Where Do You Sell Your Work Online?
(Illustration by Julissa Mora)
Do you sell products or prints of your Illustration work online?
I recently posted two articles here at EFII called 15 Places to Sell Your Work Online and 4 More Places to Sell Your Work Online, as well as a Weekend Forum topic where I asked How Do You Make Money as an Artist?.
Due to the popularity of this subject, I thought I’d follow up by asking you to share links to the places where you sell your work online, and tell us a little bit about your experience with those services. Have you had success with this source of alternative income? What have you learned?
What’s your story?
Please share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.
Special thanks to Julissa Mora for sharing her Illustration for this post.
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About Julissa Mora: Julissa Mora is an editorial and children’s Illustrator. Born and raised in Miami, she studied at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota. She followed her dream and she has been enjoying the journey. (Visit her website)
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Related Posts:
- 15 Places to Sell Your Work Online
- 4 More Places to Sell Your Work Online
- How Do You Make Money as an Artist?
- Artist Perspectives – Making Money as an Artist
- Featured Resource – ArtLicensingInfo.com
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I put some work on imagekind not that long ago.
I’ve sold a few prints there and made a couple extra bucks. I haven’t upgraded to the “pro” account there yet, although, I’d be interested to hear from others if it is a worthwhile investment.
Unfortunately, for me, I have a sizable collection of work that I created while in the full-time employ of a newspaper so I don’t have the rights to resell that work, some of which I think would resell well.
If you feel like buying something (or just window-shopping) its at http://johnwtomac.imagekind.com/posters
Great resource. I have a red bubble store.
http://www.redbubble.com/people/quakerninja
Experience: Red Bubble is a great community and a fantastic way to make artwork, and shirts available without paying out of pocket, I have had one shirt featured but I haven’t noticed that many sales yet.
The trade off: They use a direct to garment printing method that limits the kinds of inks used and the size of the print on the shirt.
Two more places to sell online.
My Soti
My store: http://www.mysoti.com/mysoti/designer/Quakerninja
Experience: My Soti is like cafe press, zazzle or red bubble
It’s free, Fewer options then the bigger companies but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The quality is great, easy to use.
The trade off: Shipping is slow at times. 4-6 weeks, This is more due to the other venders the site uses to fulfill orders then the site staff it’s self and has greatly improved. Customer service is fantastic, just send them a quick email with your issue (if you have one) and they are quick to respond and help you out.
Big Cartel
My store:http://quakerninja.bigcartel.com/
Experience: I have been using my Big Cartel store for about 2 years now. This is more D.I.Y. Then some of the other stores. When I say Do it yourself I mean getting products manufactured, if you are selling goods like belts, shirts, posters ect.
You will have to pay to have your work made into things by a printer, or whoever you need to make what you want. You will also be responsible for shipping your own orders.
http://www.shippingsupply.com/ has some good deals. I like to do this myself because I can add goodies to the orders like candy, stickers or what have you to give my customers a little extra thank you with there packages.
There is a free (gold) membership 5 products in the store.
I recommend the next one up Platinum plan at $9.99/month to unlock the best features
including the ability to fully customize the html/css
and my favorite feature Discount codes. I find it really helpful to move products with a nice sale from time to time. The site accepts paypal so that’s nice.
I should say that for whatever store you choose. Selling is hard work. If you expect to just let them sit on the internet and make money, I’m sorry but that’s not going to work very well.
Promotion on Twitter, facebook and other communities is great but I have found for best results make some friends with bloggers in your area of interest, and get some good reviews. Asking is free, and always worth a try.
You could pay for advertising, but I think for a startup, or smaller brand this is very costly and not always successful, I would recommend just doing the best you can with word of mouth.
Good luck everyone and remember to stay positive. You can do it.
I use the german/european equivalent to etsy which is called http://www.dawanda.com, and I find it very useful, since it’s quite known in germany and highly frequented by people who love to buy handmade stuff.
I sold a fair amount of selfdesigned mood diaries there.
I’ve always planned to sell prints on canvas (no one knows why I haven’t done so yet, guess I was too lazy to find the best shop for that :)
I’ll follow this thread to finally find one! :)
Hi everyone :)
At this moment I only sell some limited edition, hand-printed stuff at my own little webshop. Here’s the link:
http://veronikamarosy.com/webshop/
I checked out some online shops, but haven’t set up my mind yet about which one to choose :) I’ll keep track of the comments to get some advice and feedback about them.
Cheers!
My recommendation is having multiple stores. It adds to your exposure in several different communities. One of the first things I guess you need to figure out though is do you actually want to be the producer of your own products and handle order fulfillment, or do you want a store/service that does all of that for you and allows the customer to control the size/printing/framing options while checking out?
This then dictates what type of stores I list my prints on. I actually coordinate all the printing, hand sign, and do order fulfillment for all of my illustration prints. Mainly because I do a lot of outdoor/indoor indie/craft/art festivals which require me to have inventory. The full service types of shops don’t really work with hand signing/customizing since they print and ship directly to the buyer + if you want to buy your own products to sell at events, their sale cost to you is pretty hefty which allows them to make a nice profit off of your work whether it is directly to you or someone purchasing your work.
I first start with selling through my website http://rawtoastdesign.com/store/index.htm – it is setup with http://www.paypal.com for payment processing.
Then once the descriptions and images have been prepared for my main site, I basically copy and paste my descriptions across the other stores. The two I utilize and have been the most successful with have been Etsy for smaller priced items – http://www.etsy.com/shop/rawtoastdesign and Supermarket – http://rawtoastdesign.supermarkethq.com for my higher priced/larger prints. My reasoning for this is that Etsy charges you a listing fee ($0.20) for each piece and it expires after 4 months if it doesn’t sell. Supermarket doesn’t charge listing fees, they instead take a little larger % from the sale, but none of your products ever expire with them which is nice.
I also (passively) do shirts over at http://skreened.com/rawtoastdesign and have sold quite a few without ever promoting it :) I mainly started this so I could order a few for myself and friends and apparently other people want to wear them too. I chose them because of their mission – “environmental shirt printing methods that are ethically made” – their shirts are printed on American Apparel and feel/fit great. They do fade a little over time with several washes because of the printing technology, but its a good way to test the waters of selling shirts without all the upfront costs/overhead that comes with doing huge print runs of silk screened t’s. I also put some stuff on cafepress a long time ago and have never seen any action over there. I used it to do some promo/merch type stuff done for a couple of events, but that was it. I also had the “sell prints” option/account over at deviant art several years ago and never saw any sales from that.
Hope that helps.
Best,
Jesse / http://www.rawtoastdesign.com
So far I’m selling at Imagekind (http://howyadoin.imagekind.com) and Blurb (http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1076588). The numbers could be better, but the recession’s definitely been a hindrance. Still, I’ve paid a month’s rent with sales since the fall. I’ll take my victories where I find ‘em.
I sell my work online solely through Etsy: http://hansma.etsy.com
I think the advice to put yourself out on many sites is good… if you have the time/resources for it. Right now I barely have time for my Etsy and I want to make that the best it can be before spreading myself too thin.
I have two stores. The first is good ol’ Etsy and the other is just a wordpress blog, so it’s technically not a store, but it kindof is.
My self published children’s books – http://www.etsy.com/shop/harmonillustration
My commission work – http://www.customcartoonportraits.wordpress.com
Thanks for letting us share these Thomas.
I have an Etsy Shop – http://www.etsy.com/shop/dlindsey and plan to soon open one on Art Fire.
ArtFire : http://www.JessicaMLopez.artfire.com
Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/jessicamlopez
Just started up with Etsy-love it! All original work from my books.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/christopherdenise
So much fun to see my work featured on your site. Thanks Thomas!
I started an etsy.com shop but it needs some tlc. I also have some designs up on cafepress.com. I’ve been looking at istockphoto.com…I’ve heard it’s one of the good ones. Thats about it for me.
thanks for sharing everyone…lots of good ideas :)
Hi guys,
I sell my stuff on http://www.dreamstime.com/register-resi140150 I make mostly digital illustrations though.
Johan