(This is a guest article from Richard Wilde, the founder of the online art and artists community www.artybuzz.com, a website that provides the opportunity for anyone to sell and buy artwork of all kinds as giclee art prints, canvas art prints and more…as well as  providing number of other useful features to artists and art lovers)

Selling art online is not to be ignored in the age of the internet. It provides huge opportunities to sell to a worldwide audience, and to sell to people who you would not normally find.

One of the biggest problems that people face when selling art online though, is the loss of a connection between the artist and the buyer. People like to know the story behind the work, how it was made and what inspired its creation. So if you can get this across on your website, or the website you are selling on then you are much more likely to make a sale, and also make future sales.

Selling the story of yourself is all part of the marketing and branding of yourself. Marketing and branding don’t have to be dirty words anymore, and aren’t related to big business anymore. With the onset of the internet, there are fantastic artists who do extremely well both online and offline because they market themselves well and sell their story, making their art personal to the person who buys it, and making the connection that will make the buyer tell all their friends about you, which can lead to more sales.

On my website, Artybuzz, I allow people to write a description about themselves and each piece of work they upload. I sell a lot of work and the people who do best tend to be the ones who write a really good description and sell the story of their work. There is evidence that on my website, and others, that this definitely has an effect. So give it a go yourself, and feel free to do so on my website for free.