Selling Art On FineArtAmerica.com And Pixels.com – An Overview

Can You Make Money Selling Art and Photography Online?

Chances are if you are a visual artist, you’ve thought about selling prints of your work online but may not be sure how to do it.  There are TONS of websites where you can upload your paintings, photographs and digital creations to sell prints.  How easy are they to use? Do they work? Can you really make money selling are online?

The steps to sell your are online are really simple and include the following:

1. Create some artwork or take some photos that someone would want to hang on their wall, have on their phone case or on something like a shower curtain.
2. Make sure the artwork is print ready.  What does that mean?  It means photos are sharp, paintings are scanned or photographed in such a way that the digital images are sharp.
3. Any paintings that are scanned or photographed must be cropped so that the edge of the artwork goes all the way to the edge of the digital file it will be printed from.
4. Determine the maximum file size accepted by the site you plan to use and make sure your images are not larger than that.  When you save your files, try to come as close to the file size limits as possible without going over.
5. Once you have your files prepared upload them to the POD (Print On Demand) site of choice.
6. Configure your artworks on the products offered by whichever POD site you choose.
7. Set your prices for different products, prints and print sizes.
8. Attract buyers to your artwork by any means necessary.  99.999% of the time simply uploading files to a print on demand website will generate few if any sales.
9. Jump-start your marketing efforts!  Leverage any existing customer base you have, start a Facebook business page, create a blog, create business cards, give people a reason to give you their email addresses so you can market to them, start a Pinterest or Instagram account to post your work, run paid advertising online of offline, put some of your work in a local art gallery or artist coop.  Come up with some innovative way to attract interested buyers to your work.  If you don’t market your work chances are you will sell little if anything.

What Should You Look For In A POD (Print On Demand) Website When Choosing A Site To Post And Sell Your Work?

Like most anything in life there are no absolutes and opinions will differ on what makes a good POD site.  The items below are the key things that are important to me and have worked well.

1. Low or no fees for setting up a site and uploading as much work as you want.
2. EASY configuration of your images on whatever the site sells.
3. Ability to add whatever markup you want for any size print, greeting card or merchandise.
4. Quality prints and merchandise
5. No minimum threshold for payouts.
6. Ability to control your prices and opt in or out of sales and discounts to maintain pricing integrity between your on and off-line sales outlet.
7. Ability to reach the commercial “interior” decorator market.
8. An option to offer licensing of your work if desired.

Compared To Other Sites What Makes FineArtAmerica.com and Pixels.com A Good Place To Sell Your Artwork?

Over the years, I’ve used a variety of POD sites including Zazzle and RedBubble and had a few sales here and there.  In 10 years on Zazzle, I’d be surprised it I’ve generated more than $100 in payouts.  RedBubble has been a little better.  Over the course of 5 or 7 years on RedBubble I’ve probably generated a few hundred dollars in payouts but not enough to make it worth putting much work into.  FineArtAmerica.com/Pixels.com  generates thousands of dollars in payouts some months.

1. FineArtAmerica.com lets you set whatever markup your want.  It you want to make $5,000 for every print you sell, you can put that as your markup.  Other sites make you enter a percentage of the material cost and typically put a cap on the percentage you can enter.
2. FineArtAmerica.com pays you every month with no minimum payout.  There are no inactivity fees like Zazzle has implemented.
3. When you upload an image to FineArtAmerica.com it is automatically places on every product the site offers.  You can configure the placement if you want to.  On other sites like RedBubble, you have to go through each product and configure your image on it.  That takes WAYYYYY too much time.  The same is true with Zazzle.
4. It is very easy to add keywords and descriptions on FineArtAmerica.com.  Just adding keywords on Zazzle can be a nightmare.  The whole Zazzle interface is horrible in my opinion.
5. The print and material quality from FineArtAmerica.com is very good.  On the occasion that a print or other item ships and it not up to par, customer service will fix it.
6. FineArtAmerica.com offers a designer prints program that enables you to sell prints to bulk industrial/interior designers.  The bulk buyers get discounts that are sometimes quite substantial but you reach buyers you’d never find on your own.
7. FineArtAmerica.com maintains price integrity and rarely runs sales.  In order for artists to actually make money, they need to actually get paid something when they sell something.  Sites like Zazzle and RedBubble seem to always have everything on sale.  This makes your are seem like a cheap commodity and lowers the already low payout you get when something sells on a site like Zazzle or RedBubble.
8. FineArtAmerica.com lets you use your own domain for your own website.  When you promote and advertise your website would you rather send people to FineArtAmerica.com/adam-jewell-art or AdamJewell.com?  If you are smart you’ll pick a POD site that lets you use your own domain name for your website.  If FineArtAmerica.com vanished tomorrow, people would still be going to a domain I own.
9. FineArtAmerica.com may advertise your products in Google Shopping, Facebook and other online ad outlets with no upfront cost to you.
10. FineArtAmerica.com runs random 20% off promotions to nudge people to purchase.  The discount is shared between FineArtAmerica.com and the artist and seems to generate sales.  You can opt-out if you don’t want to participate in the program.

What Are The Drawbacks To Selling Art On FineArtAmerica.com?

1. The site has hundreds of thousands of artists and millions of pieces of artwork that you will be competing against.  This is true of every POD site.  If you are not ready go go market yourself you will be lucky to sell anything.
2. If you opt into the Google/Facebook advertising program that FineArtAmerica.com offers you will lose FIFTY PERCENT of your markup if someone clicks on an ad placed by FineArtAmerica.com and buys one of your works withing 30 days.  This seems really high but my sales seem to go down when I opt-out of the program so I do opt-in to the ad program.
3. The site does have an annual $30 fee if you want to upload more than 25 images.  The $30 fee lets you upload an unlimited number of image and makes it possible for you to use your own domain name.  In my opinion, the $30 annual fee is worth it.
4. You don’t get contact information for buyers or any website stats that you can use for anything.  You have no idea how people find your work, you have no idea what keywords people use to search for and buy your work on Google or within the Fine Art America website.

What’s The Bottom Line On Selling Your Art On Fine Art America?

1. In a world full of POD sites none of which are perfect, Fine Art America is the best of the bunch in my opinion.  It is east to upload images and have all them instantly placed on all products Fine Art America offers.
2. People who shop on Fine Art America tend to be less price sensitive than those who shop on other sites because Fine Art America rarely runs sales.  Fine Art America shoppers don’t expect discounts all the time but will find some around the holiday season.
3. The site design and layout for artists and shoppers is as good or better than any competing POD site.
4. Most important for me, I’ve sold far more on FineArtAmerica.com than any other POD site BY FAR.  If you put in the work, you can too!

Related Links For Selling Art Online:

• Ready to setup an account and start selling on Fine Art America?  Visit The FineArtAmerica.com artist signup page.
• Want to try your luck at selling on Zazzle?  Visit the Zazzle seller signup page.
• Want to start selling on Red Bubble?  Visit the Red Bubble seller signup page.