5 Simple Steps to Sell Your Art!
Whether you've been creating art for years, or if you've finally given in to the artist inside, here's a simple and easy-to-implement guideline to help you sell your art.
Step 1: Before you go about figuring out how to sell your art, decide whether you do want to sell your art.
Initially, this question may seem a bit redundant. But if you really think about it, are you aware of what's involved in selling your art? If you've never sold your art before, you may not realise that after you've invested so much time and commitment into a piece of work, it might be a bit hard to let it go! But in all seriousness, you may want to look at your motivations for wanting to sell your artwork. Do you want to share your art or do you consider it as a necessary evil? If you find yourself leaning more toward the latter, you may want to reconsider your decision to delve into the art business. It could be possible it's not something you're passionate about or something you wouldn't find much fulfilment in pursuing.
Step 2: Decide what it is that you want to sell.
Do you have a vast portfolio of works you want to sell or do you want to specifically make pieces to sell? If you feel confident that you have a good collection of salable pieces, then by all means dive right in and research your potential markets and sales opportunities! If you're looking to create your art to sell, you may have more work ahead of you. But you do also have a great opportunity to identify existing niches to create works targeted to those potential customers. In both cases, a little research goes a long way! Get to know who your potential customers are, what kind of other artists are currently selling to these markets and consider how you can effectively create or market your pieces to them.
Step 3: Find out where you can sell your artwork.
This is probably one of the considerations many artists take for granted – where to sell artwork. It may be quite easy to find the local art markets, or state art fairs, or even online art sales sites, but what you will also need to consider is who you will be selling your art to in those locations. It may be worth doing the additional research to find out specifically what kinds of art sells best at these locations. By this I mean: are buyers mainly looking for low priced craft or trinket kinds or art? Perhaps more sales are made of larger scale, high quality and expensive pieces… If you find markets or locations where buyers will more likely be looking for the type of work you're sell you'll be making more sales with half the effort!
Step 4: Effectively price your work.
Generally, artists do one of two things when they price their work: under price it or over price it! Pricing is not a very simple strategy to grasp, so prepare for a bit of trial and error when it comes to finding the appropriate pricing for your work. Again, research can be a very useful tool when it comes to appropriately pricing your work. Consider similar styles of work, or artists with similar backgrounds, what are the price points they're selling their work around? Could you possibly create for yourself a pricing system to suit differing pieces and different markets?
Step 5: Create it and sell it!
Once you've successfully completed the previous steps, you're ready to pull it all together and start selling! And always keep in mind one of the most important points to selling art – have fun doing it! You're art is something you're passionate about and something you love doing, share that with potential customers and fellow enthusiasts. Artists get bogged down in the actual selling of art – you're an artist not a sales person! But by being true to your craft and open with customers you can find a way to successfully mix the two.
