Branch Out, But Keep It Simple
I’ve been really trying to focus on creating a professional body of work as soon as 2020 hit. I decided I had figured out a look I have dialed in and asked myself “What’s the best way to sell your prints”? I decided I could upload my portfolio on various publishing platforms. Some popular names like Etsy, Redbubble, or Behance have been successful for numerous artists worldwide.
I wanted to be selective, but also be resolute in finding alternate platforms. So let’s take a look at my personal options, and hopefully you’ll consider some of these places to sell your beautiful artwork as well.
Sites To Sell Your Prints
Society6
Society6 has been my platform of choice. I’ve prioritized uploading about 120 various black and white prints on my store front with products ranging from prints, canvas, stickers, metal prints, phone cases, skins and face masks.
Every purchase pays an artist. Society6 artists earn 10% of every sale, and every sale is made to order.
For art prints, framed prints, and canvas prints; artists have control over their markup and can set their own prices above the standard 10%.
Fine Art America / Pixels
I’ve had a FineArtAmerica for a few years now. I think with this one you’re better off paying for their premium membership which is $30 yearly. I currently have a FREE account and it only allows for 25 images. I thought I’d get tricky and create a Pixels account too and upload another 25 different images to that platform ( They are the same company ). But, the FineartAmerica, and Pixels accounts are shared. So the premium allows for unlimited uploads, a built in shopping cart widget like Shopify, create emails to subscribers, this even includes a white label website to launch your own personal web page. Similar to Smugmug, Behance, or Squarespace. Compare the difference of the FREE and the $30 membership. I’m going to commit to the paid membership because I will absolutely utilize the Shop widget on my WordPress sites.
Update: As Covid-19 creates more concern, They were one of the first platforms to offer face masks. I took a few prints and made them part of the store front immediately. $12 + Shipping. Heck yeah!
EyeEm
I think its pronounced like: ” I am “?. I liked this company because it combined 500px and Instagram and made a nice little platform on mobile, and after a newish update the web version is finally more responsive. They had a breach in account data a couple years ago and I feel like their activity has become too relaxed. I’ve sold a few prints from this company, and they have a unique algorithm. EyeEm features automatic hashtag entries, easy import settings, a preferred market seller inspection ala stock photography sites. It definitely has taste, and promising features. Totally FREE. But I admit, I have put EyeEm on the back burner. Still recommend it if you’re sick of Instagram.
I have 180 Photos uploaded here.
123 are on their Market (for sale)
and 37 are Partner selected ( More commercial outreach like Getty images )
Behance
Behance is an online portfolio suite built by Adobe. It’s been around since 2006 and has fantastic features and its free to use, or they have paid options as well. Behance.net is great for Artists and creatives who don’t code or didn’t like Squarespace, but are into Adobes Creative Cloud and their products.
It’s important to know that, as an Artist you should always try to show someone what you made.
Take the opportunities of distributing it online, and locally. Heck, especially if they are FREE. You still choose what you upload, and how you do it.
Keep in mind, Adobe adopted this subscription plan pricing model a few years back. If you want the portfolio and website you’ll pay $9.99/monthly. This does include Lightroom, and Photoshop as part of their Creative Cloud Photography plan. But that’s $120 a year for a product you don’t own. I don’t use Creative Cloud because I don’t dig the subscription model and features behind the paywall. Because of this, I’ve only just now utilized Behance.net.
I enjoy how they curate your feed with unique mood boards, different appreciations you can collect to save for inspiration. The layouts are really fluid and modern, and include comments, tags, tools, and a description for each project or image uploaded. The insights and analytics offer basic but detailed numbers on Views, Appreciation and Followers. Or “Impressions, Clicks, and Follows” all the same.
I do enjoy the ease of use, the simple design of the Project Editor. You can import Lightroom photos directly, you can create grids, write text, and embed YouTube media or Gifs as well. All great implementations. If you use Adobe…
Abstract Monochromatic / Behance
Pinterest? I know, I thought but I don’t have any crafts to sell. I don’t have an Etsy page. What’s the deal? Pinterest is a image heavy social media platform where you can collect ideas, share projects, and save cool images as “pins”. I’ve used Pinterest for various Photography poses and techniques and tips, lighting all kinds of stuff to learn is useful on this platform.
But also stuff to Purchase!
Once I realized that Pinterest allows users to directly share the URL of a product. I knew I had to start pinning my artwork in a unique way that would catch viewers eyes. You also get to share various things like Blog Posts, Tutorials, Gear Reviews, or other tips. So far the outreach has been promising and my Analytics are positive with fantastic insight. There is a ton of stuff to learn about Pinterest. Specifically how to utilize it as efficiently as possible.
I uploaded 60+ Prints to Pinterest.
Averaged 1.9k monthly viewers.
This generated more traffic to my society6 which produced sales this week.
Were trying to connect all our platforms.
See how all the ones I’m using interact with each other?
These are the few I’ve been prioritizing. But after doing some research I’ve discovered at least 8 more distribution platforms. I’ll update this post when I’ve examined other options.