Should I Be Here?

Its a great place to send people to buy your work with no customer service needed.

You've got some beautiful work so I'd say yes you should be here. If you send your buyers here that will help your work move up in the search results so more people will see it assuming there are relevant keywords with each image.

Chances are the first sale will cover the $30 membership fee.

Kendra,

By all means you should give yourself the opportunity to let the world see your artwork. The key(s) to sales - market your art offsite and drag your buyers by the hair, so to speak, to see your work. Secondly, ensure you are displaying top-notch, quality artwork, so people will want to make a purchase. If relying solely on the internal search engine, be sure you have added as many tags (keywords) to your images as you can, and be sure to use the description field to express any thoughts or selling points you might want to add.

The key to effective keywording is to use all the terms – and only the terms – that are clearly conveyed by the content and context of the image. When keywording your files, take care to include terms that describe the main content, what it's doing, where it is, what concepts it conveys in your image, and how the image is composed.

I hope this helps :)

Developing a following is the biggest part of it. If you already have a name then you're a step ahead of many who come here. But do your fans know about your listings here? You have to let them all know somehow. Send them newsletters? Do you have them following you on Facebook or other social media sites? Share your FAA images there. Do you have a website you can link FAA images to? It seems if you have a lot of fans already you should be able to sell here. You just have to get the word out to them about it.

Your art is very good. FAA has thousands of artists, many of whom sell regularly but even more who don't. It's a place where you can direct potential buyers to so they can see what you do and maybe buy something.
If you want to sell prints of your work, your uploads need to be of better quality. Some of your pencil drawings look dark and I see glare on others. Rut Time, for instance, will not print. It has circular glare in the center to the top. Maggie Mini is obviously an Instagram shot. Flight in Motion again has glare.
Keywording, descriptions, etc. are very important but like Jeffrey pointed out, you have to make sure your uploads are topnotch quality.
Good luck.

Wow, what an amazing coincidence that you should ask this question. I contribute to a couple of stock agencies and decided to come here hoping to broaden my opportunities. Over on one of the stock sites, a photography instructor posted a quote I think is perfectly suited to your question:

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate YOU. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others." -- Letter from Agnes B. DeMille to Martha Graham, 1939.

So in response to your question:

Yes, you do, as do we all. ;)

I would recommend the site as a good place to host your work, especially if you do not have a website. The ( largely free) forum is very good but after 5 years of being here I would not recommend it for anything else.

Here are some tips for you that we give people photographing their work. However, even if you scan, some will help

First off, all artwork should be photographed following these simple steps:

1. Use at least a 10-12 MP camera, with a manual focus lens not an auto focus. The higher the MP the camera, the larger the file we have to print from. If you want to offer large prints, you need to use a high MP camera.

2. Mount the camera to a tripod. If you don't have a tripod, use a stack of books, a table, anything. You just have to have the camera sitting on something, not hand held.

3. Shoot outdoors in natural light. Make sure you white balance your camera too, or the colors won't be right.

4. Preview the image to make sure there are no blurry areas, flash problems, etc.

5. Export at the highest possible file size while staying under our less than 25 MB limit.

To preview an image in photo editing software simply use the zoom icon to zoom in on the image until it's viewed at 100% print size. What you will find is that viewing it at 100% you will be able to see if there are any problem areas.

Look all around the image at 100%, the edges included. If the image has no problems, blurry areas, uncropped edges, or areas where there is flash reflecting off the image, then you're on your way to a great image.

Second, you have to determine how large you want your image printed to. Go to the image menu, and click "Resize Image". DO NOT RESIZE THE IMAGE TO BLOW IT UP LARGER IN THIS MENU. That will only result in a blurry, pixelated, problematic image.

We need 100 pixels/inch in order to have a nice image for printing. That makes the math easy as well. Your image menu can be viewed as a pixels/inch ratio, and you can see how many inches wide by tall your image is. You can shrink down the inches in this menu if the image is blurry. THis is shrinking the image to make it a little smaller. You can shrink the image down and it will help the quality of the image, just never blow it up in this menu.

If your image is 1400 pixels by 1000 pixels then the image can be printed up to 14x10. etc.etc.

That's all you need to preview your image. Doing that will help inform you how large your image can be printed to, and whether it's print ready when zooming in at 100% to see it's quality of focus and to see if there are any problem areas.

Here are some great posts on the forum about marketing your work

http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=377664 Marketing Yourself
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=358080 Promoting Your Art
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=1601966
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=2040787 A Few Reasons Y U May Not Be Selling

Abbie

Hi Kendra...Welcome! What everyone has said so far is right on. I have seen this question so many times and wondered it myself when I first came here. There is always the thought that if you post your work it will sell. This is a great site and I love it here... but it is a POD site ( print on demand) and marketing must be done by you. There is a ton of great information on this site from how to improve your work to how to market it. Read it all...and continue to work on your art. Since you said you do art for pleasure I will pass along what some shared with me...

“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art. - Andy Warhol.”

Worked for me :)

Well, I think Agnes pretty well summed it up for us. After reading that quote, I feel motivated to open my channel and I now understand the angst that I my frequently feel about my work. Thanks for that quote Phil.

to the OP: yes you belong here and you should do the technical work required to improve your uploads because your art is good as as Agnes said you have to let that stuff come out or it will be lost to the world just like if you keep making art and don't bother to put it out there for the world to enjoy.

The question is...

Why SHOULDN'T you be here?

Go for it, Kendra. :))

being here for only a few weeks - you need to be here longer. you have to advertise your work. the drawings, should be scanned in. i see banding, its dark and small. and some isn't in focus. but i can see selling potential in them. but they do need to be large and sharp. you need more keywords. i would stick to selling just the drawings, there is no need to bulk it up with photos.


---Mike Savad

Thank you all so much! The information, tips and inspiration you've all shared was much needed. I will work on getting better quality uploads of my art. I've not had good equipment or technique to work with making photos for uploads. I will resolve that problem. I do have a fan Facebook page and I'm on other social and art sites, as of which has been growing since I joined this site. I was debating on whether to do the $30 membership here. From what I can see, I have nothing to loose, only to gain. I joined my local Arts Guild and have been working on publicizing more. I've kept myself and my art hidden away from the world to long. Time to spread my wings and take flight. Thank you again!

It can take years to build up an online audience. Just consider this the start of your adventure.

Kendra, Your work is real and raw. Thatz a good thing.

if you have more than 25 images, then pay. there are no real other advantages that will make that big a difference if you chose the free site. get a scanner, almost any will do because you have drawings (you don't need depth like a painting). and focus on the drawings. once you need more space, then invest. just be sure to advertise it out, it takes time to get sales. most of my work will taken an average of at least 3 months to sell it.

---Mike Savad

If you have sold six originals HERE in your first month you are doing fantastic.

This site combined with my Facebook page has helped publisize, so that the 6 originals sold. It is the same collector buying every time I upload an image. I'm grateful for any sale. Thanks Valerie.