Selling Art on Ebay Part 5: Wrapping

I sometimes get asked about how I send my artworks through the post. In part 4 of this series on Selling Art on Ebay you got to see me wrap an artwork as I talked about auction listings (well you did if you followed the link to the video that post was based upon).

However I didn't really explain what I was doing so I thought you may like to watch this series of two videos (embeded below) that I filmed specifically on wrapping my own artworks.

Before you watch them I have to apologize for the audio quality which is very crackly but you still can make out what I'm saying. I was trying out a new webcam at the time which, unfortunately had a very poor in-built microphone. However if you're prepared to persevere with the audio and my monotone voice I think you'll pick up a few useful ideas.

I'll completely understand if you give up on the videos. They are quite long and it is, after all, just how I do things.

If you're looking for more ideas about how to package your art then Susan Holland wrote an article that I highly recommend you check out over on Empty Easel titled, How to Safely and Securely Package Your Artwork for Shipping. She includes a fantastic template for making an artwork holder insert from a single piece of card - which, if you were to adopt in your own shipping, would make you look very professional indeed.

Wrapping Part 1


Wrapping Part 2

Domain Name and Website On a Budget

Artists typically don't have a lot of money to spare when starting out and the cost of setting up and hosting a website can be a little daunting. Prices vary however, on the smallest of budgets, you can still look professional with your website utilizing free web hosting services.

Domain Names

Although you can get by without a domain name (e.g. something along the lines of www.yourname.com) it really is an essential part of any website for a professional artist.

Without one you're likely to be stuck with a website address (URL) that looks something like www.yourwebhostsname.com/user/~yourname which is not only hard to remember but will also screw up your business card designs and be search engine unfriendly.

Domain names vary in price from registrar to registrar so shop around. You'll probably want a .com address, as these are generally cheaper and is the appropriate extension for artists (.net, .org etc. are for particular types of organisations).

Whether you choose to have a country code extension will depend on the rules for your country and whether it's really important that your site is recognized geographically by search engines.

For example, in Australia you can only have a .com.au (au for Australia) if you have a business name registered under a similar name as the domain you wish to register.

Generally geographical domain names cost considerably more and aren't really critical for most artists. Particularly if you intend to sell your art worldwide.

Note that you do not need to register a domain name with the same company that hosts your website.

Website Hosting

A website host is a company that offers space to store your website so that anyone, anywhere can access it 24/7. Almost every other advice site will tell you to stay away from free website hosts with reasons ranging from they're unreliable to having to put up with advertising on your pages.

However, for a lot of artists, a free website host will offer more than enough features for what they need. When choosing a free website host look for one that allows you to link your domain name to your site and preferably one that offers the ability to upgrade to paid hosting accounts.

If a free host also offers paid hosting, it's more likely their free service is going to be reliable because they are counting on their free service to encourage up-sells to their paid account.

A particular free website host that I recommend to my own clients is 50webs.com. (Note I'm not an affiliate, I used to use their service for my own sites). Their free account is advertising free and their domain name registration fees are competitively low - if you wanted to keep your domain registrar and hosting all in one place.

The only caveat is that 50webs is best suited to fully custom sites. If you have no web design experience and aren't intending to have someone design a site for you then you may need a different solution, such as Weebly.com (again I'm not an affiliate).

Weebly is also advertising free and comes with over 100 pre-designed themes that you simply choose and then can customize further, more in the manner of using a word processor than web design software. Weebly also includes a lot of easy to use features such as photo galleries, blogs and ecommerce - all of which could be useful to an arts based site.

Blogger Alternative

Free blogging platforms like Blogger.com can also be used in place of web hosting. I use it for my main TET website. You'll notice my own domain name is connected to it. It's worth thinking about. Blogs are highly recommended for artist web sites and, with almost unlimited free storage and fairly reliable servers, why not create your web site on a dedicated blogging site.

Blogger gives you plenty of templates to choose from that are easily customizable too.

You could also use WordPress.com if you're more familiar with that blogging platform.


As you can see getting a website presence can be as cheap as the cost of registering a domain name. Free site hosting services and blogging platforms are more than up to the job of helping you look professional when you're just starting out.

Once you start making some regular money having your own domain name will allow you to easily upgrade to paid hosting should you outgrow the free options.

Art Business: Pseudonym or Real Name?

For most artists I would recommend you work under your real name unless you are already widely known by another name or nickname. It's just easier and simpler to remember your own name and it doesn't confuse people when they're writing out a cheque payment for your latest artwork.

However there are good reasons to use a pseudonym so it's worth thinking about if you're just starting out promoting yourself and your art.

Some reasons include:

• Your real name is very common e.g. John Smith
• Your real name is hard to remember, pronounce or spell.
• You want to hide your gender or protect your real name for privacy reasons.
• You want a more interesting, memorable and unique sounding name.

In my creative practice I work under the pseudonym 'The Extraordinary Tourist' and am most known as 'TET' the acronym version of my longer name. I even sign all my artworks with TET rather than my real name, David Arandle.

My pseudonym came about as a result of adopting  'The Extraordinary Tourist', a name that comes from one of my fictional character creations, as my online name in various forums. Obviously the name its self is a little long to type out so people started shortening it to TET but the full version is very memorable - and sounds kind of interesting too.

When I started selling my art online as well, more people knew me as TET than they did my real name so I decided to adopt it as my name to work under with my art and other creative endeavors online. That way people who knew me would know it was my art and they wouldn't overlook my work because they'd never heard of this David Arandle person.

Not that I keep my real name secret. Look at any of my profile pages on any online social network and you'll see they all include, usually in the opening sentence, 'my real name is David Arandle'. I do this so that people who only know me as David can also find me online. (For example, an old school friend is interested in seeing what I'm up to, finds me, and then decides to buy some of my art - which has happened to me).

I also keep my real name associated with my pseudonym because TET is not quite as a unique name as David Arandle. If you type TET into a search engine you'll see it's also a Vietnamese holiday and a famous military offensive during the Vietnamese war. By associating my real name with my pseudonym I ensure people looking for 'TET the Artist' can confirm it's me when they see my real name.

The above point also makes the case for working under your real name online. If you have a fairly unique name that is easy to remember then anyone looking for you online via search engine is going to find you straight away.  However if your name is John Smith, there are an awful lot of John Smith's in the world, you may want to consider a more unique pseudonym.

Often pseudonym's are used to hide gender. Which happens a lot in publishing. For example a male writer of literature targeted at females may consider adopting a female name so as not to put of readers who may think, male author, male target market and not give the book a chance.

I'm not a real advocate of using pseudonyms to hide information such as gender or your real name just because, sooner or later, people are going to find out whatever it is you're hiding. Which could, potentially have a damaging effect.

I happen to think The Extraordinary Tourist is a more interesting name than David Arandle. Which was the reason I started using it in the first place. That might be reason enough for you to consider using a pseudonym too. Just try to use something unique.

Test out your pseudonym in a search engine and see what comes up. While you're at it search for your own name and see how many people come up that you share your name with. That may just convince you to try a pseudonym from the get go.

If you do use a pseudonym I would recommend associating with your real name, as I have, unless you have a specific reason not to, such as privacy. It'll save you the confusion when people see you using your real name and will stop them thinking 'but I thought your name was...'

Turning Your Creativity into Cash - Money from Art

A long time ago I realized I couldn't handle a regular 9-5 job for long because it got in the way of my need to create. So the alternative was, find a way to earn a living from my creativity. Essentially, working for myself.

I'll be the first to admit it's not been an easy path to follow. Society is constantly pushing you back to that 9-5 job because you need to be able to support yourself financially. Turning your creativity into cash is definitely not the easy option but people do succeed at it. So there's no reason why you shouldn't too.

The Business Plan

Many business advice advocates will tell you that, to succeed in working for yourself, a business plan is essential... and I agree it certainly is so, do as I say and not as I do. I've tried to write myself a business plan but since I have no intention of ever approaching a bank or investors for funding, a formal, written plan seems like over kill.

Here's the simple business plan:

• Look for opportunities to make money.
• Never spend more than you earn.
• Keep an eye on the bills - be prepared for when they come up.
• Enjoy some of the money you've worked to make.

I think most of those are fairly self explanatory. Keep them in mind at all times. On the last point about enjoying some of the money you've worked to make, keep your sensible shoes on. Make sure you have money that isn't needed for bills or materials before you spend it and even then, don't spend it all. Keep some just in case it's longer than expected before the next opportunity to make money arises.

Cash Flow Budget

If you're really serious about tracking the money you make and are wanting to plan for the future then I'd strongly recommend learning how to create a Cash Flow budget. It's not as hard or complex as you might think  and you only need a very basic understanding of working a spread sheet to set one up.

I'll look at Cash Flow Budgeting in more detail in a future article but if you want to get started now there's a good article and a template you can get started with on the SME Toolkit website.

Opportunities to Turn Your Creativity into Cash

So you probably weren't expecting all that 'businessey' stuff when you started reading this article but if you're serious about making money from your art then it's important to understand there is a business side to what you're doing. Working for yourself you have to keep the business side in mind and work on it too.

Finally, though, it's time to look at what opportunities you have for turning your creativity into cash.

If your art is something that creates a finished product like a painting, jewelry or pottery then obviously these are items that you can either sell or create on a commission basis. Look around for places where people are likely to shop for your items and start selling. Online, Ebay or Etsy are good starting points.

Perhaps you create art that would look great reproduced on T-Shirts and other products or you have an image that would sell many times over as a print. Print on demand sites like Cafepress, Redbubble and Imagekind are among many that can help you earn money from prints.

Another option for photographers and illustrators is creating royalty free stock images used on web sites and other applications the world over. Shutterstock is one of the biggest in this field. Your images can earn money several times over - each time a business chooses them for their needs.

What if you're a writer or a cartoonist. There's plenty of opportunities to earn money whilst your waiting for that big publishing deal or world wide syndication of your cartoon strip.

Writing a blog or posting cartoons to a blog are an obvious starting point. Blogger and Wordpress are free to use. You won't earn money directly from your work but if you sign up for Google's Adsense program and place ads around your blog - where people will see them - eventually you'll get a small but constant stream of income. Especially if your work is focused on a specific theme.

There are more ways to earn from writing and drawing cartoons than I can list here but one avenue you might want to look into is self publishing. Lulu is the largest site for self publishing online in both printed and digital books. It costs almost nothing to start and who knows, that graphic novel you've worked so hard on might just take off despite what publishers have said.

My latest venture is animation. You wouldn't think there were that many opportunities to earn money from animation but, in fact, businesses love animation. It's an easy to understand and engaging tool to explain their products and services. Whilst you're turning that big idea into an animated feature why not earn a little money on the side creating web video for business? Jobs are a little harder to find but odesk has a whole section for animation.

I could keep listing more opportunities to earn from your creativity such as web design, copy writing, graphics etc. you'll find many opportunities for these kinds of jobs on odesk and similar sites like elance where businesses and individuals contract freelancers to work for them.

One interesting site that could prove to be a good testing ground for a service based business is Fiverr. It's a site where people offer all kinds of creative services for just five dollars. If you're not sure if your service is in demand, it could be worth creating a five dollar deal just to test the waters.

Getting Paid

Don't worry too much about taking on work or selling to people that aren't local or even in the same country as you. Accepting payments and invoicing through PayPal makes it simple for anyone anywhere to pay you in their own currency and via credit card. Many of the sites I've mentioned will also pay your earnings into your PayPal account too.

Don't believe all the horror stories about Paypal either. So long as you never give out your password and always log in directly from the site (and not by clicking a link from an email) you should be okay. Many of the tales of woe with Paypal are down to human error.

Get Rich Quick Schemes - I don't think so!

None of these ideas are get rich quick schemes. However all of them could grow into profitable businesses with plenty of hard work and keeping an eye on the business side of things. Quite a few of them allow you to build up a body of work that continues to earn money as you create new work.

For myself, I write regularly for three of my own blogs, which currently earn a small but consistent income that's growing each year. I also sell my art on ebay, which at times, has been a very good money earner for me. My animation business is new but growing into one of my best opportunities to date. And, if all else fails, my web design service always seems to pull through with new work, even though I barely advertise my services.

There really is no reason why you couldn't turn your creativity into cash if you are looking to earn a bit of extra money. It's just a matter of looking at what it is you create and thinking about how you could sell that as a product or service that people would buy.