HOW TO SELL YOUR ART ON THE INTERNET ~ The 'art' is getting your art found on the Internet ~
How does it work?
ArtOriginals.co.uk will create a webpage that showcases your artistic talents, style and interests, which will then be linked to the webpages of other artists that have relevance (for example; medium, subject matter or the potential audience).
Your individual webpage will be found through directly through Internet search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc) - which is probably how you found us too - and customers will also visit your webpage as they browse the site.
If they like what they see and have been sufficiently enticed by your art to enquire about your current stock or a commission, they have only one way of getting in touch, which is by email.
It is worth reading this customer information "How to buy and commission art" so that you understand your customer's expectations.
Anonymous email contact
If a customer wants to get in touch with you, they click on the 'contact' button on your webpage and complete a short form. Their message and contact details are emailed by our server to your private email address and copied to us. You remain anonymous and your private email address is kept secret.
If you choose to respond, you do so directly from your own email account, at which time your private email address is revealed to the customer. The communication is between you and the customer. ArtOriginals is out of the loop at this stage.
You may of course respond by phone if the customer provided a contact number, and we encourage this.
Set-up cost
ArtOriginals.co.uk does not use software that makes page set-up quick and easy. Each page is hand-coded for maximum effect on the search engines. Furthermore, we take time to study your art and determine the most promising markets (which we discuss with you), which is an essential part of search engine marketing... just shoving images on-line gets you nowhere fast. This process takes thought, time and effort on ur part - typically 4 - 8 hours per webpage.
We get lots of enquiries from artists who wish to come aboard, and have learnt the hard way not to devote our time and effort to people who have made no commitment to us and are more than likely to forget to make an honesty commission payment in due course too.
Therefore we now ask for a contribution of £49 (or the equivelent in Euros or Dollars) before we make our investment in time and effort. This payment does not cover our costs, but it gives us confidence our the relationship - much as we would recommend that you ask for a down-payment before you embark on an art commission.
Honesty commission payments
ArtOriginals operates on an honesty basis and we approach our work with diligence - it is as important to us as it is to you that we are successful, because we depend on commission payments.. We work hard to create success for you, taking the time to target your art at the most promising audience. We trust to your honesty and integrity to pay the commission on which we depend. After you have completed a successful sale or commission, you have received payment and the customer is delighted - commission of 10% of the transaction becomes due. If you 'forget' to pay, we go hungry... so only considerate and fair-minded artists need apply.
Quick and easy invoicing... on-line
If you are asked for an invoice, but find word processing tiresome and don't want to grapple with financial software, you might be interested in this quick and easy on-line invoicing system that just requires an Internet connection. We actually wrote it for ourselves and were pestered to make it available to others. You simply fill in a form with details of the art you have sold and your client's address. The system produces a neatly formatted invoice that you can print or email. It is pre-customised with your payment details and can include a small logo or a thumbnail of your art too for that more professional and personal touch. Please mention ArtOriginals if you choose to subscribe to www.click2invoice.com
Sample images
I am sure you will appreciate that some art is simply not suitable for this website, because of the wide audience, so we reserve the right to say no. Please send a sample of your art for our consideration.
What we need from you
Text
Don't worry about structure or grammar, we simply need as much information about your art and what motivates you as possible. Send an artist's statement or a resume (CV) if you wish but a rambling email is equally acceptable. We will extract relevant information and weave it into an enticing webpage that hopefully has a narrative.
What medium(s) you use.
Your background, particularly if it is relevant to your art or the potential market (e.g., illustrators with a background in education, or a marine biologist now painting sea life, etc.).
What or who inspires you.
What and who inspired you to become an artist
Exhibitions, sales, awards, a holiday that particularly inspired you, music - you get the picture... it is oftne this small detail that build affinity for your adt and leads to a sale.
These are just suggestions. When we create your webpage, remember that we do our best to keep it anonymous, although clearly if you have won some major awards or your work is instantly recognisable - like our client who provided artwork for the BA fleet tail-fins, or the illustrator of childrens stories - some visitors may recognise your art.
Images
We believe a good art webpage needs at least 10+ images, often many more, so please send as many images as you can. It is often helpful if we can group images in themes too, to seed ideas.
The choice of images should be representative of your range, unless you have decided to focus in a certain area.
Images can be accepted on CD-ROM, images embedded within Word documents, photos (we digitise using an A4 scanner or digital camera), 35mm film (we digitise using a CanoScan film scanner) or preferably by email.
Please avoid sending digital images greater than 0.5 Mega pixels each by email if possible. Ideally they will have been resized to a height of 600 pixels and compressed to a file size of less than 200k pixels... but don't worry if this means nothing to you!
What next?
Once we have completed your webpage, we will ask you to check that we have not misrepresented anything. We also ask that you send yourself an enquiry, check for receipt, and check that our enquiry emails will not get placed in your email 'junk' folder.
Contact ArtOriginals.co.uk
If you have read the above, understood that:
Set-up cost is £49 (or the equivelent in Euros or Dollars)
Commission is paid on an honesty basis... so you need to be honest.
10% commission is due on success
Success is not guaranteed
Success can come quickly or may take several months or more
... and you would like to sell or accept commissions from a wider and international audience, please email for more information, including a sample image or two and if possible a link to your own website:
Your use of this Web site constitutes your acceptance that the webmaster acts in the capacity of publisher only, that the information provided on this page is as supplied by third parties, is reproduced here in good faith for the purpose of information only and is not to be construed as forming part of any contract and that the webmaster is not to be held liable in any dispute arising from the use of this publication.
The images on this webpage are highly compressed for web-publishing purposes, so the detail of the original image is lost.
The colour representation on your computer screen may vary from the original image.
The content of this webpage is protected by copyright laws, international copyright treaties, and other intellectual property laws and treaties. The copyright for each image is held by the owner and is published on this page with the owner's permission.
