For the artist looking for online exposure and sales, as well as POD printing and/or framing, one oft-used venue is the “art-for-sale-here” and “sell-your-art-here” dot coms.  There are a few critical things an artist should explore and understand before joining either of these types of dot coms, though.

1. As with the gallery mentioned last week, who is the dot com’s customer?  The artist, the art buyer, or both? 
2. Do you, the artist, retain complete control of your work? (Nothing like having copies of your work remain on the website after you no longer belong to the venue, and, worse, having your artwork proliferated around the Net completely beyond your say so and control at Amazon.com, EBay, or… because your “Sell-Your-Art-Here” dot com has an affiliation with these companies.)
3. Do you, the artist, retain your copyrights, the dot com only permitted limited publication rights to display and rights to print-on-demand for a buying customer?

Many “Sell-Your-Art-Here” and “Art-For-Sale-Here” dot coms make their money by:

• offering premium listings and space to subscribing artists
• receiving a commission for all art sold, either a flat rate or a percentage
• receiving payment for “value added,” such as POD reproduction, matting, and/or framing

It is imperative for the artist looking at an online venue to figure out who reckons as that dot-com’s primary customer.  Is it the artist, the art buyer, or both?

The “Sell-Your-Art-Here” dot com

If the dot com’s primary customer is the artist, then, unlike the real world gallery, that’s a good thing because the dot com is going to do everything possible to keep you, the artist, happy.  You are their primary customer, the one who puts bread and butter on their table.  They aren’t going to do anything that’s going to compromise that relationship…unless you are so very difficult that you are more trouble than you’re money’s worth, or you are so very incorrigible as to bring them negative publicity.

The Art-For-Sale-Here dot com

These dot coms focus on delivering art to the art buyer.  That’s their customer, not the artist.  Getting onto a good one usually means you must be a recognized “name artist” or your work must already be syndicated to one of the big art syndicates.

How about those dot coms which serve both the art consumer and the arist?

Well, here’s where things can get a bit nasty for you, the self-promoting artist.  If you aren’t selling art, they aren’t making anything, now are they?  That small fee you pay to be a part of their online art venue probably only covers your space and bandwidth, so where they expect to make their money is from selling your artwork, which means that, for you and your artwork to be of value to them, you must bring buying customers to their check-out register.  If you don’t, you can pretty much figure that, sooner or later, you might find yourself persona non grata and shoved out their virtual door without so much as a “fare thee well.” (Make sure you get ALL your art off their website and all their affiliate’s websites should this happen to you.)

For dot com’s who straddle the line or are just getting started, serving both the artists and the art buying customer, keep an eye on which is proving to be their most lucrative customer.  The moment that it becomes “the art buyer,” you can pretty much guarantee that they are going to move with “what sells” rather than with the less-than-outrageously successful self-promoting artist, especially the ”non-trendy,” no-name artist and the “just starting out” newbie.  They might even go so far as to dump all their self-promoting artists, opting for strictly syndicated works.

Some Words of Wisdom

For most “sell-your-art-here” dot coms, the fact is, both the artist and the art buyer are their customers.  Value-added shops like ImageKind.com provide self-promoting artists with a valuable service that can, if the artist successfully self-promotes, allow them to provide reprints of their work drop-shipped right from the printer with the plus that the artist doesn’t front the cost of printing, matting, and framing.  That’s a VERY GOOD DEAL.  But DON’T expect this kind of dot-com to promote you just because you buy a premium listing.  That’s YOUR job, not the job of the value-added printer/framer.

Realize that the “Sell-Your-Art-Here” dot com wants…DEPENDS…on you marketing them to the world by promoting your gallery that resides on their servers.  They figure quite rightly that one million wannabe artists all linking their respective website galleries  is going to help get them on top in major search engine rankings.  Those wonderful postings are also going to put their website in front of potential art buyers much better than all their paid-for search engine optimizing and paid for advertising.  …And they’re right.  That’s how some of the Internet’s biggest art venues made themselves “the name dot com in online art.”  You, Mr. and Ms. Artist, are their unpaid advertising and promotional agents. 

Be aware that, once that usefulness ends or is no longer needed, you become dispensable unless your art is making them money — as much or more money than, say, Van Gogh prints are making them for the same bandwidth, space, and effort. The moment your membership fees and art sales don’t produce, proving as valuable as consistent known sellers, and especially if dealing with you and your artwork winds up becoming more trouble and effort than dealing with syndicated art, then you are more liability than asset, which makes you summarily disposable.