to try to sell my art

[musicforsmorks]

I am a self employed illustrator. been doing it for 15 yrs. I mainly work via commission, licensing and online venues.
business is good, but does fluctuate monthly, so I was planning on seeking about 16 hours employed work to supplement my income - before covid sprang up!

Of course, I have concerns about that at the moment as I have no recent experience outside of my self employment, and it seems everyone suddenly needs that 16 hour job at Tesco!

lately, discussing this is DP, he said why not give yourself a few months to open an etsy shop, as well as my personal website, etc, and try to sell some of my original paintings and watercolours.

now, 12 yrs ago I had a very successful store online selling them, and often pulled in around £1000 per week. I stopped after a few years due to the death of a family member and just seemed to forget about it as sales had become slow.

would you try this again now, considering the work was very sell-able before? I guess there's nothing to lose, but I kinda wanted a small 'guaranteed' income, and this wouldn't necessarily be.....

I already have a lot of online outlets for my current work (of a very different style) so know what I'm doing.

Or should I just try very hard to get a 16hr job in a shop, like a sensible person, etc?

I would definitely do this!

I think you’ve got nothing to lose! Why not?

But perhaps try and prepare for the fact it might not go the way you want - just because it’s so tricky to get a store off the ground and find a following these days (even with experience). But if you’re ok with that, I think it’s absolutely worth a punt. Best of luck!

If you have a sale able talent you should go for that .
Open your etsy shop

If you can afford to try it on a small scale and wouldn’t be reliant on it, it’s got to be worth a trial run.

Why not? I watched a video on ladbible about women boy randomly chucking some paint on some paper and he ended up getting it up to 15k on eBay (validity of this I cannot confirm!!!!) if you have a talent then go for it!!!

thanks, it is tempting.
sadly the market is super saturated these days so no idea if work would sell. but it definitely did before.

We have lots of local artists popping there stuff on Facebook and driving traffic to their Etsy shops.

Have you sold through Etsy before? It's a nightmare! Constantly changing algorithms mean you have to spend more time on seo for your shop than actually creating the art.

Not on the high street is expensive to start with but meant to be quite good once you're set up. A Facebook shop that links to a shopify website is also a good idea. Good luck with it! 🍀 I also make and sell things and it's a hard slog in the beginning.

Craft fairs are also good, and it can be nice to get out and actually meet people after being hunched over your desk or laptop for months on end

my current work (my self employed work) is mostly digital. it has a very broad market and does ok. I just do need to expand my income a bit, preferably by £500 per month.

the new etsy stuff would involve getting old work out and creating new paintings, etc.

I have a couple of months free to do this.

there's no guarantee but then I often see little watercolours in local gift shops going for £200 and I always say 'I could bloody do that!'

I need to work some magic to force people to buy them

I would definitely, I'd recommended making an instagram page with your Etsy shop in the bio and gain followers from
The art community on there. Will help get your work out

Set up your shop and use instagram to get your work out there

yes I do have etsy experience but not recent.
I hate the bloody site!
but needs must......I would love some other venue ideas!

I don't drive so fairs are currently out, possibly none yet due to covid?

I already use instagram for this old stuff.
it doesn't get much traction to be honest but I only post every few months - all my energy usually goes in to my current work, which is very different and wouldn't attract same followers.

It’s difficult with covid pausing everything but craft fairs might be another potential outlet.

Also posting on your local fb/Nextdoor groups might be a good way to drum up interest.

I'm thinking redouble and society6 for reproductions.
can't sell originals there though.

Would you have to sell the originals - could you sell T-shirts/mugs/teatowels of your artwork?

There are many "print on demand" services so little upfront investment for a trial; granted longer-term the artist doesn't make enough from those sales really.

redbubble

Do you have any nice local cafes that would put your work up in their walls for sale? We have one local to here and the stuff seems to sell regularly!! Assume they get a cut to make it worth their while..

I bought art via Instagram. Saw it, contacted the artist. I have 5 of her pictures now, 3 prints and two originals. Watercolour sketches of animals.

I'd love to see your work

If you can put morals aside you can make an absolute fortune with furry fetish art You should at least give selling your art a chance, you don't know how things will go unless you take that risk the market might be saturated but good artists will still make good money. You could consider a Patreon if you can build up enough of a following or even Youtube studio vlogs.

You also need to post constantly to manipulate the instagram algorithm they won't reward you for not posting often and your posts won't show to as many people.

You need to post at least every day to gai traffic on Insta but it's an easy way of pushing people to your work
Whether on Etsy or your own website. It's very doable, I went from 800 followers in Dec last year to 35000 now just by posting regularly. Give it a go , if you make a few sales then surely it's worth it and you could make hundreds

I won't post links to stores as that feels wrong on MN but I do have a mish-mash of recent styles at my Tumblr page.

my older work isn't here though, may post some examples in a bit.

here is the link : dansedelune.tumblr.com

Do it!

I have a beautiful watercolour I bought on Etsy from a Mumsnetter, and I got another print delivered yesterday from another Etsy shop which I just saw and had to buy as it's perfect for my home.