Artists' and Artisans' Place
Ways to Sell and Advertise Art and Crafts
by Jenny Stewart
Jenny Stewart 
Hello to all
In this Group you are invited to come and look for and post your suggestions on ways for us to advertise and sell our work. All suggestions and tips are welcome, whether they are on or off-line The more the merrier - we can all help each other here.
This is a permanent Topic - I hope everyone keeps adding new suggestions for advertising and selling art and crafts on most of these pages - so we can have a reference place to find links and other ideas.
Arts & Crafts Fairs are fundamental for many of us - and I think we will have a special section for these where we can talk about selling at these events and add our own experiences or information about future fairs taking place in our areas too.
Other ways of selling your work
Print advertising - are there any specialist magazines on your work. For mine - there are several magazines read by collectors of nativities, so when I can, I take an ad. The readers are a targeted public.
Leaflets or brochures - again they are not free - but can be a low cost way of making sure that your existing and future clients have a way of contacting you in the future.
If you are graphically inclined, you can create your own leaflets or brochures, and print them on your printer. There are many graphics, and templates online to choose from, and many fabulous papers you can buy to print them on.
THE INTERNET.
Your Website First of all - it is best to have your own website - these can be free - there are many places where you can make your own from free templates - Who can tell us about this???
What alternatives are available if you dont have one? Cafe Press is one
Arts and Crafts Directories. Again these are often free to put in your link, although sometimes your are required to give an exchange link. It is always better to have more inbound than outbound links to help you on the search engines but there are times that the site is good enough to merit the exchange. This can be ok if they are reputable, such as the Craft Site Directory which has been established for many years and is found to be very effective for many people. What specialist directories have you found useful?
Arts and Craft Articles - there are sites where you can post articles on your particular field of work - these help to establish you as "an expert" in your field and can often result in quality traffic and sales of your work.
There are several here at ApSense. Please come and tell us about the ones you know of.
There are many other ways to use the internet - please post your experiences on this forum. What works best for you?
AND If you want to show your work
Start a topic on this Group!
and Rose Enderud gives you this opportunity in her Artshow forum at AdlandPro and it also has a group of forums for Arts Crafts and Hobbies
Rose's Artshow at AdLandPro whether it is art or craftwork -
Other internet Communities with Arts Sections
James Maxwell (maxinvegas) who is also a member here has his own forum The House of Max which has an Arts and Crafts Section too. Rose Enderud has a place for artists at Bizzy Blogz Community
These are all free to join and a great way of spreading the word and getting our sites seen by a wider audience
This is just a beginning. Let's share our knowledge and help each other here.
Come and tell us more
Saludos
Jenny
www.alasyciagranada.com
May 27th 2007 15:40
Hello to all
In this Group you are invited to come and look for and post your suggestions on ways for us to advertise and sell our work. All suggestions and tips are welcome, whether they are on or off-line The more the merrier - we can all help each other here.
This is a permanent Topic - I hope everyone keeps adding new suggestions for advertising and selling art and crafts on most of these pages - so we can have a reference place to find links and other ideas.
Arts & Crafts Fairs are fundamental for many of us - and I think we will have a special section for these where we can talk about selling at these events and add our own experiences or information about future fairs taking place in our areas too.
Other ways of selling your work
Print advertising - are there any specialist magazines on your work. For mine - there are several magazines read by collectors of nativities, so when I can, I take an ad. The readers are a targeted public.
Leaflets or brochures - again they are not free - but can be a low cost way of making sure that your existing and future clients have a way of contacting you in the future.
If you are graphically inclined, you can create your own leaflets or brochures, and print them on your printer. There are many graphics, and templates online to choose from, and many fabulous papers you can buy to print them on.
THE INTERNET.
Your Website First of all - it is best to have your own website - these can be free - there are many places where you can make your own from free templates - Who can tell us about this???
What alternatives are available if you dont have one? Cafe Press is one
Arts and Crafts Directories. Again these are often free to put in your link, although sometimes your are required to give an exchange link. It is always better to have more inbound than outbound links to help you on the search engines but there are times that the site is good enough to merit the exchange. This can be ok if they are reputable, such as the Craft Site Directory which has been established for many years and is found to be very effective for many people. What specialist directories have you found useful?
Arts and Craft Articles - there are sites where you can post articles on your particular field of work - these help to establish you as "an expert" in your field and can often result in quality traffic and sales of your work.
There are several here at ApSense. Please come and tell us about the ones you know of.
There are many other ways to use the internet - please post your experiences on this forum. What works best for you?
AND If you want to show your work
Start a topic on this Group!
and Rose Enderud gives you this opportunity in her Artshow forum at AdlandPro and it also has a group of forums for Arts Crafts and Hobbies
Rose's Artshow at AdLandPro whether it is art or craftwork -
Other internet Communities with Arts Sections
James Maxwell (maxinvegas) who is also a member here has his own forum The House of Max which has an Arts and Crafts Section too. Rose Enderud has a place for artists at Bizzy Blogz Community
These are all free to join and a great way of spreading the word and getting our sites seen by a wider audience
This is just a beginning. Let's share our knowledge and help each other here.
Come and tell us more
Saludos
Jenny
www.alasyciagranada.com
May 27th 2007 15:40
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Comments
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James Max
 Blog Network CommunityHey Jenny This is a whole lot of useful information. Keep up the good work. The GoodNews Team May 27th 2007 16:52 |
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Jenny Stewart
Hi Jen, That's a great one to put on the list of useful places for us. http://www.etsy.com/ If anyone wants to join (free) they can use my referral name = alasycia (no money to be made by me - but they like to know where you heard) Thanks, Jen May 27th 2007 16:57 |
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Dee Hudson
 Validated Veretekk TrainerI have an online shop over at BBS GLOBAL, Its an affordable way of getting your arts and crafts seen on the web, If any one would like to find out more about it, contact me at my store, register to get info http://www.bbsglobal.com/dee or join for free to see how it all works http://www.bbsglobal.com/?id=1877 Take care because I care Dee PS if you want to test things out I am willing to negotiate putting your art in my Store for small fee or ((( Free Service for Members of my Team)))) May 27th 2007 19:09 |
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Jenny Stewart
Hi Dee, I think i am suffering from brain torpor - have just reread your post and thank you for your suggestion about BBS Global. What is more - i have jut disocvered that I registered for BBS some time ago and you are my up-up line!! Will be in touch - I think i should be using this resource! Saludos Jenny Jun 15th 2007 14:25 |
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Lisa Lomas
Hi Jenny, I found this place which I thought was cool as I know heaps of artists. they accept Paintings, Sketches and water dyes, ink pictures from new and developing artists. They are called www.rewardingart.com. You have to have a person that invites you so I joined to invite my artist buddies, kiwigal is my alias there. I really think this can help heaps of artists. ( I love art so keep my finger in the pie so to speak, lol) Hope this helps someone Lisa Jul 23rd 2007 05:00 |
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Jenny Stewart
Hi Lisa That is a great link - and thanks for joining it so that you can introduce us! Remember guys when you join you have to say that you were introduced by kiwigal Your support is greatly appreciated! And watch out that the pies are't mud pies!LOL Jul 23rd 2007 05:52 |
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John Dilbeck
 It's been awhile since I marketed any arts and crafts. After I burned out on computer consulting, I re-adopted a family tradition, and went back to blacksmithing. Although I set out to make arms and armor, I sidetracked into making steel roses: http://TheRoseThatNeverWilts.com Marketing my roses was the reason I got back online and started building JohnDilbeck.com. One of the things I did was upload a few pics to Webshots.com: http://community.webshots.com/user/johndilbeck I haven't been to that page in years and I still get a weekly email that my photos have been viewed anywhere from 50 to 100 or so times per week. That was before Flickr.com existed. If I were marketing my roses today, I'd put up lots of pics on Flickr and I'd blog about it every time I did. I'd sign up for Squidoo.com and create a new lens for every different item I created and I'd syndicate the RSS feed from my blog on that page. I'd also use the Flickr module and show pics of the item on the lens. This provides, from a high-ranking site, one-way links to my blog and photos. I'm sure you know, but you can get free blogs from lots of places, including here on Apsense. Blogger.com WordPress.com Bravenet.com and about a zillion others. You could create a brochure or ebook in PDF format and make it available as a free download from: Lulu.com FreeIQ.com If you have art or photos, you can sell products from CafePress.com, Lulu.com, FreeIQ.com and other places without having to build a store and deal with deliveries and such. If you're selling CDs, CafePress.com and Lulu.com can help. If you want to sell a photo book, both of them can do print on demand and you get a commission for each sale - and you set your own commission by marking up the price from the base price they charge for production and delivery. Of course, you can upload your PDF brochures to any site that allows downloading and delivery is free. That's just a few ideas. Act on your dream! JD Sep 7th 2007 23:28 |
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Jenny Stewart
Hi John, First of all - it is great to see you here at ApSense and in the Artists and Artisans Place. Check out his Rose site folks - those roses are works of art. Thanks for your wonderful list of suggestions for us to advertise and sell our arts and crafts. There are some valuable ideas there and I for one am going to follow them up. It looks like bloggingis exceptionally important for us with our type of work and so that is something to be looked at again and your idea for PDF books is excellent. Thanks again - and I hope you will post some of your work on this Group for everyone to enjoy. Saludos Jenny Sep 10th 2007 06:06 |
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John Dilbeck
Hi Jenny, Thanks for the kind words. I love turning wrecked cars into steel roses that never wilt, but I'm unable to do that at this time. Maybe one day I can get back to it. I had another idea for promoting your items, especially when going into a town before an arts and crafts fair, but it may be considered advertising, so I don't know whether I should mention it here or not. I just got my fingers burned a bit because I wrote something on the Apsense group that was deleted because of the links in the post, so I'm trying to be extra careful when playing in anyone else's sandbox. The gist of the idea is to promote your appearance at a show by creating coupons that will bring people there specifically to find YOU, and not just to browse. Depending upon what someone does, there would be options available. For example, if you sell jewelry, maybe you could offer to clean or polish a piece if someone presents your coupon. It doesn't cost anything and you will have time to chat for a few minutes and this means undivided attention. I don't recommend advertising discounts unless it is for multiple purchases. I would not discount the purchase of one item, but perhaps would offer a discount for three items. As long as it pushes a purchase above what I would expect to be an average purchase for that show, I wouldn't mind giving a discount. However, by discounting at all, you are devaluing the item's worth in the prospect's mind. We don't want artwork to be sold like commodities; each piece should be special. Whether one distributes coupons around town or sends postcards to anyone who has purchased from you previously, there needs to be a hook to get them to come with the intention of seeing you and not just to browse. It also gives you a better chance to sell something before they've spent all they plan to spend, so there should be something with a motivator, such as "this coupon is only valid for the first 25 customers on opening day." All the best, JD Sep 12th 2007 20:39 |
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Jenny Stewart
Hi John, Sorry for the delay in reponding - I am a bit behind with my work!. Coupons - now that is a very very original idea. Whatever you sell, at least for craft work , there is always SOMETHINg that you can think of as an extra. Having said that , i am now trying to think of one for myself. LOL It may have to be a free gift with a purchase - like I am now going to offer a free sheep with any complete nativity set sold. HEAR THAT FOLKS!!! You can put links on this Group John, and minor ads - it is only blatant spamming and completely off topic stuff that is forbidden here. We are a pretty easy going bunch! LOL Thanks AGAIN for more useful and original suggestions Jenny Sep 20th 2007 17:40 |
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Eileen Schmidt
 Hi Everyone, I am Eileen and very new here, and I have an ebay store in the US. I am always looking for new suppliers and I sell Home and Garden decor of all kinds. It is very difficult to find items that are not made in China (I don't want to get anyone started on that subject, I agree) but as a store owner, and I also create craft type items or used to, (I love making something out of nothing) . But there are not many American manufacturers who will sell to the small guy. When I contact them I am told I could buy items for less from the chain store than they could sell it to me. So I am also an avenue if any one is interested. I know Jenny has already asked if I would be interested in selling some of her items, after purchasing a few from me. She contacted me in Wisconsin all the way from Spain, for a Country girl that's like bringing a bit of the World to my door, even my husband thought it was exciting when hearing our voice mail(we both suffer from pain 24/7, so I don't get out much and he gets as far as work and home again). She said if she gets enough together to ship me some, I said sure and the more the better shipping rate. They have gotten pretty bad in the US for international shipments. But I really know nothing of international trade. I was just logging off and it said I had a message so this is my 2 cents worth but I will have to reply later. I'm exhausted. I still need to fill the section in where I talk about me and everything else that I need to fill in, when I have time and can figure out 1 more thing on my computer. My website or ebay store is; http://stores.ebay.com/Homegardenwholesaleclearanceetc If you are interested, you can also start an ebay store for as little as $15.00 a month but it's all the others fees as well and lots of them, but for the home bound it's a great oppurtunity, even to meet great people from Spain (Hi, Jenny sorry I missed your call) . Thanks, Eileen Sep 20th 2007 19:07 |
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Margie B.
Fine Art PhotographerI very simple reminder to instantly place a website in people's minds is to add an email signature! Nov 25th 2007 17:01 |
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Eileen Schmidt
Hi, I have tried to put in my e-mail and direct ebay store link to click on and in my profile signature it just doesn't work for me on APSense. I have no problem any where else and a screen used to come up letting me put in a link but it doesn't come up any more. I will keep trying when I have the time until I can get it to work. Eileen Dec 1st 2007 19:53 |
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Jenny Stewart
Another place to get ideas where to sell is www.powersellersunite.com It was started when pèople wanted to find alternatives to eBay to sell on. It has forums with a lot of useful information about alternative sites, many of which seem to be arts and crafts oriented. Dec 29th 2007 21:27 |
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Eric Smith
Online ProfessionalCeramics based Article Directory... http://ceramics-directory.com/articles/ Dec 30th 2007 15:03 |
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Stupid Girlfriend
 Hey I would like to share something it's called Trade Days or Flea Market or Traveling Arts and Crafts. We have many communities around where I live and through out the state that sponser community trade days where you can sign up and reserve a booth and when it's time to set up you take your crafts and items to sell to the show. You can either get a booth space a mall space they are all different. Plus malls have little shops that they rent out through out the year and to get into one at the best time you have to call ahead of course Also Craft Malls and Anique shops all have places to sell crafts not all but some. Consignment shops are also another good place to sell some as well. Hope this helps. Reta Jan 9th 2008 20:59 |
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Muller Jeanfrancois
Hi, Here are some of my paintings. I like landscapes, still life in cool colors and presently I am experimenting with abstract. Take time to look at my work. Relax. My work conveys my feelings and my views of life. I am not physically present but my painting is an expression of my inner feelings and emotions. I would like to know your inner reactions to what you see. You can leave a comment at the botton of this page, send me an email or call me. I appreciate any comment you make. WWW.ARTISTPAINTINGONLINE.COM muller jeanfrancois Oct 16th 2008 22:42 |
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Jenna Appleseed
 online trader & zinesterFolksy is a similar site (and more UK friendly) Sep 11th 2009 16:04 |
Don't forget Etsy.com, which is a good showcase for handcrafted products as well as a sales site for indie artists and crafters.
May 27th 2007 16:33