7 Best Selling Art Tips for Emerging Artists

There are more possibilities than ever for emerging artists to sell art. Just browse online and you will find hundreds of ways an artist can make money selling art. But, even though these opportunities are available, they are useless without learning strategies for making money with art.

 

Recently I shared an article featuring three basic steps to receiving more art sales, which is a prelude to the following selling art tips I am about to share. This is an essential read, especially for emerging artists.

 

 

To go there now, before reading on, please click the following link (opens in a new window), and return afterwards.

How to Make Increasing Art Sales

 

Make a Plan and Set Goals

Make a long term plan to sell art. The first step in an art plan should be to create as much art as possible. Build a large enough collection so that people will have no doubt you are a serious and dedicated artist.

 Then, set out to get your art seen. It helps to set goals of where you want to be in a few years time.

For more artist goal setting advice, please visit Goal Setting – How to Achieve Your Goals

 

Give Your Art Mass Appeal

To reach a much larger audience, the art should have mass appeal. It should be something the general public can relate to, or at least those people who regularly buy art.  I am not saying that an artist needs to change their style to sell more art, or even sell out.

But, if you are not selling, and funds are what is needed to continually produce and promote art, some changes may have to be made. Look for general trends in the art world, and find out what people are buying and writing about. 

 

Talk About your Art

Give presentations, demonstrations, and speeches. Practice talking about your art. Try practicing in front of a mirror, or with friends, if not accustomed to public speaking. Write regularly, in a journal about the artworks you are working on at the moment. Create an art blog and start blogging about random thoughts, processes, and works in progress.

Whether it is a certain concept, subject, or theme, an art buyer will appreciate the piece more if they can know what it means, and why you created it. Have some of this conveyed through your artwork title, but try to enlighten an art buyer with a summary of what inspired you, so that they can easily explain it to others who will ask questions.

For more advice on presenting your art verbally, please visit How to Talk About and Sell Your Art

Price Competitively for Art Selling

Pricing art depends on what stage an artist is in their art career. An artist just starting out should never charge the same as someone who has much more experience. Look at the prices of other artists in your stage of artistic development. Visit art galleries or search for prices online. Be able to explain your prices in practical language to anyone who may ask, and never base it on emotions.

For example, tell them your painting took a certain amount of time to create, and materials cost such and such, instead of saying you price it higher because it has personal meaning. Unless they know you, they will not understand the significance of your personal attachment to pricing.

 

If you can convey that the artwork has a certain tangible value related to the time spent, artistic skill success, cost of materials, etc., the art buyer is more likely to buy the artwork.

For more helpful pricing tips, please visit How to Set Good Prices to Sell Your Art

 

Try to Give Your Art Value

When a person views an artwork, they often want to buy it because they see something in it that relates to them. They have an emotional reaction to the piece, which stirs them to want to buy it.

There are a lot of things that contribute to the value of an artwork. How it is presented, framing, certificate of authenticity, where it is showcased, all help to increase the perceived value. An artwork displayed in a museum gallery would certainly appear more valuable than one in a coffee shop.

That is not to say you should not display in a coffee shop, especially if you are an emerging artist. It is effective for name recognition.

 

Create Smaller Artworks

Trying to sell a large scale artwork can be very difficult, especially on the internet. There are several problems we are confronted with. The larger the size, the more difficult it will be to ship. Another problem is expense. Although an artwork may be well worth the asking price, because of time spent painting, cost of materials, etc., the only people who will be able to buy it are people with high paying jobs.

Small artworks, on the other hand, are generally more affordable, and easier to transport, frame, and hang.

For more advice, please visit the comments to this question, Should Artists Create Smaller Paintings to Sell More?

Selling Art on the Internet

Many artists already have their art on the internet, but are having varying degrees of success. The key to success on the internet is to have your very own art website. Like an art studio is a base for creation of art in the real world, an online portfolio functions as a central point on the world wide web. Drive your contacts to your art website by sharing it with your social network circles.

This is essential. Visitors will be very few without sharing, or having a means of others to share your online portfolio website.

For more information on the benefits of an art website, please visit our articles on this topic.

Sharing Your Artist Website with Others
Free Art Portfolio Templates

 

Have you had any success at selling art online or offline?

If so, do you have any advice to share with emerging artists who visit this art blog?