Table of Contents
Many are drawn to the idea of selling their work online. This is usually in the form of digital items or resources because of the potential for passive revenue it offers.
However, this idea is not novel. For example, royalty-free picture collections have been around for quite some time. On the other hand, a lot of progress has been made since then. Dramatically. Artists can decide how and where to market their creations independently.
However, it might be challenging to discover information on the ins and outs of earning “passive” income given the novelty of the digital product boom. Questions like “what should I sell?” “where should I sell?” and “can I earn a livelihood from it?” are some of the most typical from aspiring designers and artists who want to start selling online.
In light of these concerns, this post outlines the benefits and drawbacks of selling digital resources and print-on-demand (POD) items online as a means to monetize one’s artistic efforts.
This is not a tutorial that will teach you how to set a business and upload your artwork. Instead, this guide called the digital art for beginners guide describes the ups and downs of making money by selling digital things online. To be sure, there are various barriers to overcome.
This guide will mostly discuss the sale of illustration-related items, the majority of the advice and suggestions provided below are applicable to the sale of any digital product on the internet. This “digital art for beginners” guide will give you informative and interesting information that will definitely come handy when selling digital art.
What to sell?
In reality, “Who am I selling to?” should come first.
Many creative people make the rookie error of failing to consider who they are making art for. Having to consider marketing is the worst! But without customers, a firm is little more than a hobby.
Don’t waste time with unnecessary detail; instead, zero in on your ideal client’s goals, requirements, and interests.
Don’t waste your time trying to win over every single shopper who makes an internet purchase. If you want to succeed, you should not try to satisfy everyone. Instead, you should focus on the people you believe would appreciate your unique aesthetic and unique products the most.
Sure, go ahead and try other things out if you haven’t figured out what it is that you enjoy making the most. However, you’ll have to hunker down and dedicate your efforts to fulfilling the needs of a specific client at some time.
If you enjoy painting floral motifs in watercolour, then you could target designers that specialise in making wedding stationery. and perhaps hobbyists who enjoy making things like greeting cards, invitations, etc. Designing attractive flower watercolour graphics catered to these projects will do very well in this industry.
It’s also possible that you take great pleasure in creating logos. New company owners on a shoestring budget or designers in a pinch for time might both benefit from your pre-made logo templates.
You can see how important it is to learn about your target market in order to choose the products you should provide. Find out what you can. Determine the goals, requirements, and interests of your ideal client.
Designing for a specific market is far less of a gamble than starting with a wild guess and seeing what sticks.
Is it going to sell?
The short answer is, you don’t! Investing time and resources into creating a product, does not guarantee that it will sell. But experience shows that the important thing is what the customers’ wants, needs or likes. You don’t have to solve all three of these areas in the same product.
Here is a loose formula to start selling products online:
Create a product your target audience wants that they can’t find anywhere else;
Or create a product that solves a problem they frequently have;
Or better yet do both;
Remember do it in your own unique style and create something you love to create and this will give you a successful product.
One important part of this digital art for beginners guide is that your goal is important. Your genuine aim every time should be to create a product that helps customers with their own work or projects by creating resources they will find useful and love using. Plus don’t create work that you don’t love creating yourself. That defeats the whole purpose, and people can pick up on your intention behind what you create. If you don’t love it, no one else will.
And the last, but very important tip regarding the success of a product is, be unique. Just because you saw another artist’s product do well, doesn’t mean by creating something similar, or worse identical, will mean success for you. You’ll build a following much quicker and stand out a lot more if you focus on creating unique goods in your own style.
Make an effort to come up with your own concepts instead of piggy backing off others. Do you want to lead or follow? That’s the number one marketing strategy you can apply to fast track your success.
Can I earn a livelihood from it?
Yes, without a doubt! However, your pay is proportional to the amount of work you put in.
It’s possible to just upload some merchandise and wait for sales to trickle in. True, but it will only come in a trickle. It’s quite unlikely that you’ll achieve anything worthwhile with next to no work on your behalf.
Making a livelihood selling items online is very possible.
Consider that if you’re a sole proprietor offering your graphic design services, the success of your firm is contingent upon you.
Obviously, the more hours you put in, the more money you’ll make. However, with an online store, you may expand without adding more workers. Your earning potential skyrockets when you can put in initial effort only once and get the benefits of repeat sales indefinitely.
Now, rather than banking on your hourly output, you have to count on the continued success of your product well into the future. This leads to the next step in our digital art for beginners guide.
It needs time and effort
There’s a common misconception that those who build businesses that generate “passive income” need to do relatively little to maintain their standard of living. That can’t be that difficult, right? That’s why it’s called passive, right?
This news may put an end to your hopes of becoming wealthy while doing nothing. Unfortunately, the only hands-off component of passive revenue is the automatic sales. “Exactly!” That’s what you may be thinking at the moment.
It’s true that certain jobs allow you to generate money even while you sleep. On the other hand, you require a lot of active effort to reach the point where you make enough even as you sleep.
As for the time you spend awake, it’s largely spent working. Everything you do—from responding to emails and customer service inquiries to writing blog posts and conducting market research to generating product files and sample images—will contribute to your goal of earning “passive” money. Of course, this doesn’t account for the core of the company, which is developing new items.
It’s totally up to you how much effort you put into each of the aforementioned aspects of your company. The freedom of working for oneself is like that. But remember, work equals result.
How do I set a price?
This is the question that will be worth a million dollars. The real question is worth ten times that! That’s why we will look into this angle in our digital art for beginners guide.
When you’re just starting out, the idea that you can sell something that took you weeks to produce and prepare for as little as $10 may be difficult to grasp. For others, this may be hard to understand.
However, this is a common method of doing business for many corporations. You may make a lot of money by selling the same inexpensive product to hundreds, or even thousands, of buyers. In light of this, you can expect to wait some time before seeing a financial return on your investment of effort.
But after you pass that threshold, any further revenue is pure profit. And if your product has staying power and isn’t too influenced by fads, it can keep bringing in profits for you well into the future.
Digital goods sales are growing more and more competitive. Customers are being inundated with options, many of which may appear questionable due to their low price or the inclusion of unnecessary extras. The tragedy is that sometimes they actually are. When mass-producing items in order to sell them in bundles at a discount, quality is often sacrificed.
Instead of trying to compete with the mass-produced, dirt-cheap goods, you should prioritise quality over quantity and develop my own distinctive aesthetic to help me stand out.
As a company you should not undervalue your services in order to increase sales.
Want to be known as the place to get clipart for cheap? And what about the creator of a novel and high-quality digital resource? Furthermore, it lowers the prestige of the industry as a whole and the worth of creative works. It encourages a “race to the bottom” mentality among creative professionals, which is bad for everyone.
To charge too little for your work’s value or too much and lose consumers is a tricky balancing act. You may first be unsure of how much to charge for your work, but as your self-assurance and experience develop with each release, you’ll find the sweet spot.
If you’re an artist, remember that your time is valuable, and so is your clients money. Treated as such by delivering high-quality results.
Places to sell online
In this step of our digital art for beginners guide we look into online marketplaces suitable for selling your art.
In the world of e-commerce, not all exchanges are created equal! If you plan on selling your creations on a website that has its own End User Licence Agreement, it is likely that you will be required to adhere to that agreement rather than your own. Therefore, prepare yourself. Be sure to read the fine print on the licence agreement. Verify that the permitted uses of your work satisfy your expectations.
The purchaser is legally obligated by the terms of the purchase agreement. If the marketplace where the item was purchased has a different licence than the one you propose, you have no right to impose your own licence on the buyer.
You may use different online platforms to sell your downloadable goods. However keep your attention where it needs to be. Posting your work all over the web will make you feel very disorganised!
Some artists like to have their work shown on several platforms, but spreading your work may negatively impact your customer service.
You can give them the attention they deserve by adding content consistently and promoting it across social media. Informing customers about sales through email newsletters. To put it simply, you are reminding your customers that you exist.
If each of your internet stores sells the same thing, then you can pull this off. But you can’t possibly promote all of them properly if you sell design templates on one, art prints on another, and digital items here and there unless you employ someone to help you. In addition, the more frequently you have to run around from store to store, the less time you have for original thought.
The stores, product categories, and platforms where you invest the most time generate the greatest revenue for my passive income company. My recommendation for new businesses is to make things straightforward by choosing between selling print-on-demand items or digital resources. This is crucial in identifying the optimal distribution channel for your product. Then focus all of your efforts there. It’ll be easier to experiment with the things you’re interested in once you’ve established yourself.
However, you should be aware that not all consumers in your target market or for your particular product are the same. Etsy, for instance, has a very different clientele than Design Cuts. Read up on the topic. Learn from the discussion boards. Check out the bestsellers. Is this concept suitable for your brand and offering? The following digital art marketplaces are some of the best places to sell digital art for beginners online:
The setbacks and barriers
In this step of our digital art for beginners guide we look into the dark side of the digital world. The internet is a fantastic medium for bringing together individuals from all walks of life. This suggests there is a global audience for your work. Unfortunately, this also increases the risk that it may get into the hands of criminals.
Pirated content by creators like singers, authors, and filmmakers may be found on hundreds, if not thousands, of torrent sites. Unfortunately, it’s nearly inevitable that your content will be featured on at least one of these platforms.
As your profile grows, so will the number of websites that featured my work. In theory, you may spend a number of hours looking for the original site’s IP address or owner. Try to locate the host. Use the DMCA on them. But you’re attempting to fix a massive problem with a small piece of chewing gum. In a few days, if not hours, you’ll get your belongings back. It’s not just a waste of time but also of your spirit.
Because of this, you should stop bothering to get your work taken down from such sites. It’s also my opinion that the folks who frequent these sites aren’t likely to make a purchase from you. This doesn’t make it any less difficult to deal with, nor does it justify it.
Then there are the lawful users who accidentally or deliberately disobey the conditions of the licence.
Some consumers may find graphic resource licencing quite perplexing. As a consequence, numerous users may accidentally abuse your resources, which is a violation of the agreement’s provisions. As a result, you’ll have to spend more time on customer education in an effort to encourage them to comply with your requirements and terms of service.
Facing this unsavoury side of things can have a significant influence on your mood and productivity.
In terms of licence violations lots of individuals are stealing ideas, selling fake versions of creations, and finding malicious uses for goods. If you allow it, it may ruin your whole being.
However, you should recognise it as a necessary evil when it comes to the business of selling digital products online. You need to factor in losses like theft and licence infractions just like the owner of the corner store does.
It’s the worst element of a job that’s otherwise fantastic. If the prospect of having your work stolen on a daily basis makes you feel like you’ll crumble, this may not be for you.
Despite the challenges, this field may be exceptionally rewarding if you view your work as a gift designed for others to enjoy.
Is it worth it?
If you have read through this digital art for beginners guide you might be asking why you should even try. Considering there are so many difficulties and potential problems.
To me, it’s worth it to make the effort since my work is rewarding. The effort is worth it since it gives you freedom to pursue your artistic goals without interference. All the hard work and effort you put in to get here is ultimately well worth it. Focus on how to be able to make and sell items that facilitate the realisation of other people’s visions.
Entrepreneurship, as the old adage goes, is spending a few years of your life doing things that most people won’t do so that you can do things that most people can’t do for the rest of your life.
The price of success in pursuing a goal is not zero, but it is worth it if you are willing to pay it. The relationship between input and output is linear. You have complete control over how much effort you put into realising your goal. If you do decide to follow this intriguing route, make sure to have fun in the process!
