ground, but that’s where perseverance comes into play.
You can make money selling digital art – it just might not be the amount you expect at first. It takes time to perfect your business skills and grow a consumer base so you’ll need to be patient here. Creative businesses don’t become successful overnight and that’s the case for those trying to sell physical artwork too.
Success aside – if you want to sell your artwork but lack the time, this could be a great option.That’s because selling digital art requires less physical work. The artist usually isn’t involved in production or shipping as the transaction occurs online, meaning you have more time to be creative.
Conclusion
In a world that is becoming increasingly online and technological – there’s never been a better time to start selling digital art. Even if you use a physical process to create work, there’s now a whole host of ways to digitally manipulate and repurpose your creativity to suit a completely new consumer base.
As artists, it’s important to not change your style too much in the name of trends and popularity. However, if you’re wanting to make money from your craft – then it’s good practice to stay informed on what’s selling well. Selling digital art doesn’t have to completely alter your practice. It can be a great addition to a broader and bigger creative business plan.
DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS ON SELLING DIGITAL ART? LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW.
Also, don’t forget you can always share your art with us or tag us on Instagram @darkyellowdot.
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