If you are a digital artist, you may be interested in knowing how to make money or monetize your art. Though there are several different approaches, there are several things that come into factor when making money from digital art.

Commissioned Art vs. Designer Art

You must decide for yourself if you want to advertise as a commissioned artist or advertise your own sole creations (or both).

As a commissioned artist, you may be able to advertise for website design, or create posters, brochures, business cards and other business essentials. The benefits to being a commissioned artist is that you know your work will sell when it is completed. Companies could also hire you as a contractor, and enable you to do all of their design work (and know that you are financially stable).

There are also options for you if you want to create a design and then try to market it. You could design templates and layouts for websites, and sell them online to anyone who would like to purchase it for their own site. You could also work with motion graphics and other designs and market them online. If you become successful, you could have the potential to make a substantial amount of money, but know that this could take a lot of unpaid time on your part.

Advertising

Whether you are a commissioned artist or a freelance artist, you will need to advertise your work and your products. Make your own business website to show samples of your work, and advertise in local newspapers and magazines. You can also advertise online through many ad services. Let your friends know about your business, so they can refer their friends and acquaintances to you.

You may also go into local businesses and see if they need any design work. They may want a logo created, or even a website.

There are also websites available where you can post your work to sell. Research your type of work and see what is available, but be wary of giving an Internet company money to advertise. The company should pay you for the product, not the other way around.

Hourly Rates vs. Project Rates

Decide if you would like to charge your customers hourly or per project. The benefit of an hourly wage is that you know you will get paid a certain amount for every hour that you work. The downfall is that you will not be able to give your customer an exact price until your work is completed.

The benefits of being paid per project is that you may make more an hour if you complete a project faster than you expected, and that your customer is aware of how much your product or service will cost. The downfall to product wages is that if you get tied up on a project, you could make less an hour.

By doing good work for your customers, you will get more referrals, and with some hard work, you can get paid to create digital art.