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As a digital artist creating on your iPad or computer, it can be hard to know where to start when the time comes to actually make money from your art. Maybe you're just starting out and want to know what your options are, or maybe you use Procreate every day and have a collection of amazing designs you want to begin selling.
In the digital space, there are a lot of ways to profit from your art and there are more and more ways every year (hello NFTs!), but as far as selling the actual design itself, but these are three ways you can start profiting from your art right now!
1. Sell Your Design
The first way is the most obvious - selling the actual drawing or design as is. You can sell the file (in JPG or PDF format) as a digital print. That way your customer can buy the file and print it at home themselves. No shipping required! This has been a very popular way to sell art on platforms like Etsy (especially considering the state of the world over the last few years).
Image: Digital Prints from Etsy
You can also print out the design yourself (or at your local printer) and ship it to your customer (you can also do this through Etsy!). You could frame it too or offer different customization options (but make sure to include any extras in your pricing!) And since you're selling a digital copy of your design, you are able to sell it an infinite amount of times. And the more sales, the more money!
If you're looking at opening your own Etsy store to sell your art you can use this link to get your first 40 listings FREE!
2. License Your Design
Instead of selling your design, another way to profit is to license it! Licensing your artwork means that you give a company the right to print your design on a physical product - and they pay your for it! You still (usually) keep the rights to your art (so you still own it), but you get paid a percentage for the use of your design.
Image: Society6
A great way to get into art licensing is through print-on-demand websites like Redbubble or Society6 (that’s actually how I started getting into digital art!). If you design seamless patterns another great option is Spoonflower which sells your design on fabric and wallpaper.
You can also license your art to brands that sell their own products - from greeting cards to bedding - brands need designs too! Cat Coquillette is an amazing artist who has designs in stores like Target and Urban Outfitters!
3. Customer Commissions
Lastly, you can generate income by selling commission-based pieces of art. This is where a customer pays you to design something specifically designed for them. You could turn a photo of someone's pet into a digital portrait, digitise an old recipe, or create a piece of art based on where a couple first met.
Obviously in this case you're creating art for someone else so you'll need to communicate with your customers, and you usually can't resell these custom artworks. But since it's a custom design you're able to charge a lot more for each order.
There are definitely a lot of other way to make an income from your digital art so if you're already monetizing your digital art, let me know in the comments which method you use!
