5 Ideas for selling drawings online

If you’re a visual artist selling your drawings, the ideal business model would be to wake up in the morning, work on your sketches and/or drawings, publish these online, and make a living by selling them. And by taking regular trips to the post office, of course. Sounds like a perfect dream? With these 5 ideas for selling drawings online, you might just have a great quick start on selling your drawings.

1. Open an Etsy shop

When you open a shop on Etsy, you will be able to engage in the marketplace that is already there and reach a targeted audience of people looking for handmade items or artwork by professional artists. They value the fact that it’s handmade by a person, and not a machine, and are often willing to pay for it. It’s also convenient if you don’t know how to build an online shop or website, since it’s got a shopping cart already built in that will send you your payment along with a receipt to you and your client. No scary and complicated tech skills needed.

2. Start a daily project on tumblr people can follow

Another great tool you can use without any technical knowledge is Tumblr. It’s a blogging tool that will allow you to post short messages and pictures or videos of your artwork. Putting up a daily project on Tumblr will make you work on your art daily, create a great exercise for your skills and have people follow you to see where your project is heading.

3. Get active on Flickr

Putting your work up on Flickr will get you good Google search results exposure and will show your work to millions of people searching for pictures and illustrations every month. Publish your drawings to your Flickr account and, in the description area, include a link to the page where you’re offering the drawings for sale.

4. Auction yourself on Ebay

Ebay is great if you’re looking to furnish your new home, buy baby clothes or find awesome deals in China, but it’s also a great way to market your art and selling drawings online. Look for the category called ‘Self representing artists’ and put up some ads over there. It’s less personal and more crowded with a less targeted audience than Etsy, though.

5. Offer drawings off of Facebook profiles or other submitted pictures

In the end, the most important element in selling your drawings online is to form an audience around you and be able to constantly show your work to these potential buyers. By starting authentic and creative projects on social media, you will be able to connect with a large group of people and will have the potential of going viral. People who get their portrait drawn by you will post it on their profile, and will get people asking them about it, getting them to tell your story, and generate more customers, because their friends envy the cool profile picture illustration they are showing off.

Have you tried any of these? How are you selling drawings online?

Posted by Debbie in Drawings, Selling