Art Selling Goal
Despite the great potential of the internet, the goal of an artist should be to exhibit and sell his or her art in real, brick & mortar venues; a gallery, store, restaurant, art show, office building or other place where people can see the art.
Nothing is better for selling art than seeing it in person. 99% of the people that have bought art from my internet site have first seen my art in exhibition of some type.
- I would rather have my art in one walk-in gallery, than 1,000 internet virtual galleries.
- I would rather have 1 print in stock in 100 Ikea or Target stores than 10,000 prints in an online Etsy-type store.
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May 14, 2009 at 1:11 pm
One thing that might help is some sort of link to your website from your twitter account and blog. The thoughts make sense — but where’s the art?
May 14, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Response to jameswparker:
I thought about including a link to my art websites; however, I didn’t for a couple of reasons:
1. What I say may irritate most of the galleries (or others) I work with. I do not want to do that.
2. I have been to other “art tips” websites and to me they were just gimmicks to get the visitor to go look at their art on the same website. Or, more likely, they were selling art coaching or virtual gallery services.
I do not want to promote my art or sell anything here or serve as a base of any advertising.
I want to use this blog to discuss selling art, not discuss my art or try to sell my art or art services to visitors.
Like creating art, there is no right or wrong way to sell art.
If you or anyone else has a different experience or idea than mine, a question or topic to discuss, then please post it…with or without your website link.
May 14, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I think it’s good to have your eggs in all kinds of baskets. What do they say? People need to see your name/ works three times before it makes an impact?
May 14, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Reply to Rachel:
That is true. The question is, which basket sells the art, which basket helps sell the art and which basket should one spend the most time with?
I say spend more time trying create better art and getting that better art in brick & mortar venues and TEST different venues in the web (blog, website, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to see which gets you the most traffic in getting your name out. (But keep in mind most people looking at an artist web effort are just other artists like yourself trying to find a place/way to sell their art.)
Those web services that give the least return should be used the least. For example, Twitter is very time intensive, but returns very little PR benefit to me. I have been cutting back my time in it.
May 15, 2009 at 2:20 pm
I disagree with this. I have only shown in one gallery and exhibited in a couple of small places. My sales are coming from people seeing my art online on Facebook, MySpace and now on Twitter and RedBubble. My new art business is based on selling art online of artists that may not have been in the high end galleries, but are just as talented. Why let the GALLERIES only decide what is good art? With displaying art online, the PUBLIC decides what is good, with comments and such. I am new to selling art online. But I know that my friends and family have seen my paintings for years, and it was not until I published works online as FOR SALE that I got sales.
May 15, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Response to Martha Wade:
Of course there are always exceptions. As I have mentioned a few times on the blog, there is no right or best way to sell art.
Am I correct that you have an on-line gallery selling paintings of other artists, plus your own?
Could you post a link link to where the art and prices are so all the readers can see how your online gallery works?
That way we can all learn from your ideas and methods of selling online.
Thanks for commenting and congratulations on your success!