by Kellie Hall

Created on: September 12, 2008

Selling artwork on the internet is a complex game, full of exciting possibilities and tricky pitfalls. It also puts you and your artwork in the center of almost infinate competition!

The first thing to remember is that it will take time for you to build up a following, a group of people who truly love your work and will purchase it from you through their computers. Patience is key, as is the willingness to try new things.

Now there are a number of different tactics, each with its own positives and negatives, and you will most likely want- and need- to utilize more than one of them in order to really grow and get the attention your artwork deserves!

1) eBay
Need I say more? Simple, user friendly, huge audience, getting your money is way easy, not too expensive... and there's about five million other artists on there trying to sell their work as well. And another five million scammers out of China or wherever dropping junk and clogging up the searches.
Don't get discouraged if you don't start selling the pieces right away.
It helps to start things off cheap, for bids- but don't let it hurt your feeling when some pieces sell way too low. You're just not "there" yet.
Paying extra for borders and being at the top of the page will help you to get attention- only you can decide if it's worth the extra expense.
Posting regularly means that if someone comes back to maybe buy another piece, they'll have something fresh and exciting to look at. Do it!
Put the vitals up so they're easy to read at first glance. Then put up some fluff to make people feel like they "know" you, and like your work has a "story". It helps sell the piece.

There are other websites out there you can sell through- probably the next biggest one is etsy.com. Great site, just not as well known as eBay, and with no auction option.

2) blogging
Free through blogger.com, or typepad.com, or wordpress.com, and extremely useful if you're going to be good about keeping it updated regularly- it gives people something prtty to look at, and a story to follow. It also can pick up a lot of hits from search engines if you utilize the keywords feature.
Pick something simple- ideally yourname.blogspot.com. You want people to be able to find you!
Use links. If you're selling on eBay, link to where they can buy. If you're in a gallery, link to the gallery site.

3) your own website
Again, pick a good name. You want people to be able to find you.
Setup can be as simple or complicated as you want. Go through sitekreator.com for the site

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