How to sell prints of artwork
HOW TO SELL PRINTS OF YOUR ART (for beginners!!!)
hey everyone so as most of you know I
sell prints of my artwork online and I
have been doing so for about two to
three years now and the whole process of
doing so has been a huge learning
experience for me and I've had to learn
a whole bunch about the printing process
the packaging process shipping all that
jazz and ever since I started selling
them I've gotten a lot of questions of
people asking me how I sell my prints
and like I said I had to learn a lot
about the process in order to start
actually selling the prints let me just
preface this video by saying that this
is not sponsored I'm gonna I'm just
gonna be talking openly about the
different brands and the different
websites that I like to use personally
ones that have worked for me I'm not
being paid by them to say this so yeah
if you want to learn how to sell prints
of your own artwork please keep watching
give this video a thumbs up I make other
videos about art and stuff so if you
want to check out those you can check
out those and without further ado here
is how to sell your prints so one of the
main reasons I was so confused about
this process I wasn't sure how people
got scans of their artwork I make some
pretty big pieces so I was like oh god I
could never fit those on a scanner I
don't know how to do this help how do I
scan my work but you don't have to scan
it in fact I don't scan a lot of my work
I actually just take the camera the one
that I'm being filmed on right now and I
take a high quality picture of the work
and some really important tips to
remember when taking the photo it's to
make sure you get good lighting make
sure to avoid reflections so you have to
really play around with lighting I
prefer natural lighting for
photographing my work just because I
find it illuminates the work and the
colors a lot better but you have to be
really careful that you don't get any
sort of weird shadows or reflections it
just has to be a nice flat frontal light
that captures your work as best as you
can
the whole key here is to basically just
take a photo of your work that matches
its original state the best
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you see you see this reflection you
don't want this reflection you don't
want any of this business you just want
a nice flat like even this lighting
right now is perfect you're gonna want
to avoid direct sunlight like literally
this right now
it's just perfect and it illuminates the
colors so so well be careful because
some lenses tend to warp it and kind of
make it look like a fisheye effect if
you're having this problem you can
actually just zoom in the lens a bit and
take a step back from the work I find if
you zoom in the lens a little bit gives
less of like a warped look you really
want to avoid any sort of deformation or
distortion of the word so yeah you have
a nice high quality picture you upload
the pictures to your computer you open
up the raw file in Photoshop and
actually I recently added prints of this
painting to my shop so you can check
that out if you want something that you
really want to capture and I personally
really like to capture is the
brushstrokes there's a really good
amount of texture to this piece and I
really wanted to capture that with my
photo of it because it kind of just
makes it look even more real even more
painterly so much fun I'll usually open
Photoshop on my computer and I'll have
the painting right next to it so I can
refer to it back and forth because
sometimes and you know we've all been
there you can get a little carried away
with the edits on Photoshop and then
your colors end up being something
totally different than what you started
with and to have the painting right next
to the open Photoshop file as you're
editing is a really good reference point
to have okay now it comes to the actual
print making there's a lot of different
places where you can get prints done if
you even do a quick google search you
can find so many different print shops
near you you you could go into a couple
different ones and you don't get get one
print done on each one and you know see
which one you think is the best quality
my first ever prints I got made at
Staples which is just like a popular
office supply store in Canada I don't
know if you guys have it anywhere else
but the prints were pretty good like I
really like the paper quality and it was
really convenient and close to my house
but now one of my very bestest friends
works at the print shop at my school at
my university so those facilities are
awesome and the printers are designed to
print art like it they're designed to
print beautiful color images so I
started using that print shop instead
and that's been great as well these are
some beautiful beautiful prints and the
quality is just everything like it's
like the exact same as the original
piece you can see every little
brushstroke and it's just such good
quality and I also have able to get
larger prints made I really like this
one I drew this one with marker and you
can literally see all the little a
little marks I made it's the biggest
prints that I've made so far I'm hoping
to make bigger ones if people wanna
place custom orders like if you want
something a lot bigger it's gonna be a
bit pricier but it's gonna be worth it
because looking at quality now moving
onto packaging this was the only
available size of my prints when I first
started out and it's actually pretty
easy to find something to shoot this in
you can either just get a regular
eight-and-a-half by 11 envelope and cut
out a sleeve of cardboard to put in the
longest time staples carry these amazing
envelopes they were like made of
cardstock and cardboard
they were like nearly impossible to bend
and they fit these perfectly and it was
so easy so simple but then they like
discontinued them and I never could find
them again so but then things got a
little more complicated once I got these
different sizes these are 13 by 17 which
is a weird dimension like there's not a
lot of envelopes that like you know fit
these dimensions so I have learned to
make my own envelopes out of cardboard I
don't know if this is like sketchy and
unprofessional but it's been working for
me pretty well I'll basically take the
old boxes from my work
make them into envelopes so I'm gonna
show you guys how I do that it's simple
you know it's all from scratch it's like
homemade envelope I don't know if that
makes it cuter but it does the job
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and then the last step is just mailing
it out you go to your local post office
and you just ship out the prints it's a
good idea to get a price estimate on the
shipping costs before you actually set
the price on your website these aren't
that expensive to ship out this size but
once you package something like this up
even though it's not that much bigger it
counts as a parcel instead of just a
simple envelope so the shipping costs do
go up and that's something I had to
learn the hard way because you know I
just kind of took the price of these
knocked it up a few dollars but you know
these ones these ones were quite a bit
for shipping so make sure you get the
price estimate before you actually set
the price online just go to like the
post office and ask them how much it
would be to ship out this then you can
change it on the website and all's Gucci
now let me talk about the website that I
use I know quite a bit of people who
like manually sell their prints if that
makes sense like they will post
somewhere on social media that they're
selling prints and people can DM them
and you know like set up like an
arrangement to pick them up and whatnot
they'll do um their address and then you
ship it out I've been using this website
called Big Cartel ever since I started
selling prints and it's been such a
blast website for me it's so easy and it
does all the jobs that like I don't want
to do and it lets me do exactly what I
want to do which is to get my own prints
done so I can assess the quality myself
it lets me ship them out I personally
always like putting in a little
handwritten note into each of my
packages just thanking the person for
buying and that's just like a personal
flare and like just so you guys know
like I package up all these prints
they're all wrapped with love yes so I
really like having the control where I'm
able to get my own prints done so I know
exactly the quality I want exactly how I
want them done same with the packaging
there's no miscommunications there's no
I'm not left out of the loop like I'm
the one doing the hands
work I really prefer it that way and
then Big Cartel is great for for just
getting the payments through and then
each person who buys one puts their
information so that it like their
shipping address just shows up it's nice
and easy for me I just write it on the
envelope you can get a free membership
you can get like a $10 a month one if
you want some more products and some
more features you can also customize
your website so much which I have been
loving I've made my website all pretty
it looks real good I've really been
liking Big Cartel and you can like
settle the prices yourself and you get a
hundred percent of the payments like
they don't take a percentage of it which
I really like as well when setting the
prices for your prints you have to take
into consideration three things the cost
of getting the print done itself the
cost of shipping it out and then the
value of the actual artwork that you
made you have to just kind of add those
all up you can be realistic with
yourself price it at a point where you
know you'll be making profit rather than
throwing all that money back into you
know costs of materials of printing of
shipping yeah so Big Cartel is a great
website it's been a great website for me
super easy to set up super easy to get
everything organized on there and all
the payments processed through there and
then that's pretty much it you can do a
lot of fun things like you know I like
leaving the handwritten notes in the
packages you can also like get a custom
stamp made for your envelopes that's
something fun to do i something
important that i like to put on me
envelopes is do not bend because they're
delicate lovely prints yeah i wish you
guys the best of luck in setting this
all up and making this happen for
yourself it's a great way to earn a
little extra side cash for making art
which is you know so rewarding and
speaking of that I have to do a
shameless self promo I'm so sorry
link is in the description for my site
where i sell my prints like I said I
hand packaged each one with love and
care these are the two newest ones that
I added to my site we have all sorts of
other ones in the works we got this fun
guy this fun one got a lot of options so
yeah go check it out if you guys liked
any of the prints it would mean so much
to me if you've supported me in my work
and yeah
I hope this was super helpful for you
guys let me know in the comments what
you think and what you want me to talk
about next what do you need help with
what do you want insight on Oh my camera
died that's cool thanks for watching bye
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