[Hidden-tech] monetizing Wordpress

[Bruce Hooke]

I'll offer a few notes as an artist (and also a website developer):

1. Before putting much work into this I'd recommend trying to do some
informal market research. My own experience and what I've heard from talking
to others is that it's not easy to sell art from a website. Most sales come
from someone who has seen the work in person and then is following up to
make the actual purchase. On the other hand, if she has a reliable viewer
base and if people have shown interest in buying drawings then it all makes
more sense.

2. I have pretty mixed feelings about Etsy. There are lots of people selling
stuff on Etsy as basically a hobby (I don't really like the word "hobby" as
it suggests a lack of skill whereas all I want to mean is not trying to make
a living). The result is that prices are likely to be well below what's
realistic for someone actually trying to make a living (I've heard this most
from photographers but that's maybe just because that's who I'm around
most). But this case sounds more like the hobby situation so Etsy could make
sense, especially given the WordPress plug-in. As a side note, I have seen
Etsy work well for people doing semi-production work where the prices can
inherently be lower. 

3. For a more full-function WordPress integration WooCommerce offers lots of
functionality but it's a lot more work to set up. Once set up it works like
most standard website eCommerce systems where you add something to a cart
and then check out. In this case you'd probably integrate with PayPal. But,
I suspect other solutions will probably make more sense since WooCommerce
takes significant time to setup and manage. 

- Bruce


-----Original Message-----
From: hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net
[mailto:hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net] On Behalf Of Rich Roth
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2015 12:42 PM
To: Dan Richardson (t); hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] monetizing Wordpress




I saw a lot of suggestions, not too many from artists - anyone with actual
experience ?

Working from some experience myself with local artists, if she is selling
already made print (eg, originals), go with etsy,

you can get a plugin to easily integrate etsy shop with her wordpress
website,

make sure to put LOTS of keywords on each etsy posting, their search is
terrible.
Since it sounds like buyers are coming from her WP blog, that is not so
critical.

A few hints:
keep your eyes on your etsy shop, you normally pay for 3 month listings, and
their notification of renewals is pretty unreliable.

IF, on the other hand, she doesn't want to do production, explore
http://www.zazzle.com/ She uploads her art as images (high res was well as
web normal) and they do all the production of prints, t-shirts, and a long
list of whatevers (obviously they take more of cut)

You might also pointer her at a few local Artist support groups,
     http://www.fosteringartandculture.org/ -- we have a summit coming up in
May (2015)
     http://www.artisansofwmass.com/

Rich


On 1/5/2015 12:43 PM, Dan Richardson (t) wrote:
> My wife is an artist. She has a long standing daily practice of doing 
> a drawing and posting it online at https://eyespider.wordpress.com/. 
> She's looking for a simple way to make it possible for people to buy 
> the originals or to contribute to help defray her expenses. She's not 
> interested in doing prints, and wants to make the originals cheap, $20 
> and up. She's looking for the easiest system, both for her and her 
> viewers. Doesn't have to be on Wordpress, but she's happy enough there 
> otherwise. Click a button by a picture, takes you to an address form 
> and maybe a PayPal link, and also marks that picture as sold. 
> Something like that.
>
> Any suggestions?
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