Start Selling Your Art: In Person & Online

1. Intro: Hi there, My name is ****, no, I'm an illustrator and designer and art director at Disney. But on the side I like to make are for myself and sell it at art fairs and online. I started selling at fairs in college with a group of my friends. We created this greeting card line called love notes. We started at a local fair. It was Jack low art fair and Pasadena. Since I started, I have expanded into some national art shows. And in this class I will teach you how to take your art from the very beginning all the way through to selling it online and in different fares. I'm also going to show you some resources on how to print your work. If you make pottery, this might not be a one for, one for you, but it will be a really good starting point for how to maybe market your materials and start selling them. So let's get started. 2. Step 1: Make Art: Step one is make the art. If you haven't watched any of my other videos, I have some tips on how to get started on digital art, which is where I make most of my work. But if everything is oil painting or if yours is fashion and apparel or pottery, make your art, trust yourself. It can just be a passion project first. And now we're starting to monetize it. 3. Step 2: Print & Pack: Okay, you made your good job. I'm proud of you. Now it's time to get printing. If you've made your art by hand, that will be your very first step. So I painted this on Canvas with acrylic paint. I want to be able to sell this multiple times, so I made it into high-rise print. I converted it into an eight by ten, which is a pretty standard size. Here's another example of an eight by ten prints that I've made. This was a digital painting. I actually used a brush that made it look painted by hand. Here is a five by 75 by seven are good size print to have. You can test and see which prints are bestsellers. And then from there you can expand and make multiple sizes for ease, I also still make greeting cards. We put the envelope inside so that you can see the art on the front of the card. And I always have a look on the back. Okay. So where did I print all of these things? Hey, by intense, I print at this company called finer works. They're really awesome because they do print on-demand and it's not that expensive to print. Maybe like one or two of these prints at a time. One of the other benefits is they print on archival matte paper, which is actually resistant to sun damage. So these are really high-quality prints. I always print them in matte finish because I don't really like shiny papers I know works is also really helpful if you want to ship it directly from finer works to your customer. For my five by seven prints, I use moo.com. They have postcards, flyers, business cards, greeting cards, et cetera. And I would say this is a little bit more expensive, but they have this really nice soft touch to finish on there, five by seven postcard. And you can do different paper weights and that will help make it feel really nice. I also print my greeting cards at moo.com. It's a pretty straightforward interface and very easy for printing or printing my business cards. I go back-and-forth between Mu and you printing so mu again, really good but not the cheapest, but really high-quality you printing, I would say, is a cheaper version of printing. You can print all of your work on this site. I think what you start to lose is quality over time. However, business cards are free and people are going to take them if it has good art and if it has your information. So I kind of lean towards you printing for that, you'll notice I have some plastic bags that I put the artwork into protected. You can buy that on clear bags is the website. They have all these different sizes. You can get eight by 88 by 10.5 by seven, your greeting cards sizes. They also saw that on Amazon. You'll also see, I have these little stickers that I put on with prices. I would say, you don't need this right away. If you want to have your business feel a little bit more established and you can take this extra cost and do it. So I actually print these stickers on mu as well. And I also put my logo on everything. I make stickers on Sticker Mule. And I also get buttons from sticker meal. These are cute like one or $3 purchases for customers. A few other things you might need for packing is bubble mailers. I get my bubble mailers from Amazon. I am really fun and I like to have them BE their iridescent or this teal blue to match my mermaid theme, I want it to feel like there is a whole brand voice coming with my artwork. I also put in custom tissue paper to kind of wrap my product. I've also added a sticker that says All hail mail along with my business card, and along with the thank-you. So this is all what I put into one package. I got the tissue paper from no issue and the stickers that went along with it, I actually ordered through no issue as well. I don t think this is something you need starting out and it is definitely an extra cost that you would be responsible for. I talked about where to print all of your art pieces. It's all a lot of cost. So maybe if you're just starting out, you just want to print one or two of each thing and it cost too much money to buy from mu and from you printing and from finer works, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, plus you to get the clear bags. I hear you. So just starting out, you might want to print at home. Printing at home is more effort, less cost. So this is what I did. I found a local paper warehouse that has all these nice Nina papers. And you can kinda get up to like ten or 15 pieces of paper for free. And then if you really like that paper, you can go and you can order bulk like 100, 200 pieces of that nice papers. And then you go and make sure your printer is printing on best quality. And I go into InDesign. I put the greeting card are on the right side. I put the logo on the back and make sure their crop marks are set for the printer. And then I print it out and I cut along the crop marks, either using an exact dough knife or a little cutting board, like so. And then I fold with a bone folder to make sure that crease is kind of like then I packaged it in an envelope and in a clear sleeve myself. So a lot more upfront work, a lot lower of cost. And the last thing I'm going to talk about before we move on is there's a lot of money and it is a lot of work. How can I raise capital or how can I get some money up front to help me out for this book in particular, I started a Kickstarter, so I created an account and I said, I'm going to make an art book. I really want to publish a book and I put all the information upfront into it. I talked about the art that I was gonna make. I made a special print just for people that were patrons of my Kickstarter. And I raised enough money to make this in batch. There are a lot of good people out there who are willing to help and support small business and support the arts. So get started. 4. Step 3: Selling Online: Now we're going to sell online. I showed you how to print everything. I showed you how to package everything. Where are we selling it? There are a few places that you can sell your art and here is where I sell mine at D is still my favorite. I think Etsy is a little bit over saturated, but you can still get good traffic. And it's a very straightforward and easy process as you start out selling your art. So Etsy, you have to build an account, build a profile, and start photographing art. What are the tags that go along with it to help people search for your art. So e.g. if I'm selling a mermaid print, I would say mermaid under the sea, ocean, beach, home decor, fairy tale, fantasy. Those are kinda the tags that I would use to hone in people's searches. When someone orders something through Etsy, it will create a shipping label for you, can purchase that, print it and then you can put that on your packaging. So it's very easy at home, even if you have low or small inventory, it's very easy to get started on Etsy, I also sell on society six, which is really nice for passive income. I have one or two prints that really do well and sell all the time every month. It's finding your niche on that platform. So maybe what you have on your SD is not the same as what you put on your society six e.g. Miami Society six has a laundry chart that's the number one seller. And my Etsy shop really sells good at greeting cards and calendars. And then there is case two phi, which sells phone cases. That is really good also for passive income. I think I was invited to sell on case defy. So I have some really good turtle art that sells there. The one thing about case is that you can't sell any other phone products on a different site, your exclusive to case divide. Another good one is Shopify. It's a little bit more ownership of an online business than Etsy, e.g. personally, I'm not really ready for that type of selling online. So I stick with he says I just takes N case defy. There are a few other ones out there I've heard of in print which you have to be accepted to be an artist on there. But it's another good avenue to look for. And it's really good to be appreciative of these customers because you are small business. So two things that I do for that is there is a return code on Etsy. I showed it on my little thank-you card that I do. But it also can e-mail out to customers and say, Oh, return again. And you can get 15% off on your next order. And it's nice to also share a little extra goodies. So let's say they order an eight by ten print and a little card. It might be nice to throw in a sticker or an extra card or an extra discount, or you can give them a nice little handwritten note to be like, thank you for supporting my shop. Thank you for supporting my small business. It means a lot. 5. Step 4: Selling In Person: Step for selling at fairs. Maybe you don't want to sell online first, you want to sell in person and kind of get a good understanding of who your customers are or what products really do well, here are my tips for that. First, you want to research your local area and see what kind of local fairs there are for me, there are a ton I featured when I was in Orange County at something called mermaid market. There was a farmer's market I sold at some of the fears that I've heard of that are in the LA area. Our Jacques Loeb art fair, unique LA, renegade craft fair, West Coast craft, mortgage Berg. So that's actually a food one, but there are a few art vendors there too. Look into your local area and see what fairs are available to you. Eventually you can start selling at bigger fair. I've also shown at designer Khan, which is basically Comic-Con for Art and Design. And I've shown in Artist Alley, which I would say a designer Khan is one of my most successful events and one of my favorite events to show up because you get this kind of like following and this fandom. And people really, really appreciate art there. If you are a stationery designer or if you have surface design or if you want to start like marketing and selling and making this something big, you can look into shows like surtax and the National Stationary Show. I have been to both. I've never exhibited there. There are bigger brands that come through like Hallmark and Paper Source and other big retailers that are looking for new brands and new businesses to kinda bring in and add to their collective. Okay, So you've found the list of shows that you want to exhibit at. You want to be featured at. How do you get started with that? So the first thing you have to do is apply. There's usually a fee upfront to apply for the show. It can be anywhere $35-500. If you're a really big shows, it can be thousands of dollars to exhibit, but we're probably not there yet if we're just getting started. So you have to apply and you have to have your business name. You usually have a website that you share, photos of your work. So if you've already started an Etsy shop, everything will be covered. You can put your Etsy URL for your shop. You can show photos that are from your Etsy, showing your artwork. And then it'll usually ask for a description about you saying what kind of art you're selling, what size would the price points, especially if you're a new, I think it's good to say that this is my first show or I'm really excited to get started. They might even ask you for what you're boost setups have looked like or what they will look like, which if you're brand new, that might be something hard to show or even think about. So that's what we'll talk about next. Let's talk about the supplies you'll need or the decor you'll need for your booth set-up. So the first thing that you'll need is a tent and chairs and a table. So you can get table and chairs from Target Walmart, super cheap, no big deal and attend to you can probably get from Walmart at some fares. You can rent the tent and the table and the chairs. So you can look into that too. If you don't want to purchase something, if you're just testing it out, maybe just rent from your vendor for the first time. You also probably need displays for your artwork. For me, I have a turning rack that has the greeting cards on it. I have a few stack within displays to show my cards. And then I have one white metal one that's going to kind of bigger, that holds my eight by ten prints and my books. You can get a lot of these on Amazon. You'll also want to core that fits to your theme. So I have a lot of tablecloths that are sparkly or look like a mermaid that fit in with my aesthetic. I also have little fairy lights that string out and put around my art. If there is a holiday show, I'll put some white sparkling Garland and you'll also probably want signage. You can print a big banner that has your name on it, maybe your logo. For me, I actually use a letter sign that has my logo on it, my prices. Another thing I've been seeing a lot lately is QR codes that have your Venmo QR code and your newsletter QR code and maybe your social, depending on what you're trying to get people to look at from your booth. And sometimes people aren't really even using business cards anymore. They'll just have you start falling their social channel. Another thing you'll need at your show is the Square Reader. It will hook up to your bank account and they will send you a square fog that can read credit cards, they can tap them or insert if it needs to be a chip. And the last thing you'll probably need is a wagon. So I've got my wagon from Walmart and it's just really helpful to bring all of your supplies from your car to the event anytime that you are traveling back and forth, fuel okay. Super easy. And that's all the stuff they need for your fair. Don't stress out about it. Take a deep breath. You can start small. You don't necessarily need to buy all of these things right off the bat, but just keep them in mind as you start to build out selling at fairs. That actually brings me to our mini project is going to be, we are going to create a mood board for what we want our booth to look like. So the best way to source and look for material is to go onto something like Pinterest or search these fairs and see what other people have been selling. So if you go on Pinterest and you search art fair booth or creative booth set-up aren't set up those kind of things. You will be able to see different trends of setups. There are some people that have been using those kind of wireframe walls. I've seen a lot of those wooden peg board with shelves to put their art. If you are into fashion, there might be some portable racks for your designs and your fashion. What we're going to ask you to do for this project is to put together a mood board of your dream aesthetic or look for the booth that you are going to have in the future. 6. Step 5: Sell Yourself: This is a lot to take in and a lot of work to put in for yourself. So good job now that we have everything set up for selling online and all the supplies and vision you need to sell in person at fairs. You also need to think about this next step, step five, which is selling yourself. No one is going to know who you are unknown is going to be able to buy from you unless you put yourself out there. And that means all the places we've talked about so far, but also on social, make sure to create a social channel just for your art. If you haven't already, make sure to show your process, people are really interested in small business and creators and they want to learn from you and they want to support you, post about it, talking about the process of making your art and then turning into something that you can sell online, show you packaging your work. They probably would love to see that you take so much time and effort into each little piece that you send out and then make sure to use social when you're going to be featured at a shell, you want them to know to come and visit you. You can show the setup, you can show you packing for the show and then give them information and kind of tagged to whichever fair you're showing that. You can show your displays that out and you can repost other artists as well. So something that my favorite friends and I like to do is we will do new artists Fridays or we will feature in SPO from different creators. Keep that in mind. 7. Step 6: Next Time: Step six is really important the postmortem for your work. So check in with what is selling and what is not selling. Check in with the expenses. That makes sense and what don't make sense. Check in with what pieces are, what niche or what style is doing really well and make more of those things. It's really important to do self-reflection on the work that you've put in and to think about what you wanna do moving forward, e.g. I. Make calendars. And the calendars every year are mostly mermaids. Everyone really loves those calendars. And so I did a Zodiac Calendar of mermaids previous year because I was noticing that zodiac signs were very popular. I only wanted to sell those on the calendar for that year. And now that the year is over, I started selling those pieces as eight by ten a mermaid zines. And they perform really well because everyone really liked them from where they are in calendar. But it doesn't make sense to sell them in a calendar and as a print at the same time because you're losing sales on one or the other. So thinking about those things and paying attention to your audience and what people are liking, but also staying true to yourself and your creative. 8. Class Project: Now it's time for your main class project. I would call it a challenge if you're not ready to actually be selling at a fairing yet or if you haven't been accepted to a fair Yeah. This one is really for you. I want you to take all the art that you've printed. I want you to take all the items that you've bought for your fair. And I want you to set up a fake booth and take photos of it. It's something that you can show when you're applying at fares. It can be mini content for your social and it can get you really excited to start selling out of booth. So just take a few pictures, setup maybe on a table scape show where your art would go, where your business cards would go, where your signage would go, and then share it. 9. The End: That's it. Thanks for taking the class with me. I hope you are really excited to sell your art. And if you don't, follow me already, please do and show me what you've been working on. And I will take a look. And I love sharing new artists and up-and-coming talented. So please feel free to reach out and thank you for watching.