There are almost too many resources that will help you sell your art online. Here are 15 great ways to get that canvas, video, book or other piece of art out the door. This list will be updated over the next several weeks with links to experts who will explain how to sell your art through these venues.

Ways to Sell Art Online

Etsy – a community of artists who make hand crafted pieces. See our post on How to Sell Your Art on Etsy.
Adwords – Google’s advertising program. If you have a website where you sell your work, Adwords is a highly effective way of targeting those looking for art to buy. If you’d like some tips on how to use Adwords, please contact me directly.
Ebay – the world’s largest auction site. Follow @ebayart on Twitter to get an idea of what kind of art does well on ebay.
Amazon – the single largest directory of online stores, Amazon turned itself into one of the world’s largest retailers by creating a platform for anyone to sell anything. There are literally thousands of stores that use Amazon as their main source of sales. If you make handmade jewelry, Amazon has a section just for you on their front page.
Imagekind.com – high quality printing & framing, community, and marketing tips. See Imagekind Power Selling Tips.
Cafepress.com – for designing shirts, other screen printed things
Craigslist – in certain cities, people use Craigslist for everything. In Portland, I have seen everything from couches, to cars, to beautiful pieces of art for sale. Think of it as the world’s largest classified ad.
Art-exchange.com – high end artwork. This site is designed for professional art buyers.
DailyOriginal.com – feature one piece of art each day on the site.
EmptyEasel.com – the most comprehensive guide to selling paintings on the internet.
Yessy.com – buy, sell art gallery
Buysellart.com – another gallery
Fuelforart.com – a marketing book for artists
Foliotwist.com – ready made art websites w/Paypal shopping cart built in
A personal consultation with Cory Huff, the creator of this site, if you are very serious about your work and have the money to hire a professional.

Need more?

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Ready to Change the Way You Think About Your Art?

Check out The Game Changer Calls with Melissa Dinwiddie and Cory Huff. In 2011, Melissa and I hosted a series of free teleseminars where we shared our experiences in growing our own careers, selling art on the internet, and talking about the state of the art business today. These calls are totally free and you can find them on the ArtEmpowers.Me home page.

Bonus: More Ways to Sell Art Offline

Swap meets
Craft Fairs
Farmer’s Markets
Network – go to networking functions at local museums & art galleries
Enter competitions
Ask local shops & businesses to display your work
Submit to stock photo & image sites

Tagged as: adwords, amazon, ebay, etsy, sell art online

ItsHandmade 5 pts

Good list. The big thing is promotion. Use more than one avenue to sell and get in front of as many potential customers as possible. Try different venues and see which works best for your particular medium.

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patrickraymond 5 pts

I sell my artwork on BarterDown.com. New site and is working well for me.

Profit Insiders 5 pts

Nice effort, very informative, this will help me to complete my task.

shirasagi 5 pts

Can I post here? I'm an artist, but methinks I picked the wrong passtime. I have spent far more time and money producing inventory than selling it. Even when I give shows, people come by and say lots of oohs and aahs, and then walk off. C'mon! If it's so pretty, show me the money!

IDSensitivity 5 pts

just joined foundmyself.com, sounds promising. It's free on the basis that, if it proves helpful, you can donate something later...I like that concept, very positive and trust-inspiring. You can showcase and sell your work commission-free, there's useful info and the layout looks good.

smanou 5 pts

New kid on the block. Check out www.artibly.com.

PrimalTroy 5 pts

Kind of surprised ArtFire didn't make the list.

Kendra M Gilbert

I'd also love to point out that there are also free places to promote and sell artwork, one of which is FAEBAE, a newer site that provides classified ads and auction listings that are only art, craft, handmade or collectible items. It is growing pretty fast and also provides some really amazing social networking or promotion features...even an export tool to list artwork on Craigslist :-)

Funny News

One way to sell your art if you use a site like ebay or etsy is to set up your own website and use google keyword tool to find what art terms people search for that are low competition. Optimize your page for those terms and link to your etsy and ebay art page from within your site.

RadishArt

Foliotwist was co-founded by the creators of www.emptyeasel.com a well known website that reviews other online art community and offers tutorials for artists ranging from studio tips to advice for gaining exposure online. The bad part about that is that www.foliotwist.com features several things that Empty Easel has trashed other online art communities for such as only offering members a brief demo of the site before they have to start paying, bold claims of how great the site is for exposure when the site is barely on the radar of Alexa and other website ranking sites.

The fact that the site costs really tuned me off because Empty Easel has made a point of warning artists not to waste money paying for similar sites. But they do have a history of supporting other pay sites that happen to buy ad space on Empty Easel! It makes sense that they have knit-picked other online art communities given the fact that they had Foliotwist under their belt this whole time. BOOOOOO! All is fair in business but it just seems catty for them to put down the hard work of others only to do the same thing and in some cases worse. It just comes off catty and unprofessional.

Barbra Bio Writer 8 pts

Good obser vation.

Nick

For artists that want to sell prints, try thevespergallery.com. You will need to have print-ready copies of your work, but they take care of everything else and don't charge a fee.

Angela Canada Hopkins

I tried selling online through my website and didn't have much success. Personally, if I was buying an original work of art I would not buy it online. I'd want to see it in person to get a better feel for the colors, texture, and size. So instead I use my website as more of a portfolio. However, with prints, I don't think that's the case. But I haven't tried selling them in the online market. So I'm interested in giving it a whirl using the sites listed. Thanks for the handy-dandy info.

watamyr

Selling art on the web and being successful at it is really my dream. I've tried several microstock agencies and various POD sites but have had limited success. I decided that selling my work for literally nickels and dimes on microstock sites was a futile venture so I don't pay much attention to it. Now I'm focusing my attention on Zazzle and am having greater success. $40 in 3 months. For me, it's something to get excited about. But it's hard for me to see it as a primary source of income. I don't know if it's the quality of my art or my inexperience with marketing. I know there are people who are very successful selling art online but my question is can I be just as successful? Hopefully, yes. Fotos to Fractals