Four Places to Sell Your Art Online
Saturday, February 23, 2008
There are so many artists today that it can be hard to distinguish yourself and make a real income. However, selling artwork online is easier and more flexible than it has ever been. There are now dozens of sites that will host your art while helping you to promote yourself. Here are a few that have stood out to me because of their good site design, high traffic, and quality of art that is hosted:
Art Break - In my opinion this is one of the best sites to sell your artwork. Sign up is free and you get a virtual store where you can host your art. They host everything from oil paintings to screen printed t-shirts. They charge a 7.5% sales fee when a transaction between the buyer and seller is made. All other profits go directly to you.
Etsy - Etsy is one of the most popular art sites, bringing in thousands of buyers every day. They sell mostly crafts and clothes on the site, but there are also opportunities for painters and drawers. It is free to set up a store on Etsy and they often feature artists on their home page. They charge a 3.5% sales fee which is considerably lower than most other art sites.
Ebay - Ebay has the largest market of buyers for arts and crafts online. It also has the largest number of artists selling their work. It can be a competitive place, but there is still room for new artists to emerge if they have the talent and dedication.
Before you set up an auction you should look at popular artists and find out what they are doing right. Look at the titles and descriptions of the auctions, the categories they put them into, and the starting bids and bidding trends. This will give you an idea of what works on eBay, and how you can also succeed.
Boundless Gallery - Boundless Gallery is newer and has less traffic than the previous sites I mentioned, but it struck me with its clean design and high-quality artwork. Its design lets the customers chose by color, size, and price, and its high-quality graphics showcase the art nicely. They charge $5 a month for hosting. Right now they are having a trial-period where you can set up a store for free.
Posted by Crystal 9:16 AM 16 comments
Labels: design
Design Wordpress Themes For Money
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
I have been a member of the webmaster forums Digital Point for about a year, and I've seen hundreds of different ways people make money on there. One of the most profitable ways is designing Wordpress themes and selling sponsor links on the footer.
While I don't condone selling links, I don't condemn it. I think selling sponsor links on Wordpress themes is great for both parties. You get money for designing the theme and the link buyers get an unlimited amount of links from anyone who uploads the theme to their blog.
The themes that make the most money are the ones that look the best. Some really good themes will make up to $90 per link. An average looking theme will usually get between $15-$30.
To make the most money you should come up with an original design that has mass appeal, then post it on Digital Point with 3-4 link slots for sale. Usually there are 3 sponsor links for sale and one designer link, all in the footer.
After selling the links you should promote the theme to popular Wordpress theme sites. Here are a few examples:
http://www.themetube.com
http://www.wpskins.org/
http://themebot.com/
You can find similar sites by doing a Google search for Wordpress themes.
The amount of sites you promote to and the originality of the theme will all factor into how much money you can make. This can be a fun and creative way to make some extra cash and to test your marketing skills.
Posted by Crystal 1:03 PM 17 comments
Labels: design
Make Money For Your Craft Projects
Thursday, December 13, 2007
If you are into crafts, you can sell your do-it-yourself projects on the site Etsy. This site is pretty big and has a lot of great items for sale. There are handmade books and zines, toys, drawings, clothing, and more.
If you Google "sell handmade products," you will see other craft sites where you can sell your items, but they seem to have little traffic. Etsy is great because it actually has a lot of traffic and a large user base, all of whom are interested in buying hand-made crafts.
I came across this site when I was looking for sites where you can sell drawings online. I was surprised to see the high of quality art and other crafts they have here. This looks like a great way to make money and possibly turn a hobby into a career.
Posted by Crystal 1:08 AM 2 comments
How to Make Money With Photoshop
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
With the number of bloggers, webmasters, and digital photographers growing every day demand for graphic design and photo retouching is on the rise. Even if you've never used photoshop before there are thousands of tutorials on the subject to get you started if you are interested in doing this line of work. You can buy a cheap copy of photoshop on e-bay and go to sites such as Goodtutorials.com to learn the ropes of photoshop design.
Here are a few of the ways people are making money with photoshop:
Design logos and banners for webmasters.
As website competition heats up, everyone is looking for personalized graphics for their websites. There are many webmasters out there that aren't good at graphic design or just don't have the time for it. If you can do logo and banner design you'll want to get listed in design web directories so webmasters can find you. Here are a few sites where you can list your services:
http://www.getafreelancer.com
http://www.freelancedesigners.com
http://www.marketingtools.com
You can also find logo design contests in various webmaster forums. In the digital point forums buy sell or trade section there are always contests for logo and web design.
Participate in Contests
If you have creative and original ideas they can take you a long way in photoshop contests. Here are the most popular photoshop contest sites:
Photoshop Contest This site has ongoing contests with prizes such as DVDs and Ipods.
Worth 1000 One of the biggest photoshop contest sites. Hosts corporate contests with cash prizes that usually range from $50 - $500.
SitePoint Design Contests A popular forum with various photoshop contests for cash.
Do photo retouching
You can do photo-retouching for models and actresses, or just the average person looking to spice up their facebook profile. Photo retouching can be as simple as brightening a picture and removing blemishes and flyaway hairs. If you want to do this you should create your own website to look professional and let people find you. Here are two examples of popular photo-retouching websites:
Pic Wash This site has photo retouching starting at $7. Their target customer base appears to be teens and college students who need basic photo fixes. This is a great idea because it isn't just limited to fashion photographers and webmasters. Most people on Myspace or facebook can afford this service and probably find it useful.
Glenn Feron Here is an example of a professional photo-retouching site by the freelancer Glenn Feron. This site is geared toward models, actresses, and clothing designers. Prices start at $70 for a half-hour of work.
Design brushes and other tools that can be sold
Web designers and artists are always looking for new brushes to use. Unfortunately there are a lot available online for free. However there are people who make money selling high-quality brushes and textures. You can create a collection of high-resolution, high-quality brushes and sell them on your website or at forums.
Textures, actions and patterns aren't as popular as brushes but you can still build a good collection with them or add them to your collection of brushes. There is a lot of competition out there with designing brushes and textures but if you build a high-quality product you can be successful.
Posted by Crystal 11:07 PM 3 comments
Monetize Facebook Applications and Make Money
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
In May 2007 Facebook opened its network to developers by allowing them to create applications. Ever since doing this over 1,000 developers have been signing up every day.
An application is anything you can put on your Facebook profile. For instance, there is a Feedburner application that allows you to display the most recent headlines from your Feedburner blogs and Podcasts on your profile.
According to Adonomics, an open analytics website that tracks Facebook applications, there have been 425,485,539 installs across 6,690 apps on Facebook.
Facebook applications can be monetized in any way you can imagine. The most popular way to monetize is selling ad space. Facebook applications that are popular can make good money by monetizing with Adbrite, Lookery, and Google Adsense.
You can also monetize through sponsorship. For instance, a music application can be sponsored by a record company or a game application can be sponsored by a gaming website.
The third way to monetize is by selling goods and services. For instance, you can create an app. that helps people find relevant e-bay auctions or tickets off ticketmaster. You can also create an application that has your own products and services.
As Facebook continues to rise in popularity so does the potential to make money. Facebook will probably soon overtake Myspace and its a good idea to be ahead of the curve before that happens.
Posted by Crystal 7:03 PM 0 comments
Labels: design
Sell T-shirts and Merchandise Online
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
If you are looking for a new way to make money on your site you may want to consider selling t-shirts and other merchandise. Many people have made a good income selling t-shirts on their sites, including collegehumor.com, which pulls in $200,000 a month from t-shirts alone.
Of course you shouldn't expect to make that much money by designing a t-shirt, but it's clear that there is a big market for it. There are a lot of free sites that will print and ship your shirts so you won't have to do any work.
Cafepress is by far the most popular print-on-demand service online. They print shirts, books, bumper stickers, and more. The base price for a value t-shirt is 8.99. By marking the price up to 15.99, you can make a profit of $7 every time you sell a shirt. You can mark up a shirt to whatever price you want. Owning a basic shop is free but they put a limit on the number of designs you can have. They have an option to have a premium shop for $5 a month with no limit to what you can sell.
Spreadshirt is similar to cafepress except they specialize in t-shirts. Like cafepress they have a base price for each product which you can mark-up. A unique thing they offer is the ability to create your own designs right on their site. They also have a gallery of t-shirt designs that you can use on your own products in your shop, which is great for people like me who don't know much about graphic design.
Zazzle is a print-on-demand service that has some interesting merchandise you can sell, such as (real) postage stamps with your design, calendars, postcards, even aprons. They are community-based with message boards, journals, and more to help you spread the word about your merchandise. It's also 100% free with no premium membership. You receive 10% of everything you sell.
Selling custom t-shirts is the perfect way to make a little money and promote your site or business. Any promotional items usually make a good impression on potential customers, especially something useful like t-shirts or beer koozies!
Posted by Crystal 6:49 PM 5 comments
Owning a Store In Second Life
Friday, July 20, 2007
Second life is an online virtual world where players can get together to chat, play games, buy clothes, even attend real-life schools. Second Life currently has over 8,000,000 online "residents", 1,548,131 of which have logged on in the past two months.
Second Life also has its own currency, called the Linden, which players can exchange for 3D products such as clothes, jewelry, weapons, and more. Almost anything you can buy in real life is being sold in Second Life.
The current Linden exchange rate is 240 Lindens per 1 US Dollar. Most clothes and smaller products sell at about that price, although depending on where you shop, prices can rage from 1L - 2,000L.
Although it's not guaranteed that you will make money owning a store in Second Life, there are people who have been successful. Jennifer Grinnell, owner of the store Mischief, quit her job as a dispatcher when she began to make more from her virtual store than she did at her full time job. You can read more about it in Wired Magazine. There have also been many others who found success owning virtual stores, including companies such as T-Mobile, Sony Ericsson, and Playboy.
You need to have a basic understanding of graphic design before creating items in Second Life, but being an expert isn't required. Secondlife.com has free modifiable templates to start you off, and you can buy modifiable textures in many stores.
If you are interested in owning a store without doing graphic design, there are warehouses in Second Life that sell bulk items which can be modified, transfered, and copied. SLexchange.com lists items like these and more.Creativity is one of the most important aspects of being a designer and store owner in Second Life. There are hundreds of stores that buyers can choose from. You should have an original idea that will make you stand out from the rest. If you can get people talking the money will follow.
Second Life Insider is a blog that discusses everything that is happening in Second Life. While not business-oriented, I recommend reading it because it will give you an idea of what is popular in SL and what buyers are looking for.There are plenty of ways to make money online, and you can even pay off credit card debt in the process. Many people will look for a low interest credit card if they're not able to pay off their charges quickly, and student credit cards are a great option. If you're charging more than you're making, maybe you should try a Second Life shop!
Posted by Crystal 3:00 PM 12 comments
Labels: design, networking, play games
