INTRODUCTION

This article was written as a response to a conversation that took place one fine night (night for some, day for others) on an online artist community. There was a discussion about how hard it can be to get your art out there, and how it won’t market itself, no matter how good you are. Since the author has survived studies for Business and Economics bachelor’s degree, forth came the incentive to write down a few tips that others might hopefully find useful in their quest through the art world. While it has definitely expanded beyond the scope of a few short hints, the author hopes that you will find this article an interesting read and, in the best case, also useful. ;)


SECTION 1

First of all, the three main aspects to marketing are location, location and location. It is more obvious with real life, but it is nonetheless important online. This can be split down into several parts.
A) Traffic
B) Website

A) Traffic is the online version of target audience. To do a successful marketing campaign, you have to determine what is your target audience - what they like, what they do, where they gather, how old they are, how much they can afford, etc. This all will significantly help with targeting your advertising.
For example, consider two possible sources of traffic to your webpage:
1) Elfwood,
2) Google.

Now, for each of them, consider:
a) who will view your link,
b) how many of them will be interested to follow through to your page,
c) how many of them will do it with the intention of purchasing anything.

1) Elfwood:
a) Anyone who is interested in looking at fantasy or sci-fi art (or furs or whatever else roams around Elfwood) can happen across your link. It is easy to put your page online, and with a bunch of comments you can spread your link and attract more traffic. Not hard. There is a lot of other artists on Elfwood, too, but if your art is good and if you get listed on some tours, there's a good chance to get decent exposure. A lot of your hits will, however, come from fellow artists, unless you manage to arrange some external linking or you get Moderator’s Choice in which case more non-members will view your work.
b) Good question. A lot of people on Elfwood don't bother to read the description at All. You can put a one-liner stating the media you used, and yet and yet you're bound to get a lot of questions along the lines of 'what did you make this with??' And the description is the only place you can put your link - okay, the alternative is your bio page, but even fewer people seem to read that. So a lot of your hits will go past that precious link you want them to visit.
c) It doesn't get better here. A lot of people on Elfwood browse with the intention to take a look at pretty pictures, which is fully understandable as Elfwood presents itself as a place to showcase your art without making any real quality demands and encourage beginners. It is a hobby site. So a lot of people who will actually follow through your link will do so with the intention of seeing more pretty pictures, not with the intention of purchasing anything. The author has no data on what the percentage is between those who follow links from Elfwood and those who purchase anything, but there is the sneaking suspicion that the results aren't brilliant.

Conclusion: big traffic, relatively easy to attract, little serious interest, even less revenue.

2) Google:
a) Your link will appear to those who search for the specific keywords that have to do with your site. Depending on your listing, it might be a smaller or larger number of visitors. They will usually be people who are interested in what you have to offer. Unfortunately there's a pretty darn big competition for fantasy art, so you'll have to be rather precise when selecting your target audience and refining your website according to that (more on that later on).
b) This depends on how carefully you have selected your keywords, how professional your domain looks, and how well the short summary Google provides caters to the expectations of the person who's viewing your link. This puts a lot of responsibility in your hands, which means work to do, but on the bright side you have a realistic opportunity to achieve valuable traffic if you know how to do it and invest the effort and time into it. The closer to the top of the search your link is, the more people will click on it.
c) This, once again, depends on how well what the person was searching for corresponds to what your site has to offer. Notice a trend? With Google it's a big do-it-yourself game, with elements of gambling. The better the keywords, the more valuable traffic you get. This is a case where you can put your marketing skills and tricks to their best use, as you are in control of the situation. If you do well, it's quite likely that a lot of people who go to your webpage will actually go and purchase something sooner or later - or at least tell their friends (a bit more on this later).

Conclusion: lots of work, lots of possibilities, it all depends on you.

The purpose of comparing these two was to illustrate: firstly, a situation where your traffic is Kind of on the same topic, but it isn't really refined, and it's based more on luck, secondly, a situation where your traffic is filtered at its very roots and your advertising can be well aimed.

B) Your website is what leaves the final impression upon the potential customer; therefore it needs to be designed with care and attention to detail. There are several important aspects to designing your website.
1) Domain
2) Design
3) Navigation

1) Domain name is like your business card - in fact, it does often go on your business card. Correct choice of domain name goes a long way. First of all, the closer your domain is to the contents of your site, the more search engines will like it. Also, the easier to memorize it is, the more likely people are to visit it - and it is also great for word of mouth (which will be touched upon later on). Overall, domains are much better when it comes to leaving impression than freebie sites - it is often complicated to get a search engine to take freebie sites seriously when it comes to such fierce competition as fantasy art. So yep, domain and your own webspace go a long way.

2) Design is equally important, as it is your way to show what you are all about. Designing a good site isn't easy, because you have to take into account loading speeds, browser compatibility, navigation, aesthetical impression, whether or not it conveys the message, etc. Basic tips - simple and elegant works best. Keep the site functional, placing decorations sparsely but effectively. People don't want to spend hours waiting for the website decorations to load - they will have enough chance to see your art if they don't run away immediately. Notice how sites like Linda Bergkvist's  ( www.furiae.com ), Michael Whelan's ( http://www.michaelwhelan.com ), Yanick Dusseault ( http://www.dusso.com ) are relatively simple, with one brighter accent. They attract attention and they don't take forever to load. There are no huge flash files, no java applets, no scrolling marquees or other annoyances. At the same time, they aren't just text pages either. If you aren't knowledgeable about web design, it is worth finding someone who is - be it a friend or a professional. The more you invest into your website, the better the output will be.

3) Navigation ties in closely with design, but it is marked as a separate point because of its importance. The general rule about sites is that everything should be reachable within three clicks. If someone has to spend more than a few minutes browsing around finding anything, they are likely to get irritated and not come back. This is especially important if you sell prints or other items that don't involve pre-ordering - there is a group known as impulse buyers, and for them it is essential that they can see the good fast, and they can add it to cart and purchase right away without going through hassle. Ellen Million Graphics ( www.ellenmilliongraphics.com ) - both the EMG general site and Portrait Adoption section – are perfect examples of putting the goods in visible place and making everything easily accessible.


SECTION 2

Now, enough about the location, let's move on to the idea of your site. There are two important aspects to it.
A) Picking a theme
B) Refining your idea

A) Picking a unifying theme for your site is extremely important. It is necessary for
1) finding your target audience,
2) creating a solid impression,
3) unifying your design.

1) Without having a unified idea of what your site is really about, you're in for a ride when it comes to defining your target audience, which is extremely important if you want to make good sales. This principle is used everywhere, even in malls! Think for a moment from the consumer's point of view. You have a need, and you are to go somewhere to fulfill it. What will come to your mind first? A place that caters specifically to fulfilling this need, or a place that has something from this, something from that, and also includes things you want? Before you answer that, consider that needs can be multifaceted. You will, for example, not only want a jacket, but you will want either an expensive jacket or a cheap jacket, and you'll want to spend your time picking it, or you'll just want to grab the first one you see. If you are to look for an expensive, quality jacket, you will most definitely head towards a store that specializes in expensive, elegant clothing. If you want something to grab and go, you will quite likely go to the same mall, or whichever other store would suit. So from the consumer's point of view, the theme of the site is extremely important for creating the association in the moment the need shows up, and the better you manage to encourage this association, the more likely it is that the consumer will head your way.
Also, from your own point of view, having a unified idea will let you focus on attracting that one audience you need, and no other. If you have one idea, you can direct all your marketing efforts and expenses towards achieving it. If you have five ideas, you will have to split the same resources in five parts - with significantly less impressive results.

2) Having one central idea to your site also creates a good impression. A slightly extreme, but very remarkable example of a site that does not have much of central idea, is a link farm. (Yes, it has the purpose of farming links, but let's ignore that for a moment.) A link farm is a site that lists hundreds and thousands of whatever links, for the purpose of boosting search engine ratings - although lately the engines have caught up and the link farms are no longer effective. Now, would you ever go to such link farm? Would you? Didn't think so. Nobody is really interested in a list of random links and themes, and such sites usually create very poor impression. They are useless to you as a consumer, and they are regarded as inferior product. As extreme as this example is, this is something you definitely don't want to happen to your site. So pick a theme, and stick with it. How broad or narrow you want it to be, that is an entirely different question, and will be addressed a little later.

3) Having a unifying idea for a site also goes a long way to picking the right design. You do Not want every page to look strikingly different, and to pick the one design to rule - err, to suit them all, it is best that all of the pages have a common topic to go by. Nothing would be as strange as wandering around a site that is all directed to art - with a brush in the background - with one section suddenly being dedicated to games, with either the same brush or a completely different design. It is confusing, and it makes you look like you don't have an entirely serious attitude towards the purpose of your site. And having one design and one idea, is simply less headache inducing.

B) Refining your idea is no less important than picking it. You don't want it to be too broad, nor do you want it to be too narrow. If it's too broad, you will have trouble attracting the right audience - broad ideas are better left for big companies that can invest a lot of resources into them. Overly narrow ideas will shrink your target audience and therefore also your potential revenue. Now, there may be a case where you are focusing on a niche market - i.e. an unexplored market that is special in some way and doesn't have a lot of competition. But they are hard to find, and there might be few customers in a niche, which would be exactly why it's a niche. Yet, if you have something truly original to go with that has a lot of potential, make sure to go with it. ;)
Also, specifically for an art site, being overly narrow or overly broad will directly affect the amount of work you can or should display. If you have ten sections for your art, you had better be Very productive to be able to update them regularly, because eventually your creations will become outdated, and you don't want an outdated portfolio, do you? Likewise, if you have only one single section for all your art, it will be hard for the customer to find what they want, because either the works will be too different, or there will simply be too many of them. So, the middle way is essential to locate and follow.


SECTION 3

Now that the shape of your site is clear, and so is the soul, comes the core of the whole thing - advertising. This is probably going to be the part you are most interested in, but keep in mind that the previous two are very important for the third one to succeed. If the site has no soul (i.e. idea) or it isn't well placed, a lot of marketing efforts are going to be wasted. There are several important elements to advertising your art online.
A) Getting to know the search engines
B) Picking the right affiliates
C) Banners
D) Implied advertising
E) Word of mouth
F) Offline advertising
G) A few words on spam

A) Making your site search engine friendly is very important, because that is where a lot of valuable traffic will be coming from. There are several aspects to this process, some of which are better known, while some others are very obscure.
1) Keywords
2) Directories
3) Whitelisting/Blacklisting

1) Keywords are the most obvious part when it comes down to search engines. You want your site to display as many keywords as possible that pertain to the topic it is on, while keeping it all coherent for the human reader. Asides from the obvious choice of inserting keywords in text, there are a few other methods. Firstly, search engines like pagelinks that have keywords in them, and are surrounded by corresponding descriptive text. It makes sense that a link that has keyword in it, and is described by text that has more related keywords in it, is likely to be a good link. At the same time, don't force-feed the keywords into your text, because there is a certain limit - which is not entirely clear - at which Google gets suspicious about the frequency of keywords on your page and may punish you by lowering your rating. So a good idea is to keep it all down to the topic, have a solid idea of what the site is on about, and use the same terms that other mortals are likely to use when talking about it. ;)
(Warning: technobabble up ahead!)
But lo and behold, there is more to keywords! A particularly sneaky way to insert them is to place them in image names, as well as ALT tags. ALT tags are little beasts that inhabit the image tags, and basically they are what produces that text that you sometimes get to see when holding the cursor over an image. It is a nice place to include extra keywords, and search engines will pick them up!
Moreover, you can be sneaky and hide your keywords. Oftentimes, there's some blank space at the bottom of a page, that doesn't do anything. Usually nobody really notices it nor cares about it. But people have devised a way to use this space to their advantage - write all your keywords at the bottom of the page, and change the text color to something very close to the background. Or, better yet, put your keywords in a table, and put a layer with an image right over it. Nobody will ever know! Some search engines have caught up to the similar text trick, so it may not always work, but right now there has been nothing heard about them being able to identify a layer that is overlaying some text.

2) Directories are very important to you if you want your site to get a good listing. Keywords are good - but they are not enough, as there are many sites out there with similar keywords. The holy grail of all directories is www.dmoz.org - if it is on DMOZ, it is on Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, etc. DMOZ is a directory that is built by actual live humans, so every submission is reviewed and either accepted or rejected. They are picky about what they accept - cafepress.com free stores have no chance with these guys. Other directories you can seek out on your own, and make sure to first look for general ones and submit your URL to, say, Yahoo, and also don't neglect themed directories which, although smaller, are good for listing your site on. What directories do is, first of all they give visitors an opportunity to find you while browsing them, and it will be well-targeted traffic. Secondly, your site will be noticed by search engines, which will bring in more targeted traffic. So if you want to be listed quickly and for good, go for directories.

3) Google has a very tricky system behind its sleeve - it has site reliability index, White list and Black list. Basically how it works is that Google looks at sites that lead to your site, and checks their reliability. Link farms are all blacklisted, because Google doesn't like such 'artificial' linking schemes, as they don't really give the visitors useful information, only more links. So you don't want your link to be put on link farms, because that will decrease your rating in Google's eyes. As for the white list, they are sites that Google trusts to know what they're linking to. Among these sites are www.cnn.com , www.dmoz.org and other large and respectable sites. If your site is linked to from them, then Google will give you good rating and love you forever and ever. *cough* Therefore, while each incoming link adds to your rating in general, the amount by which it adds can vary greatly, and blacklisted sites such as link farms can in fact subtract from your rating. So invest in good incoming links, as they will help you greatly.
On a related note, be careful about link exchange. Google generally considers link exchange less valuable than one-directional linking. So that is why adding your site to 50 web rings is not a guaranteed path to Top10 on Google. ;)


B) Picking the right affiliates is extremely important. They can:
1) be a valuable source of traffic,
2) help with your search engine listing.

1) The main point of having affiliates is to attract more visitors by spreading the word. You can do this in two ways - either by crosslinking (where you link to them and they link to you in return) or by one-direction linking, which can be either paid advertising or an 'honorable mention' or anything else. From the visitor's point of view, if they see your site linked to from a resource that they consider serious, then they will likely also consider your site serious and will be interested in checking it out. For this reason, it is a good idea to find affiliates that share a similar theme to what your site is about, but don't directly compete with you. For example, if your site is all about selling faery prints and doing faery commissions, the kinds of sites that you might want as affiliates are ones that sell gnome prints/commissions, for example, or flying kitty prints/commissions. It might be harder to get someone who does general fantasy - including faeries - to link to you, as you two would be competitors, but for as long it's a slightly different kind of fantasy, there's a good chance that you'll be able to put that link up. The closer the affiliate is to your own theme - without crossing that line of being competitors - the better it is, because that will bring more relevant traffic.

2) As for search engines, we already covered the site reliability index that is a quirk of Google, but there's more to it. Google will count incoming links to your site, and that will help determining your site's position in search results. The closer the affiliate's theme is to your site's theme, the more valuable this link will be considered. Also, it is very desirable that all affiliates link to the same page on your site. www.yoursite.com and www.yoursite.com/index.html will be two entirely different links according to Google! So, if possible, it would be perfect if you could have all your affiliates link to the same page. Also, the more appropriate keywords are in the description of your link on your affiliate's page, the better. Of course, there isn't a whole lot of space, and you won't always be able to influence the text they will put near your link, but the more keywordy it is, the better.

C) Banners are one of the most popular ways of advertising online. You see them almost everywhere, on all imaginable and unimaginable topics. They are rather ambiguous when it comes to advertising. On one hand, many people click on them. On the other hand, many people despise them, to the extent of using firewalls and other programs to prevent them from displaying in the first place. Therefore, it is important to consider where you place your banners. Similarly to affiliation through links, the more trusted (and relevant) the site that the banner is on, the more quality traffic there will be. A bad example of banner ads is putting 'Free Smileys' banner on Epilogue.net. People who visit Epilogue are Not looking for smileys, so many will ignore it entirely, although a portion of visitors will click on it either out of curiosity or because they decide that they are, in fact, interested in free smileys. A good example of advertising is putting a webcomic ad on PennyArcade.com (Penny Arcade is a wildly popular online webcomic about games and related things) - there have been several occasions when the incoming traffic has crashed the servers of those who advertise their site there. Of course, the same rule as with affiliates applies - it might not be an entirely wise idea to try advertise on a competitor's site, but make sure the themes are as close as possible.
Also, make sure you design your banners in a user-friendly manner. Big, flashing arrows or banners that seem to move around a whole lot are very annoying, and are likely to be ignored, ironic as it is. However, a banner with a snippet of your art that moves at a reasonable rate can be eye-catching and inviting. An interesting approach to this would be having the owner of the site where your banner is located design your ad. It works best if you advertise on a comic site, because when the readers see an ad that contains their beloved characters from the very comic that they tend to visit, it is rather tempting to click on the ad and find out what it is about. Good examples of this are ads found on PvPonline.com and on Commissioned ( www.theministryofabnormality.com/webcomic/ ).

D) Implied advertising is an entire world of its own. While reading this article, how many of the mentioned links did you visit? How many times have you clicked on a link in someone's signature in a forum? Those, and more, are forms of implied advertising. It is used extremely widely, because it appeals to the visitors more than, for example, banners or pop-ups. The reason for this is that when an ad is implied in a larger flow of information, the significance of the advertised object is usually very clear, and the audience takes it in for further consideration, as opposed to a separated chunk of info that has 'ad' written all over it. There is so much advertising around us that we have grown suspicious of it and have learned to ignore those ads that are easily recognizable as such. However, we don't do this with implied ads, which are therefore used everywhere, from movies to books to radio to websites to clothing to wherever else. Anyplace that people will be paying attention to is likely to include implied ads. Now, that is not necessarily evil - if a resource is considered by the writer to be significant enough to include in their product, then there must be something behind it - and if you're in luck, then that something isn't a big sum of money. Needless to say, links located in implied ads also count towards your search engine rating, and they are a great way to surround your link with appropriate keywords - although it is harder in such situation to make sure all links lead to the same page, the importance of which was explained earlier.
For this reason, it is also useful to participate in various communities that have a related theme to your product. Granted, this is a rather time-consuming process, but it is very valuable, because it gets you a chance to sometimes insert that precious link to your page, you can make good use of the signature space in forums, and people are more likely to click on the ads of those whom they know and like. Not to mention the fact that certain communities, such as Elftown (http://elftown.lysator.liu.se) or RPG sites can be a great source of commissions, especially if you get to showcase your art a little bit, which is the case of Elftown. Besides, this is one form of advertising that you can actually enjoy doing, unless you are extremely antisocial and no interests whatsoever. ;)

E) Word of mouth is a hard to control, but very effective form of advertising. The principles are very similar to those of implied advertising, except that in this case the information about your site gets spread further on its own, without additional effort on your behalf. For this reason, it is useful to have at least one chatterbox in your circle of friends or acquaintances. ;) The pros of word of mouth are that it is usually effective for getting people interested in your product, as information tends to spread between people who either trust each other or at least have some interest in what the other has to say - i.e. your ads are perceived with open ears (or eyes, as the case may be online). It is also cheap, because all you really need to do is take the time and tell your friends about it. The cons are that it is as controllable as a forest fire - you don't know when it will happen, what context it will be in, or if the information will even be accurate. Also there is a chance that it will reach few people, which may already be close enough in your circle of friends or relatives that they will be more inclined to ask for free service than actually purchase anything. For this reason, one should be extremely careful about tubers and 'exposure' jobs - it truly bites to get a reputation of someone who does things for free. The rumor has it that there are lists of artist names circulating around tuber community, one type of which are 'no-no' lists that list articles whose works should definitely Not be tubed for whatever reason, and another type is a list of artists who have Supposedly given their permission or are fine with their works getting tubed or otherwise exploited. Even if you try to make it an 'only for this occasion' kind of thing, once you get on such the 'yes-yes' list, it is Very hard to get off of it.

F) Offline advertising works for online resources, as well. It can take form of implied advertising, word of mouth, or even passing around banners and business cards. If you are advertising an online site offline, there are several important things to consider - for one, your URL has to be short and memorable, particularly if you are going to rely on word of mouth. Short URLs also look better on business card. Then, you'll want to focus on people who have good access to the Internet - it is unlikely that people will try to commission you online from Internet cafes. But all in all, offline advertising can be extremely effective. For example, the author of this article had a small article published about her art in a local magazine with a general topic, due to the placement in 'New Masters of Fantasy' CD. As a result, the views on the website that the article posted a link to went up by about five times for the day, from the average of 200 to slightly over 1000. The trend lasted for a few days before going back to normal. Another example was when the artist Kay Allen got interviewed in a TV show where her art was mentioned. According to her account, she got so many orders the following days that it was hard to keep up with them. The benefit of offline advertising is that you will often reach people in your proximity that never knew that you are an artist, making the information even more of a novelty and encouraging the spreading of word of mouth. So whenever you can get your name out there, go for it. Hand out neat, artistic business cards now and then, throw in a word about your struggles with time management due to painting in everyday conversations, and see if maybe, just maybe some local media might be interested in your latest achievement in art world.

G) Asides from all forms of advertising, there is also the dreaded spam. What spam really is, is unsolicited advertising. It focuses on quantity, and often ignores quality. So it can be expensive, timesaving method to reach random people with minimal security that your advertising will work. Lately, there have been lists of e-mail addresses being sold for spam purposes. They tend to be grouped by subject - people who would be interested in this or that. Notice how often, when you sign up for something, websites will ask for your interests? They're lying when they tell you that the information will be kept confidential. Also, tracking software, from cookies to entire spyware programs, can be very effective on gathering data suitable for shaping such lists. Now, lately there is more and more spam-prevention techniques used in e-mail programs, spyware removers and firewalls, but it is a rather big business behind it all, so it might be a while before spam dies out entirely.


SECTION 4

With most of the theory covered, the following section will focus on separate resources that deserve a special mention, in no order whatsoever.

A) E-bay - www.ebay.com

The author isn't excessively familiar with E-bay, but according to observations, it can be great for selling originals and sculpture, while awful with prints. The main trick about E-bay is getting noticed. Often many auctions end unsuccessfully because of lack of hits. It is possible to purchase listing in several categories for additional fee, and it is said that two categories are usually a good amount for your product to be listed in. But without excessive advertising outside E-bay - especially if one is new to it - it may be very hard to make decent profit from it. There is also an element of unpredictability, as you don't know the final selling price, and in some cases you may end up with a net loss, considering the cost of materials, advertising and listing. Prints are hard to sell there, but collectors' items go reasonably well.
The problem with E-bay is that people usually go there to look for cheap things, so the amount that they are expect to spend is considerably lower than what you might get for selling your product in a store. Also, it isn't an entirely art orientated site in its essence, but it is reasonable to assume that some do go there looking for original art that they would not find elsewhere, as is often the case with auction houses.

B) Elftown - elftown.lysator.liu.se

Although Elftown was briefly mentioned in the text already, due to its peculiar nature and increasing popularity the author feels it needed to be elaborated on. Elftown originally was meant to be a community for Elfwood's artists and writers. Since then, the community part has remained, the artist and writer part is somewhat there, and the Elfwood part has almost died entirely.
Both the strength and the weakness of Elftown are its diversity. On one hand, it is extremely open-ended, and members have a lot of freedom concerning the contents they post, for as long as they remain legal. Elftown uses a Wiki page system, which is something like simplified HTML. It lets you design your own Wikipages (further referred to as wikis) very quickly, easily and ready for posting. There are no ads, no bandwidth limitations. BUT you must use the preset layout (green background and fonts, as seen on this page, for example: http://elftown.lysator.liu.se/_angel%20bunny%20walkthrough ). You cannot use any scripts either. So overall don't count on Elftown becoming your host for an online gallery. ;) But, as it was already mentioned, the wikis are open for you to do what you want, you can create as many as you want, and there is a large amount of wikis on all topics imaginable already created by the members. There is also an array of opportunities to showcase your art. You get a little member page where you can upload a photo and a drawing (often enough, two drawings), and you can insert your images in your description, too, if you do it inconspicuously enough. There are many art contests, and a peculiar forum system (among which is an 'Art For Sale' forum). If you are nice and ask Elftown's 'mayor' Hedda, you will be granted uploading right, which will allow you to upload images to various wikis as you see fit (and not only images). So it can be useful for backing up or even hosting some images.
On the downside, however, the people who roam around Elftown are also extremely diverse, which can lead to some annoyances or unpleasant situations. For example, there is a lot of requests for free art around, and there are sometimes occasions of art theft. Luckily, the Elftown 'guards' do their best to weed out the art thieves. The forum system also takes a while to get used to.
Overall, Elftown is a community with a lot of potential, and the author has received several commissions from it, and quite likely also reasonable traffic. So while it can be annoying at times, and it is time-consuming, all in all it is quite fun and potentially rewarding.

C) Café Press - www.cafepress.com

CafePress is a site that lets you sell your images on their products. It is rather well-visited and well-known. Everything is easy to set up, the interface is very intuitive, and they have a nice little community on their message boards. You can get a free account with limited layout (like http://www.cafeshops.com/fantasy_designs ), or you can pay them a set monthly fee and get a premium store where you can tweak the design to your liking. They do all the producing, shipping etc., and the money issue is settled so that there is a base price, and you add some amount on top of that to form the final selling price. When the good is sold, you get the surplus you added. Then at some point (based on the accumulated amount) you get mailed a check.
The downside to it all is that the base prices on CafePress are seriously high - so either you don't get to keep much, or you have trouble selling your items. And it also takes a considerable amount of marketing to get your shop off the ground. It is particularly hard with the free shops, as DMOZ refuses to list them. Premium shops fare better, and Google will pick your shop up eventually if you advertise thoroughly enough. CafePress itself does not generate much traffic to your site - it does feature some shops on the front page now and then, but that appears to be based on the amount of sales they make - so there's no chance that your store will get there when you're only starting out.

D) Zazzle - www.zazzle.com

Zazzle is more consumer-friendly than CafePress, because the prices are lower, and there is a lot of customizing opportunities for the buyer - you can choose whether to frame your prints or not, what color shirt you want etc. For the storeowner, it is about as simple as CafePress - you upload your image, and then put it on their products, and they do all the selling and shipping. Also, the storefront on Zazzle is more customizable than that of the free stores on CafePress. There are random designs featured on the main page, as well as the most popular ones in some other sections, so everybody gets a chance to shine. There are quite a lot of people shopping on Zazzle, and visitors can leave comments on offered products.
But there are also downsides. The most apparent one is that you don't set the price. Zazzle has a standard price for all prints, shirts, cards, etc. From that, you receive measly 10% from the sales price or 17% if you referred the buyer to the site. Those 10% usually mean 1-2$ per sale. Another, less obvious, but possibly even more painful downside is that you can't take your products off the site after they've been on for 24 hours. The only way to go about the problem is creating an additional folder (they let you create as many folders for your products as you want), naming it 'recycle bin' or something like that, and hoping that people won't look at it. You also have to do your own advertising, although not as much as on CafePress. The author has tested this by not putting a link to her Zazzle store absolutely anywhere. There were still sales, that occurred randomly now and then, at no regular intervals. But with the 10% commission, the earnings with such approach are rather sad.

E) Ellen Million Graphics – www.ellenmilliongraphics.com

EMG is a relatively well-known site that provides a variety of services. There are:
1) the store,
2) the Portrait Adoption,
3) the printing service.
1) The store part of the site is in its function similar to CafePress and Zazzle. The artists submit their designs and they are offered on a variety of items, such as bookmarks, mousepads, prints, etc. The main distinguishing quality of EMG is that it focuses mostly on fantasy, although there are also sections for sci-fi, humor and miscellaneous themed artwork. EMG generally has a more personal attitude towards both the artist and the customer, making the shopping experience more pleasant and making things clearer for the artists. There is also screening for quality, size requirements. All artists are required to sign a contract. The moderating of the site is done by Ellen herself, and the works that are rejected get a detailed message explaining the reasons behind rejection. The site does, however, require having exclusive publishing rights for the kind of goods that you agree to put your designs on, over the duration of the contract.
A downside is that the artists cannot set their own prices – they are pre-determined by Ellen according to the product type. Depending on product type, the artist receives from $0.25 to $5 per sale. So while some products don’t create much revenue, there is still a decent chance to profit.
Ellen also takes care of all the shipping, producing and accounting, and the site provides a reasonable opportunity for your works to be seen. All recent additions are showcased on the front page, and it is possible to browse by theme, use a search function or even browse by artist name. So, while additional marketing on your own is useful, this site does not require you to do half as much as CafePress or Zazzle do.

2) The Portrait Adoption part of EMG works differently than the store, and it is an extremely original approach to portraits. The premise behind PA is that artists put their ready-made portraits of anything they wish up for sale, and customers are able to browse the portraits and see if there is anything that suits their character. In case they can’t find anything suitable, there is the ‘submitted description’ service, that lets a customer submit a description of the portrait they would like, which is then put up for artists to take. Any number of artists can claim a single description, and the works are then put up on the Claim site along with prices, and the customer can choose what they want to purchase. The portraits that aren’t purchased are usually put up for general adoption.
While this site is a fantastic opportunity to avoid the hassle of commissions and re-working images to the customer’s whims, it is demanding in some other ways. Firstly, upon signing the contract, the artist agrees to not sell the same portrait as what is sold over PA anywhere else – neither a copy nor original. (It must be noted that PA doesn’t sell originals, only copies; according to current terms of agreement, originals can be sold 5 years after the adoption has occurred.) Also, the artist may not display any images of the adoptable portrait online that are longer than 500 pixels on the largest edge and do not bear copyright information – use of the provided PA watermarks is strongly encouraged. This way, it is ensured that the customer does indeed receive a unique print of the image, as it is promised on the site, along with an adoption certificate signed by the artist that verifies this fact.
There are also rules concerning meeting deadlines of submitted descriptions. From the point a description is submitted, there are 2 months to claim it and get it done. If for some reason the artist has problems meeting the deadline, they may require an additional 7-day extension, known as grace period. Then, there are ‘strikes’ assigned if one fails to meet the deadline, either one or two, depending on the type of failure. Upon receiving three strikes, one may not claim any submitted descriptions for 3 months.
On PA, there is a good chance for your work to be seen. The new additions are displayed on the front page, there is a search function, and options to browse by price, subject and artist’s name. There are plans to add commission forms for all artist pages, as well. Marketing on your own is also encouraged, and it is possible to settle commissions that come from outside PA through the claim site, and Ellen will still take care of the printing and sending.
The artists get to set their own prices, and PA keeps a relatively small commission fee depending on the price of the portrait, which can range from $2.50 if the portrait’s price is $4-9 to $15 if the portraits price is $100-$115, for example. (Yes, it is possible to price your portraits as high as you want).

3) The EMG Printing service is exactly that – a printing service. The artist submits their works to EMG, specifies what products they should appear to, Ellen checks them for the right size and resolution, and then mails them either to the artist, or straight to the customer. It is also possible to get on-demand printing done, where the file is stored with EMG, and prints are made and shipped as and when required.
Naturally, for this service one has to do all the marketing and advertising oneself, and it is not meant for selling originals, but it helps with getting the prints made and shipped, especially if you reside overseas and want to sell your works in USA, as EMG is located in Alaska.

F) Online galleries

Elfwood is being omitted at this point, because it was discussed rather thoroughly at the very beginning of the article. Also, there are quite likely a whole lot of other galleries that the author is unaware of, but this list should cover the major ones.

1) DeviantArt - www.deviantart.com
2) GFXartist - www.gfxartist.com
3) Epilogue - www.epilogue.net
4) DigitalArt - www.digitalart.org
5) Renderosity - www.renderosity.com
6) ArtWanted.com – www.artwanted.com

1) DeviantArt

DeviantArt, as most of you have probably found out, is a gallery of randomness. There's a lot of art of extremely varied quality on it, because the submissions are largely unmoderated (with the exception of administrators removing stolen art etc.). There is an opportunity to sell prints if you purchase a print account, and you only have to upload an image that meets the print quality guidelines, and they take care of all the printing and shipping. There is an opportunity to join and found clubs, put people on your watch list, and in the forums there is a very large and active community.
The big downside of DeviantArt is that due to the excessive size, you will have a hard time getting non-member traffic without extra advertising on your own. There is a system of 'daily deviation', which displays a picture picked by the team on the right side of a whole lot of pages (every day gets several pictures, and they display a random one), and also of 'featured deviation', which features a number of pictures and prints on the front page, according to the highest numbers of 'favorites' achieved. The big problem with these is that daily deviation often goes unnoticed due to the randomness factor, and it is not often that one receives it, and the featured deviations are only possible if you are already well-known enough to get the necessary amount of favorites. Other than that, the chances that a non-DA member will see your works are slim. Another problem is with the prints - a lot of members are younger people, or 'starving artists'. So, not many will actually have the money to purchase your prints regularly enough. Add to that the cost to have a print account and the fact that you only get the surplus amount the same way as on CafePress, and it isn't all that profitable in the end.
Also, there is virtually no possibility of searching for art on DA, unless you use Google and instruct it to browse that specific site (which robs you of viewing thumbnails as you search). At some point, DA had a very neat search function that would show thumbnails of the results. But then, it was taken away to only be used by those who have purchased a premium account, and the rest were left with the far less efficient 'browse' function. Needless to say, that does not encourage outsiders to take a look around the site.
As for the forums, there is a section where people with job offers can post, and a section where artists looking for job can post. The job offers are often ridiculous, with such pearls as 7 pictures for 20$ (no, not 20$ each!), logo for 50$ (make it a contest at that!) and so on and so forth. The section where artists post is looking rather sad as well, and anyone asking for respectable prices will most likely receive no reply. Such is the sad reality of DeviantArt.

2) GFXartist is a rather large and continuously growing art community, with focus on artist interaction. Although it is in its essence an online gallery, there is a large stress on exchange of comments, criticism and ideas among artists. An interesting point is that it mostly takes place in the comment area under each picture, and the forums were rather empty until recent when they have started to liven up.
The bright side of GFXartist is that it is extremely rewarding if you want to improve your skills and get honest, sometimes brutal, but nevertheless constructive criticism from fellow artists. There are many professionals there, who will often not shy away from sharing advice with others. The forums have a WIP section that is very useful, as well as job offers section. There have also tags '[PAID]' and '[UNPAID]' in topics for jobs.
On the down side, a Lot of posts on the job section are offers of future exposure. Also, all of the commenters on galleries are member artists, because the site doesn't let you comment or vote for pictures if you haven't registered. You do get your time to shine as thumbnails of all new additions are displayed on the main page, and there is a link just underneath them that leads to bigger thumbnails of all new additions - you can even view them sorted by section (which include painting, photography, 3d modeling and a few others).
However it remains a mystery of how well GFXartist does at generating sales of your art. At least, for all the time the author has been a member of it, no commissions have come from the site, and the incoming traffic to artist personal sites from there is under a question mark.

3) Epilogue, who hasn't heard of Epilogue? It is famous for its strict quality control, the tight community and the proud statement of being the 'best in fantasy and sci-fi'.
Compared to the aforementioned sites, Epilogue is more focused towards attracting outside traffic. Non-members can freely comment on art, there is a fairly refined search function, new additions are browsable by day when they were added starting with the most recent ones, there are featured submissions every day, which are picked randomly by the editors, and there is a featured artist of the month. One can also use the site to offer prints, which ads a nice little tag to the picture, marking the availability of prints. However, Epilogue does not produce or ship the prints, and it is entirely up to the artist to take care of that on time.
On the down side, the big problem of Epilogue is its slowness. The servers often crawl, and lately there has been a lot of downtime. This unreliability might want to make you think twice before providing the link to your Epilogue gallery in your ads - at least, until it is for certain that the problems have been fixed, which hopefully might happen in near future. The search engine is also affected by the immense slowness, and there seems to be a glitch that when you click on a result, after viewing it and pressing backspace you are greeted by a 'page expired' error message and have to start over. Opening the links in a new window fixes that, but it is something that the engine should really do on its own. There is also a lack of staff for things like developing new features and doing the same old moderating job, as many members of the staff are very busy artists themselves, so there are often delays. However, they are doing a commendable job with the resources available, and here goes hoping that in the future Epilogue will be able to withstand the task it has taken.
On a happier note, there are plans of creating a feature section that would be focused on art publishers and other people that would be seeking for artists for professional jobs, where artists would be able for some fee post a resume. Let's hope that this project does meet the daylight, despite the delays.

4) DigitalArt is a strange gallery. On one hand, there is a lot of high quality art there, and there is some quality and content control, as all entries get moderated before they are posted on the site. (Sometimes to a ridiculous extent - the author has had an image rejected because there were breasts visible in it, even if somewhat covered by jewelry.) There are also pictures marked as 'standout' for each batch that is posted, and there is one that is featured on the front page for being of extra high quality. That is all very nice, but otherwise the site is very slow and some parts are close to dead. The news section gets updated extremely slowly, with months in between. The new submissions are for some reason added in batches, with few days in between. The average waiting time for an image to be posted is around 4-7 days. It is hard to comment on how well the site attracts commissions and purchases, as it seems to be low on traffic, because of the slowness. So while it can be worth a shot for extra exposure, generally it is not to be expected an important source of income.

5) Renderosity is a rather large community, with a multitude of members and its own marketplace. There is a featured artist of the month, featured merchant of the month, and contests that are usually centered on holidays. Most members are quite active on posting comments, and a picture can be voted into various lists that increase exposure. The site is mostly focused on 3d art, but 2d has a decent chance as well.
However, Renderosity has one serious problem - non-members cannot view art. The author has no idea what the creators of the site were thinking, but if you aren't a member and attempt to follow a link to someone's artwork, you are met with a little forum that invites you to log in. Perhaps it was meant to attract more members, but it serves as a large annoyance and most people are likely to leave the site when encountering such a nagtag instead of actually signing up. The marketplace is centered on various props and brushes. They include models, textures, backgrounds, hair brushes, etc. There seems to be no art being sold there, which would include prints or sculptures. This renders the site largely useless for external exposure. It is unlikely that even Google will be able to pick up links from image descriptions due to the requirement to log in.
The forums, while existent, have poor organization, and are uncomfortable to use. The site generally suffers from poor navigation that mostly consists of drop-down menus on the right side of the page. A lot of navigation is counter-intuitive, and generally takes some getting used to.

6) ArtWanted.com has definitely grown over the last few years. Now it has slightly over 9000 members and presumably the number keeps growing. The staff is rather active and there have been a lot of innovations to keep the site expanding – you can sell prints (although you have to do all the shipping and printing yourself, similarly as on Epilogue), there are frequent contests the winner of which is displayed on the main page, there is a Top 10 page that displays the highest rated images from various time frames. There is the option to upgrade your account to receive all sorts of perks, from custom layout to unlimited number of portfolio images, etc.
As for marketing, ArtWanted.com has done some very nice things, like the opportunities to be on the main page, the contests, the book, etc. But there are a few things about the site that cut down on the advantages. One of them is that for unknown reason the background is a texture of light blue cubes. There is something about that solid gray or black color that most sites have chosen for their backgrounds that usually leaves a much more solid impression. Perhaps it’s the fact that any colors look good and stand out on neutral background. The light blue sometimes works, but sometimes it does not. Also, there is a certain lack of a common theme for the site – it is between being a site for customers and for artists, it has no common genre, there are no quality guidelines, and the ‘jobs’ section on the message board has posts from 2003 right on the first page.
So overall, while ArtWanted.com can be good for exposure just like any other online gallery, it is unlikely that it will become one’s main source of traffic and/or revenue.


CONCLUSION

That concludes this insight into the world of marketing. A lot of this came from author's own experience while operating a CafePress shop, Zazzle shop, looking for commissions, and being a member of all the mentioned art sites. The author doesn't claim to be perfectly knowledgeable on the entire issue, and there are probably tips and tricks that have gone unmentioned, and some information is likely to change with time. Hopefully this article will provide useful in your travels through the art market. :)