Impulse Blogger

Buying Prints From DeviantArt - Who’s At Loss?

Artists from all over the world join DeviantArt.com — a place where they can freely upload their artworks, photography and poems, as well as share their free resources with other designers. Recent addition on their service, as a part of overall DA’s promotion, also allows anyone to sale their artworks as prints, canvases, magnets, mugs and calendars. This means you can upload your photos and start selling instantly, is it not great? Not really.

While you are eligible to put online practically any crap and hope it would sell, the profit artist makes is 10%. Yes, imagine 10 percents from a 2$ postcard, how many would buy it (standard delivery to European countries is over 11$!) and this rough estimation of profits will not bring you closer to financing all your dreams.

For a one time fee of 29$, you can start selling with similar conditions (the only difference is the faster approval) and receive 50% off your sales. Is it better? Yes and no. On the one hand, Deviant Art is rather overpriced, so 50% from a relatively big canvas will come down to 100$, but the question remains, will someone buy YOUR art for these crazy money, while there are tons of original artworks out there not to mention the enormous competition inside DA itself.

From my personal experience, as both artist and buyer, when it comes to selling your art, the only party to benefit from it directly is DA itself. Customers pay crazy money, artists get a measly share, and between 50% and 90% lands in middle man’s pocket. That’s what I call — promoting higher values!