Marketing arts and crafts (going back to the board's original purpose...)

Okay, since the fun is apparently over, I thought I might put some notes here for those of you interested in doing arts and crafts as a business. Yes, indeedy, it IS a viable business for the talented. It is slow to start, but with good marketing it can be one of those "quit you job and make a living from it."

There's two ways to go -- commercial artist or crafts faire artist.

Commercial artist... basically, you're an illustrator for hire. All that's needed is a good portfolio and market research (hit the library and the Artists' Market Guide) ... about 3 color pieces and 5 black and white ones. You don't want to spend a ton of money on this. You DO, however, want to get them to you website.

A website should be clean. No google ads, no other products. Just your work.
Here's the website of someone I know (personally) and like:
http://www.donatoart.com/

Notice that he's got some advice to artists (making it sticky), prints, AND that he does a number of public appearances at conventions each year. Going to art fairs (in this case, scifi conventions) is the way one builds up a mailing list of people who want your product. Google ranking isn't that vital to him, and he doesn't spend huge amounts of time on it. Just enough to make sure you can find his site if you go googling for him.

At a fair, he will usually have some pretty pricey originals and then have a series of affordable prints. Prints and notecards (and notecard-sized prints) do sell well, particularly if someone loves the image but can't afford it.

He sent his samples in to book companies and gaming companies (yes, that's scary) but he didn't sit around and wait for the money to come in from there. You see, in the art business, one of the big factors is "are you someone that people will buy an issue for just for the art." This means developing a name, even in some small sense.

It's actually easier than you think. You need to learn how to present your art, and then you need to learn to present yourself.

Skills you need to learn for presenting your art include how to mat and frame your art (I buy regular pre-cut mats, and that's just fine. Nobody cares. I do, however, have to size my art to fit the mats!). You need to learn what sizes sell for what markets (go to the fair BEFORE you try selling there and see what's selling!) And you need to learn what fairs you can afford to enter. You also need a supply of business cards with your URL.

There are a lot of good artists out there, and part of the path to success is being friendly to your public. You can't get that much of a following by marketing online (unless you're very lucky and a piece of yours gets passed around... and doesn't get the URL or your name stripped off it.) Offline contacts are the 'name of the game' here.

A side note -- it's just fun talking to the people who come to look at your art. If I didn't have to worry about the money, that would be the most wonderful part of all of it.

Before considering stepping out as a freelance artist, build a portfolio of things you can sell though CafePress or other means. Someone may like that image but may not have wall space for it -- however they WILL have closet space for a tee shirt.