How to Market Your Digital Art for Free!

Making money by making art is a very difficult task to accomplish. However, by following these steps, you can give your art a lot of online exposure, creating a market for your art and design.

Have a good product

Look at your art portfolio. What are your stronger art pieces? Which are your weaker art works? Separate out the stronger art. Although quantity can sometimes outweigh quality on the web, you want to make sure that you have the strongest portfolio available.

Make digital files

If you work primarily in digital art, then you will just need to clean up your images and save them in a number of different file types. Always keep your original file, in case you decide to make change or need a very large size for a large print.

If you work in traditional art, film, or video, you will need to take professional level quality photos and stills of your art. Afterward, you will need to convert these images into a variety of digital file types. Remember that if you plan to print, you will need at least 300 dpi to make a decent image, with most photography having to be printed closer to 1200 dpi. Many online retailers will only require 200 dpi for online stores but may require you to upload a full version for customers wanting large scale photo prints. Know and research the different file types, such as jpg, tiff, pdf, eps, and png files.

Begin posting online

You can start with something as simple as a blog, Facebook, or My Space account dedicated to your art. Other free online sites include Deviant Art and Zazzle. Some sites will offer you free widgets to post on various websites, blogs, and social networking websites. For example, if you set up a free online store with Lulu.com to sell your original photography books, you can copy and paste a widget that sets up an online store on any website or blog. The widget will show a few products and send a link back to your original online store.

Network

Being able to keep up with the variety of networks online takes a lot of time. I have found the most successful to be groups and networks that I would already be checking on a daily basis, such as Facebook, Deviant Art, and some e-list groups I participate in. Other online stores and sites that I have set up I only check weekly to update products, check hits, and write to customers. Right now I gauge my success rate by my hit count. For example, one online store gets only a handful of hits a week. I am probably going to close it out eventually since I found another website that has been much more successful with hits in the same amount of time.

Realize that it takes time to be successful

Most of the success stories online are from artists that have persevered with their art marketing for at least a year or two. Most regular businesses take at least three years to turn a profit, and marketing your art is not much different. Just continue to create amazing art, gauge what sites work best, and persevere.

Some of the free online sites you may want to try are Deviant Art (online artist gallery with prints for sale), Blogger (free blogs), Facebook (can set up a company page for free), Lulu.com (to sell photography and art books), Reerbnation (to sell music) and Zazzle (to sell clothing and products). Also look into any professional art or school organizations that you are a member of to promote your art.