Are 3rd Party Art Sites Good? Tips For “Making It” As An Artist

Pursuing a career as an artist can be tremendously difficult, not because you don’t have the talent to succeed, but because in a sea of other artists, it can be difficult to stand out and be noticed. 

We’ve put together some of our top tips for getting your newest work noticed and actually making a living from sales as an artist. 

Being Recognised as An Artist 

Firstly, it’s important to understand what your goals are, and at what point will you consider that you’ve “made it”? Maybe it’s when you’ve made your first sale? Or, perhaps it's when you’re able to call it your full-time job?

“Making it” as an artist is subjective, it’s different for everyone and it’s important to break it down and have goals that are both achievable and fulfilling. These goals and ambitions should nurture your love for creating art and design and also meet any additional (maybe financial) needs that you might have. 

Making Sales as An Artist

For most aspiring artists, selling can be the hard part. You’ve created some wonderful designs or prints, but how do you get them out into the world? 

Firstly, it helps to have a profile of yourself as an artist. Share your work with family and friends, and maybe create an Instagram account or another social media feed to share your work. 

We use our East End Prints Instagram account to share some of the remarkable stories and ambitions of our independent artists. It helps us to build and grow a community of art lovers and shows off the brilliant designs submitted by our team of artists. 

As well as your social media presence, you could consider creating a website and building an email list. Generating an email list will allow you to send out updates and new collections as they drop, and this can help you to make those all important sales and connect with fans of your artwork. It can be a hard but rewarding marketing tactic, and for many artists its one of the key ways they manage to stay connected to their audiences from across the world. 

Selling Alone

Once you have built an audience you can consider selling your art or prints independently via your website. Of course, with this, there are a few extra costs. 

● Website hosting and Domain Names 

● Stock and Printing Materials 

● Advertising Costs 

● Shipping Costs 

● Software 

And this is before you add in any of the time that this process can take away from actually creating art. 

Many full-time artists choose this independent sale method, and you can use popular sites like Etsy to sell your artwork and get your name out there, but the demands of creating, marketing, selling and shipping can be overwhelming for some.

3rd Party Sellers for Artists

For artists that want to focus on the creative side of the process but also need to actually be selling their art, there are 3rd party options that can make the process really quite simple. 

Print-on-demand companies, like us, offer a marketplace for artists that is fully managed. Artists can submit their best artwork and if it’s selected then we manage all of the marketing, printing and shipping for you. 

Some 3rd party art websites will charge a commission because they’re doing a lot of the process for you and it covers the costs of materials and postage, but it can work out well for those who want to focus on the creative process without the added stress of things like shipping worldwide.