How can I sell my art?

December 3, 2015 9:12 AM

I make abstract art. A lot of abstract art, some of which is in the web link of my profile. I need to offload some of it, but I'm trying to figure out the best way. This is complicated by my need to spend time marketing my writing, not my art. More within.

I love love love to make art, mostly mixed media abstracts. I make more art than could ever be useful for me to own or give away. Plus, art supplies are expensive.So I want to find a way to sell some of my art, not for tons of money, but for a bit. And I'm trying to find a way to make it without a lot of hassle and within a space where I fit in aesthetically.
I briefly had an Etsy shop. Wasn't crazy about it since it seemed like learning all the ins and outs of the community, plus promoting, took all the fun out of it. I'm not at the level of Saatchi or something. I'm thinking like $30 for most of my pieces, though I know shit about pricing art.
There's also the aesthetic question. A lot of places I see online or in person that sell art are big into landscapes, still lifes, etc. I can't imagine I'd fit in there. I do prefer to sell online, and I"m happy to get decent photos and a web presence and stuff.
However, one catch here is this: much as I love art, I'm a professional writer, and I spend a lot of time writing and hustling that. Which means that I don't have a lot of hustle time/energy for art right now. (I can do some, but just not as much as I give to writing.) But surely there's a low-hustle way to make some pocket money from my art?

posted by mermaidcafe to Work & Money (9 answers total)

Having a website selling your art won't sell very much. There are simply too many other artists also doing it. And if you don't want to promote/market yourself, then you will the noise to everyone else's signal. More and more, I am seeing people going back to their local roots, buying locally produced art and becoming part of the local art community.

Do you have any local craft shows, art galleries, boutique shops, cafes etc you can consign the art to? I display art in my Public Library as it is a community space. If you live near a touristy town they may have some shops as well. Have you considered offering art classes?

Your art is beautiful, by the way.
posted by saucysault at 9:30 AM on December 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is what street fairs and community arts centers are for. The problem with a web presence is that you still have to drive people who intend to buy to your site, which is hard enough if you do all of the networking and card-distributing that you don't want to do. Community arts events have this built in.

Also, check out the local cafes, cheese shops, florists, coffee shops, etc. It's very common for them to consign work in exchange for having stuff on their walls for free.

There's also the MeFi Mall.
posted by cmoj at 9:38 AM on December 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

I see lots of art for sale on eBay. At your price point it seems like a good fit.
posted by cairnoflore at 11:30 AM on December 3, 2015

Is there a local art community where you are? If so, there are usually fund-raising opportunities that you can contribute art to. People bid, and then usually you get 50% and the organization you're fund-raising for gets 50%. Where I am, community art centers and libraries and small indie radio stations have auctions like this.
posted by xo at 11:44 AM on December 3, 2015

I am not an artist, at all. However, I used to spend a ton of time on etsy and the boards when I was thinking of putting up a type of item I make and the news isn't great, from what I learned.

1. The best places are etsy and ebay. Almost everyone who actually sold art on a consistent basis had several sources of income. Some people did etsy + personal site, others did ebay + personal site, and others did ebay + etsy + personal site. Certain types of art sell better on site than another.

2. If you expect your art to sell without marketing, you will be sorely disappointed. There is so much stuff out there, the marketplace is so oversatuarated that you won't consistently sell by just hoping they find you.

3. Shipping art can be quite costly. There is always a struggle between charging the full costs of shipping and packaging, and taking a cut to make the price more alluring to customers (it's a pretty big difficulty due to the over-saturation of the market)

4. Depending on the type of art, prints can sell better than original artwork because they are more affordable for both parties. That doesn't really help with wanting to have less art around though. It also requires extra initial effort on your part to get a quality print.

The bottom line is that if one could just put some art up and sell it, and make an okay profit, everyone would be successful at it. That doesn't mean you won't be successful or you shouldn't try to do things in a low-effort way, just don't have high expectations.

Online is just really tough. It's difficult to just do the "art" part without doing any of the "business" stuff.
posted by Aranquis at 12:28 PM on December 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

I haven't sold on Etsy, but you only get charged if you actually sell something, right? I've only gotten into buying art recently, but I've bought a number of pieces from Etsy, and I browse there regularly. Many of the artists I've seen list their stuff on Etsy as well as selling it in other places. It's not an all or nothing thing. It seems like it's worth just putting it up on Etsy and having it there in case someone stumbles across it and likes it, while you're pursuing other venues. You don't have to get into heavy promotion if you don't want to; that obviously increases chances of success, but I know that I've looked at lots and lots of art that the artist has done the absolute minimum needed to get it uploaded. That stuff does get looked at.
posted by primethyme at 12:56 PM on December 3, 2015

I'm a professional artist who not only sells originals but just this year branched out into selling reproductions a bit online, at art festivals, and mostly via a local store. I've even sold to a MeFite just through being a member of this community! But my art sale game is only moderate hustle, so I don't make a huge amount of income off of it, because even high hustle artists don't always consistently make money from personal art production and small scale production also suffers from a lack of bulk economies involving materials/shipping/processes. By far, most of my money comes from my career as an art professor.

But I'd say of all the things I do, finding a local store/gallery to sell my stuff for me with a 35% markup for their own commission structure has been the least hassle so I'm really happy with the arrangement and think you'd be, too, despite your above stated preference for online.
posted by vegartanipla at 1:09 PM on December 3, 2015

I would give Etsy another shot. I think you could do really well there. The promotion and community aspects of selling on Etsy are way less important than a lot of people will tell you. Promoting through Etsy's in-house advertising system is beneficial for the site, not the seller. It famously doesn't work.

What *does* work for getting your work seen is to make sure it shows up in searches, and that it's appealing to buyers when they see it. Step one is to fully describe the item, with the most important element being full and total usage of all keyword "tag" slots. Use words shoppers will use, including size and colors. (I hate this - it shouldn't matter if a piece of art is blue, but it does.) Second step is to use all available photo slots. A close-up, different angles, how the piece might look on a wall, etc.

Do these things and i can't guarantee you'll get rich off Etsy, but you are sure to get more attention than previously.

Source: have made full-time income from Etsy for years. Feel free to message.
posted by jessicapierce at 2:12 PM on December 3, 2015 [4 favorites]

Society6 has a lot of outlets for your art. You can sell them as prints or on a bunch of products from rugs to shower curtains to iphone cases!
posted by minoraltercation at 11:23 PM on December 3, 2015