How Do Sell Art???

Deactivated-Acc't
Artist -

I’m trying to figure out how best to market and sell my art, and… well, I just don’t know anything about it. I’ve been waiting almost a week now to get a Commissions Shop set up over at MLP Forums, but unfortunately, the guy in charge of that has a ton on his plate right now and I have no idea if or when he’ll get around to setting it up.
 
All I know right now is that I’m starting off with simple bust-only commissions ($5-$20, 4 types,) while I get used to doing paid work and while I settle into my new place. Selling them is the issue. I hate to say it, but I need money and I’m sick of waiting, so, for the time being, I’m looking to set up shop anyways, since this fandom is great about commissions, form what I’ve heard. (heh. from what i’ve ‘herd’.)
 
What platform would you recommend I sell from? I have a PayPal.me acc’t for payments, but I’m not sure what website I should be using to display my art and pricing.
 
Agh, I know nothing about any of this. Folks on here who sell commissions, what sage wisdom do you have on the subject?
Ciaran
ラ・ゼッタ - For supporting the site
Silly Pony - Celebrated the 13th anniversary of MLP:FIM, and 40 years of MLP!
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
Lunar Guardian - Earned a place among the ranks of the most loyal New Lunar Republic soldiers (April Fools 2023).
Crystal Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
Flower Trio - Helped others get their OC into the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
A Lovely Nightmare Night - Celebrated the 12th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Princess of Love - Extra special version for those who participated in the Canterlot Wedding 10th anniversary event by contributing art.
Tree of Harmony - Drew someone's OC for the 2022 Community Collab
Elements of Harmony - Had an OC in the 2022 Community Collab

Senior Moderator
友情は魔法だ
I would suggest doing all of it. Set up your commissions entry here, on DA, on Patreon or on the Commish sites, then also on other sites that are specific to your art such as Pixiv or FurAffinity, or places you might be able to catch the eyeballs of potential clients including Twitter or Facebook. And set up every payment option that doesn’t cost, like get a “Doing Business As” for your state (most charge $25 for that) and set up a bank account in that name, and get a Square credit card reader pointed at that account so you can take credit card or debit cards wherever you are with your phone, and get a PayPal account for that “Doing Business As” name because some people prefer that.
 
Then just do it everywhere you can, because if you’re busy, that begets more work. There’s not any real science to it, but it seems if you’re busy, you get business. So do free work for people (but don’t accept ‘requests’) - just do the free images for other people of their popular OC (if they permit it) until you have a body of images done that are in the franchise and will attract attention. Search for this string to find the most popular OC only images made so far this year:
 
oc only,created_at:2019,safe
 
Then check with the creators of the OCs (look at the tag of the OC to see if the detailed description shows the creator) and find out if they’re ok with folks doing free work of their OC, and if they are (even if that might come with some restrictions as to the kinds of art they’re ok with) then you’ve got a bunch of free work you can do to build a base in the franchise, and if those end up being popular images too that can attract a lot of attention to your profile and your commissions offerings.
 
Getting listed on Equestria Daily can give you a boost, but it’s hard to arrange that - you just have to be lucky and happen to have the image that they’re looking for when they look for it.
 
And be busy. Your art is already impeccable and pro quality, just treat the MLP fandom as if it was a new franchise-specific client - try to avoid working on spec as much as you can (or only do it to flesh out your portfolio for the franchise - where you decide what you create and what you share as a part of your portfolio) and then “the magic happens”.
 
And if you have other online galleries or portfolios that you want people to be able to find from your profile here, just let us know - we’ll set up User Links which are verified links to your other work just like your DeviantArt link so that folks can find your other profiles or offerings.
 
But that’s just me. You can see from my gallery here that I’m just a dabbler in this franchise :)
Clear Vision
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under their artist tag
Non-Fungible Trixie -
Hard Work - Merited Perfect Pony Plot Provider badge with only their own art
Perfect Pony Plot Provider - Uploader of 10+ images with 350 upvotes or more (Questionable/Explicit)
The Power of Love - Given to a publicly verified artist with an image under their artist’s tag that has reached 1000 upvotes
My Little Pony - 1992 Edition
Charitable Contributor - Contributed to a series of art packs that helped raise over $10,000 for charity
Wallet After Summer Sale -
Artist -

Petrolhead Artist
First of all, welcome to the site. Derpibooru is a good place to start, however as your audience grows, it is good to start considering posting your art to other sites as well, and maybe some art Discord servers too, however the first thing that I must mention that is very important is this:
 
What platform would you recommend I sell from? I have a PayPal.me acc’t for payments,
 
if you’re going to be using Paypal as your means of payment, I have been told that you should invoice your customers instead of using Paypal.me. Don’t get me wrong, Paypal.me is very convenient and fast, but one of my recent customers who is also an artist has warned me that if you use paypal.me, people who pay you through it can find out your street address through a payment dispute and then claim that they didn’t receive a physical product when they paid.
 
If someone is dead set on screwing you over, they can do it in other ways, but if you make it very clear in the Terms and Conditions section of the invoice that the customer is paying for a service that will result in a digital product, then at least they won’t be able to do through this method.
 
I’m trying to figure out how best to market and sell my art, and… well, I just don’t know anything about it. I’ve been waiting almost a week now to get a Commissions Shop set up over at MLP Forums, but unfortunately, the guy in charge of that has a ton on his plate right now and I have no idea if or when he’ll get around to setting it up.
 
Ciaran has already mentioned it (and has given a decently in-depth response as is), but you can also set up a commissions page right here on Derpibooru. Get some pictures uploaded that you want to use as examples, and then add them along with some descriptions. If you have a very thorough commissions page along with a dedicated commission info sheet, that should be enough.
 
There isn’t that much else to it, the most important thing is to get started and start producing the best artwork that you can, because word of mouth can be quite a powerful marketing tool. I’d also recommend starting a Twitter account if you haven’t already, as it’s the next best thing after Tumblr’s 2018 purge caused basically everyone to stop using it to follow artists. Derpi is a decent platform for finding and posting art, but it’s not so good for following specific artists, and having a way for any fans of your work to easily follow what you do is quite important.
Ciaran
ラ・ゼッタ - For supporting the site
Silly Pony - Celebrated the 13th anniversary of MLP:FIM, and 40 years of MLP!
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
Lunar Guardian - Earned a place among the ranks of the most loyal New Lunar Republic soldiers (April Fools 2023).
Crystal Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
Flower Trio - Helped others get their OC into the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
A Lovely Nightmare Night - Celebrated the 12th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Princess of Love - Extra special version for those who participated in the Canterlot Wedding 10th anniversary event by contributing art.
Tree of Harmony - Drew someone's OC for the 2022 Community Collab
Elements of Harmony - Had an OC in the 2022 Community Collab

Senior Moderator
友情は魔法だ
@Clear Vision  
You can easily add artists to your watch list here. I personally prefer it to things like DeviantArt’s “Follow”, and unlike sites like Facebook we actually show you everything you followed.
Interested in advertising on Derpibooru? Click here for information!
Sky Railroad Merch Shop!

Help fund the $15 daily operational cost of Derpibooru - support us financially!

Syntax quick reference: **bold** *italic* ||hide text|| `code` __underline__ ~~strike~~ ^sup^ %sub%

Detailed syntax guide