Do You Actually Make Decent Side Money Here?

Yes, I sell. Like I said in another thread, after two years, it's not as much as I'd like, but in the past 8 months I have hunkered down and began marketing myself better and my sales have picked up. Even if my sales keep at this pace, it's been worth it. This is the only POD site I am on, so those sales happened only because I was here. You're already fighting an uphill battle with so few images, however. And your bio is still "coming soon." Either jump in all the way or not. No toe dipping will cover it!

yes!

haha, I actually forgot about the bio. Would have to redo it anyway since a lot has changed in a few years. I need to change my name too since I got married.

Pays my rent, car payment and food every month

Well, some people make money here, other dont.

I don't make much here but have had a few good sales. The two brick and mortar galleries I'm in both sell my prints along with my paintings. The prints sell at a steady clip and I'm about to do a big order for more. Here I sell about one or two a month. I've learned that my sales efforts are best placed in the brick and mortar world. I can always count on foot traffic.

I've been here a year and a half and only had 4 sales total. I market some on Twitter, FB and G+ I sell better on Zazzle but that isn't saying much.

Depends on your work, the volume of work, your passion and how much effort you put into it. Its not an ATM machine, more like a job.

It's definitely more like a job than an ATM as Edward pointed out.

I've been here for 2 years, and things seem to trend upward for me as time goes on. I definitely get out what I put in though. Spend lots of time to create art, and spend plenty of time promoting it and it does seem to pay.

29 sales in a year & a half. Promotion is very limited for me, as I have other things that I must attend to.

I guess it's making a nice dent in my watercolor supplies. A POD is a must for a painter, as you can only sell your original once. ( and we just hate letting go of our babies )

Nope, not for me, but I only really "market" via the FB / Twitter buttons here.

been here for 3 years, while this half of this year is a little slower i do make money, i won't say how much though.

---Mike Savad

It really is a double edge sword and somewhat complicated.

You don't want to jump right in and put effort into it unless you know you can sell. But at the same time you really can't sell unless you jump right in and put effort into it. To further complicate things, just because someone on here sells a lot does not mean that you will too, and vice versa because everyone has their own life experience.

The only way to really know is to jump right in and put in some effort and see, and at $30 a year if it doesn't work it won't be that bad of a loss. It's worth the risk in my opinion. And if it doesn't work out for you at least you'll learn something, even improve your skills from the effort.

--Roz Barron Abellera

There are no perfect moments or opportunities . You want to sell - then work on selling.

Your gallery of work is beautiful, and I see no reason not to invest the effort into it.

just check your crops so they are clean, add more keywords, description and advertise it. it will take time to sell.

---Mike Savad

Been on here about 3 years, I guess. I've made 3 sales here so far. :P

Just bear in mind that there is a TON of stuff here, some of it good, the rest...well, it's hard to get found, basically.

There's def a market for Jesus stuff. You might focus on that.

Thanks guys! Sounds encouraging since I have the time to do it now. Also I'm mainly using the images for my wood transfer art, so it makes sense to take advantage of them & try to sell them since otherwise they would just be sitting in my computer. I do graphic design & help in my parent's business, so I'm not really a stranger to marketing. Just wondering what works the best for folks here.

Based on any sensible business metric, its a huge loss so far. I'd make much more per hour flipping burgers. Sales are growing and am up to around 50 sales in about 2 years and have earnings in the thousands. . I haven't done much promotion outside the site. If making money is the sole goal you are probably better off skipping any pod site. If you want to fine the place where you'll be likely to make the most money this is the place.

If you have an offline presence with a gallery or elsewhere then its definitely worth it to put some effort in here to have this as a place to send buyers.

Basically the odds for earning much from selling online are slim and it takes a ton of work to build sales. The best odds to sell and make more than enough for a cup of coffee are here.

The effort is not in the uploading of files. That is probably 1% of the total effort. And $30 is certainly not the largest expense by far.

what works as in what sells? or what marketing?

all of the above.


---Mike Savad

Welcome back! I agree with the others about increase your promotion, uploads, and quality of images! And you will start making sales. Amount of sales will depend on your quality and effort. I hope you make a lot of sales!

Hi
I just joined this month and so far no sales however love art and design so for me it is someplace to show my efforts and hopefully to sell something in the future. Really like the way the site is set up and is user friendly.

I've been on here a few years. I do get a FAA payment every month.

I make DECENT side money on my art. Just not on FAA....YET!

Yes, but it takes work.

This is a great thread and would like to learn more. I do know from website experience that key words, titles, and descriptions make a lot of difference. I have started a group where members provide each
other with feedback on that. The URL is here: http://fineartamerica.com/groups/title-or-description-and-key-or-tag-words-help.html?tab=overview

Feedback to improve sales is appreciated.

Yep...I make some decent side dough~

Not yet, I joined only few month ago. Hope for some sales soon.

There are a few who are making more than minimum wage here on the forums that I know of, there's a good chance there are a lot more that make the same or more that don't visit the forums. And that's pretty good taking into consideration that this is only one venue where you will be selling your artwork, hopefully it's even just an adjunct to your primary source of work whether it be in art or otherwise. It all depends on how you manage your time, the effort you put into it, the quality of your work, and the size of the audience your work is suited for. -W

I have been a member since 2007. I had not sold anything so I asked the discussion group for help. I did almost everything they suggested, that was in January and now I have sold one card! But I am sticking with it and working on it every day!

It depends on your definition of decent, but I am very happy with FAA and the sales I am making : ) I have been here for 2 years and have spent a lot of time and effort promoting myself outside of FAA.

What is the $30 everyone keeps talking about? I have only 24 photos on here so far but am not aware of being charged. Do I have to be a paid member to sell my work?

Kristy, you can only sell 25 pieces if you don't pay the 30 dollars. Look in your Behind The Scenes (under your name at the right top) under Premium Features

Sat on the account for almost a year without uploading, began uploading in August of 2013. I spend 99% of my time marketing, 1% taking photos, not a complaint, just a reality. I've had six sales..many more than I thought I would at this point. I have spent $30 for the site, $20 for four domain names....I have no advertising budget at all so I spend a lot of time scratching around looking for free publicity. I made a deal with myself I would not start agonizing over how it's going..or not going, until two years was up. When they tell you it's a full-time job, they are not kidding.

you don't have to pay anything, but due to the limit, you won't get that far with only 25 images.

one has to realize when selling that its not just a full time job, it's your life. make art, advertise is the basics. i wake up around 7am ish, and go to bed at 10pm, while i'm not always making art during that time, it's most of the time. but because it's art and because it's online, its done. you can technically make sales while you sleep. it's not like it will be used up.


---Mike Savad

As for the first question...Yes :)

Yes... That said, FAA does all of the work from the point of sale continuing to the customer's door...

Getting the customers is my responsibility, so I have to market my work.

To be TOTALLY honest..........my sales have dwindled considerably. If Walmart is having financial concerns, Artist better wake up.

I been here since 2009 and have been making sales every year after the first 10 months I became a member, it's not consistent sales but then again I really don't advertise other than on some blogs.

I've been here for over a year, and sell better off site than I do here. I have not had one sale here the whole time. I get calls from time to time wanting to see if I have something a person wants, and if I have one printed that they are looking for, I get the sale. I can also get bigger prints in quality than I can get here so that helps also.

It seemed that my sales were gradually going up. Until January.
Since January I've gotten less and less sales. I've been here 3 years and thought by now it would be more than that. My prices are lower than the top sellers here too. Maybe I need to raise them.
I do market myself quite a bit. I have over 67,000 views on my FAA page and over 97,000 views on my G+ and nearly 2000 likes on Facebook. I guess views don't mean sales, but it does prove people are looking at my page. I'm sure most views are from my marketing, but why are they just looking and not buying? My sales are usually slow at the first of the year, but they are still slow. Kind of feel frustrated about it at the moment. I wish there was a way to know why the sales have gone stale. Is it because I'm not marketing correctly? Is it because my prices are too low? Is it because my work is no longer as visible? I've heard there has been some changes here on how art is displayed as well as other changes. I don't know all the details, but when those changes happened my sales fell almost to zero.
Even still, I am very happy with FAA and the quality of the prints. Perhaps it's just slow right now.

I just read this and see some things I can do that I am not already doing. A great post worthy of reading, btw.
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=1899675&startfollowing=true

I had nice side money, about 100-300 dollar per month, since December '13 I made 190 dollar. Sales dried up, and I dont know why. I heard they changed the search algorithm and all new work is pushed to the back. Makes sense as all my new work didnt make any difference to my sales.

There is no any good social network promotion which will justified your effort! My conclusion after 5 years in stock photography! Forget social networks... You are waisting your time!

Deleted...

your wrong about that sinisa - it all depends how you use it and utilize it. i know i've gotten sales from twitter and such. it all really depends on the followers you have and the quality. however if your selling stock - stock and art usually don't mix. stock doesn't often look good on a wall. people are usually looking for art. you have to choose stock carefully, like how many people would want a rhino beetle on their living room wall?

if you cross off the social scene - what methods do you use instead?

looking at your twitter profile, you have just under a 1000 followers. hard to say if they are particular people or random. your site looks like a gallery, there is no need to look at it closer if you have the image loaded up on the screen like that. and without the tag words you may not be found in the search. but more than that, bots take those tags and spread it across the web.

being that your only following 50 people the ratio you have is pretty good, unless you erased them after they followed you. usually i look for even numbers or i don't join them.

---Mike Savad

If by decent you mean none, then yes!

:-)

i know sales are being made here, i just sold something today, and yesterday. it's slower now because this is college month. right now countless people are picking up their kids from college or going to graduations, i think it's done in may. at the end of june it's either high school grad, or the start of vacations.

walmart maybe not doing well, though i haven't seen stats on that, has no real bearing here. they are two different things.


---Mike Savad

There is a trend of sales decreasing for almost everyone since the start of the year. Is it related to the loss of amazon partnership?

Keep it simple. My goal was to pay my membership fee. Have done that with no problem. After that it's all good!

Thanks Mike for sharing your experience!
My twitter profile looks like that because automatic FAA twits.. I marked to put directly from FAA when some new image is uploaded...

Does deal with Amazon work again?
Here is one of my photo, again with pricing...

http://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Europe-Canvas-Print-Art/dp/B00H3BF400

Yes you can make good income or supplements here, well, I was until a month or so ago and it was growing well, and then it's like there is a curtain between me and the rest of FAA. I'm confused because I sell where I don't market - yet here - nada since a month or so ago. It is as if something happened and yet many talk about it and no one says what happened - or I'm losing the plot.