Are you looking for ways to turn your passion for illustration into a source of income? Dive in and learn how to sell digital art online. We’ll walk you through everything you need to know before getting started and introduce you to various websites where you can showcase and sell your creations. Get ready to unleash the potential of your artwork and elevate your craft to new heights!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links from the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and others. As an affiliate, I will earn a small commission from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you
Before Getting Started…
Before delving into the world of online sales, it’s crucial to think about these two things:
- What will you create the illustrations for? Drawing a poster is not the same as illustrating a book or a T-shirt. Your illustration’s format, size, and characteristics can vary greatly depending on its intended use.
- Who will you create your illustrations for? Or, as they say, “finding your niche.” This point is essential for directing your creation and marketing efforts towards the right people.
Once these two questions are sorted out, you’ll find it much easier to determine what kind of illustrations to create and how to go about it. But if you’re starting out, you might initially think of only the most common options, like selling posters, stickers, or T-shirts.
These methods are perfectly valid, but thanks to the internet, there’s a vast clientele looking to buy digital illustrations for all kinds of purposes. Here are some ideas!
- Corporate Branding: Design logos, visual identities, and graphic elements for companies and entrepreneurs.
- Digital Marketing Kits: Create visual content for social media, advertisements, web banners, and email marketing templates.
- Editorial Illustrations: Collaborate with publishers to illustrate books, magazines, newspapers, and other printed materials.
- Art for Products: Develop illustrations for prints on T-shirts, mugs, posters, and other physical products.
- Product Illustrations: Create detailed and appealing illustrations for digital products such as mobile apps, games, and websites.
- Conceptual Art: Produce illustrations representing abstract ideas, scientific concepts, imaginary worlds, and more.
- Medical Illustrations: Collaborate with healthcare professionals to create educational and visual illustrations for books, presentations, and educational material.
- Fashion Illustrations: Design fashion illustrations for catalogs, advertising campaigns, blogs, and fashion brands.
- Event and Special Occasion Illustrations: Create custom art for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, and other special events.
- Icons and Stickers: Design icons and stickers for applications, social networks, instant messages, and more.
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Where to Sell Digital Art
Exploring different options and websites to sell digital illustrations is crucial to finding the one that best suits your needs as an artist. These platforms offer a convenient way to showcase and sell your work to a global audience of buyers interested in digital art. From specialized art sites to more general marketplaces, the list is varied and can help you expand your reach and increase your sales.
Direct Sales
If you prefer to have full control over the presentation and marketing of your digital art, direct selling through your online store may be the best option.
This allows you to work independently, fully customize your store, set your prices and profit margins, and establish a direct connection with your customers.
- Create Your Website: Use tools like WordPress, Squarespace, Sellfy or Shopify to create your online store, even if you have no programming experience. Having your own website will give you the flexibility to sell your illustrations in a variety of formats, such as:
- Connect your website to print-on-demand services, meaning you upload your digital illustrations to their platform and then apply them to a variety of products like T-shirts, phone cases, and mugs. When a sale is made through your website, the company will handle producing and shipping the product directly to the customer, so you don’t have to worry about logistics. An example of this is Printify or Printful
- Sell your illustrations as digital downloads: This option allows buyers to purchase and download your illustrations instantly, which can be appealing to those looking for digital art for creative projects. Additionally, this option is very easy to set up. Services like Sellfy allow you to create your eCommerce with everything you need to sell digital products.
- Offer your services as an illustrator: You can work on customized projects for clients, such as illustrations for books, album covers, or character design.
- Freelance Marketplaces: you can also consider freelance sites like Upwork and Fiverr to offer your digital illustration services independently. These platforms allow you to set your own prices and work directly with interested clients.
Passive Sales
If you prefer a simpler option, you can opt for passive selling marketplaces, where you simply upload your illustrations to the website of your choice and they handle the entire process, leaving you with a share of the profits without additional worries!
Some of the websites where you can sell your digital illustrations are:
- Creative Market: This platform is specifically designed for artists and creative designers. You can sell your digital illustrations as well as other creative resources like fonts, templates, and vector graphics.
- Creative Fabrica: With a wide range of creative resources, including digital illustrations, fonts, and templates, Creative Fabrica is another excellent option for selling your creations. Additionally, it offers premium memberships that allow artists to access a global community of designers and creatives.
- Adobe Stock: As part of the Adobe family, Adobe Stock offers a platform for buying and selling creative content, including digital illustrations. It’s a great option if you’re looking to reach designers and creative professionals who use Adobe products.
- Print-on-Demand Stores: the difference between this option and the one mentioned earlier is that these companies take care of the entire process from start to finish, including production and customer service. Some popular options include Redbubble, Society6, Teepublic, and Amazon Merch on Demand.
How to Start Generating Sales
Regardless of which method you choose to sell digital art, starting to attract customers can take quite some time. Even if you opt for indirect selling options, it’s not enough to post your products and forget about them; it’s important to follow some strategies to ensure that you reach your audience.
Presentation is Everything
Even if you sell digital download products, don’t underestimate the power of an attractive presentation. Use high-quality images and try to include some mockups that show what your product would look like in use (for example, a poster already framed and hanging on the wall).
Additionally, don’t forget to describe your works in an appealing way, highlighting their unique characteristics and the value they offer to potential buyers.
Optimize for Search Engines
In other words, when you write the titles and descriptions of your products, try to use the search terms that your audience would type to find your products. Consider including specific terms related to the style, theme, or use of your illustrations, which will help make your works easily discoverable in search engines like Google or Bing.
But how do we know what these keywords are? Putting yourself in your customers’ shoes or asking ChatGPT is a good start, but it’s important to choose them based on objective data and not assumptions.
To do this, there are free tools like the Google Adsense keyword planner, which will give us an estimate of how many people make the search each month, as well as suggestions of similar keywords that can give us even more ideas for our products.
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Create New Products Regularly
To keep your followers interested and attract new customers, it’s essential to offer variety and freshness in your portfolio. Try to launch new products regularly to keep your online store relevant.
You can experiment with different styles and themes. Listen to your customers’ feedback and stay abreast of market trends. The more you create, the more opportunities you’ll have to see what sells the most.
Now that you have all the necessary tools to sell your digital art online, it’s time to put everything you’ve learned into practice. Remember, consistency and innovation are key to achieving success in this competitive market. Don’t be afraid to try new things, listen to your audience, and keep learning!
Ana Castillo
Email Marketing & SEO Specialist
Hey there! I’m Ana Castillo, your friendly guide to the world of arts and crafts entrepreneurship! With more than 10 years of experience in email marketing and SEO, I’ve been there, done that, and even ran my own online shop selling handmade goodies. Now, I’m here to share my passion for creativity, along with my marketing know-how, to help fellow artists like you succeed in the online world. Let’s turn your creative dreams into a booming business together! Get to know more about me here or follow me on Linkedin »