How Do You Make Money Selling Digital Art?

Many artists today produce digital art. With the introduction of the iPad in 2010, creating digital art has become far more accessible, especially with apps like procreate. You may not know how to use procreate on an ipad yet, but if you are wanting to work on mastering digital art, it’s a great program to start with. Selling digital art is quite different from selling a physical product. You may be wondering how you go about selling digital art. Fortunately, there are multiple ways to sell it today. You can form multiple income streams, and many of them will yield passive income. Passive income is not time-dependent, and you essentially set up systems that generate money for you long after you created the artwork. Here are some ways to generate money from your digital art.

1. Sell on Etsy

Etsy is a great platform for selling digital art. It is quite simple to set up an Etsy store, and you can get step-by-step instructions on how to do this. When you upload your art, you have to fill out various details, such as the product name, description, and tags. The more listings you have in your store, the more chances you have of selling, and you shouldn’t start with fewer than at least ten listings. There are multiple ways to promote your art on Etsy. 

Once you know how to sell digital art prints on your Etsy store, you can start exploring the physical art format. It’s not necessary to sell digital art in its original form. You can change it to physical print and sell it online. People prefer to have a physical art print they can display in their homes, so there is always a demand for it. Turning digital into physical print provides you with a wider customer base, which increases sales potential on Etsy. You can partner with a print-on-demand service that will print the art once a customer places an order.

2. Sell on YouTube

As a digital artist, you can use YouTube to show off your art and grow an audience. You will need to come up with a unique and creative niche so you can stand out from competitors. As YouTube is a video platform, you may wonder what type of content you could make. 

Some ideas for videos are to record your digital art process or share tips, advice and tutorials. You can market your art in many ways on YouTube, and once you have grown your following, brands may start approaching you with sponsorship requests. In the early days, it can be hard work to build up a YouTube channel, but in the long run, it could really be worth your while. 

3. Sell to stock image sites

A simple way to make money is to sell your digital artwork to stock image sites. You will receive commission on each piece of artwork that sells on one of these sites. It may be difficult at first to rely on this method for full-time income. However, it can be a good source of supplementary income. You can create artwork like logos, icons etc., to sell to different stock image sites like Shutterstock, iStock, or Getty Images. 

4. Create digital art NFTs

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are digital assets that represent real objects. Many digital artists create digital art NFTs to secure their artwork and make money from it. NFTs are created using blockchain technology. A blockchain ledger can’t be altered, so proof of ownership is guaranteed. Sellers and buyers can prove an artwork is genuine. 

To create digital art NFTs, you need to have a crypto wallet and connect it to a site that deals with NFTs, like Rarible. This enables you to secure your artwork as part of a public ledger. After you upload your artwork, it can take a while to verify it. Once it’s verified, it goes into your crypto wallet, and you can sell it on the site. 

5. Build a membership business

Patreon is a well-known platform that allows creators to build membership businesses. You can generate recurring monthly revenue from fans that pay to get a peek behind the scenes and see exclusive content. Your fans believe in you, so they support you and your work on a monthly basis. You may offer one-on-one coaching, exclusive gifts like a calendar, or extra video or blog content to members. 

Conclusion

Making money from digital art may require some hard work, but you have more opportunities than ever before. You can create an Etsy store to sell digital and physical art prints, promote your art on YouTube, sell to stock image sites, create NFTs or build a membership business. Using these ways to sell digital art can allow you to create multiple streams of passive income.