In the past few years, you’ve likely heard someone mention NFTs. At first, the concept seemed vague, where you’re selling pieces of work for thousands online.
After navigating through NFT sites, you learned that the process is more technical than expected. Now, you’re likely wondering how to sell NFT art.
With a growth projection of $80 billion by 2025, traditional artists like you are attempting to find their path in the NFT marketplace.
Despite the healthy projection, NFT sales have depleted by over 90% since late 2021.
For this reason, artists of all genres and categories are speculating on the validity of this online digital gallery.
Fortunately, selling NFTs doesn’t have to be a challenging process. It involves creating a digital wallet, finding an online marketplace, minting your NFT, and selling it to potential buyers.
Why You Should Consider Selling NFT Art
NFT art opens multiple windows of opportunity for striving artists and content creators. The virtually new art-selling strategy offers monetary and recognition potential for both collectors and artists.
- Enhances Creativity: Since no third-party seller controls your commission, you can express more creative freedom in your artwork.
- Price-Setting: NFTs give artists more autonomy over setting a price. Traditional art pieces usually have a fixed price from the gallery, which takes a cut.
- Offers Authenticity: There’s less room for counterfeit art when selling your NFTs. Your art is verifiable by the blockchain as users purchase it.
- Earn Royalties: You can mint your NFT to receive royalties for future resales. For instance, if you sell it for $5,000, you’ll receive your cut, and if collectors sell it for $30,000 in the future, you can still benefit from the royalties.
Problems with Selling NFT Art
The problem with NFT comes from its fraud risks, unreliability, and volatility. An example of an issue may come from royalties.
If you mint an NFT on Cryptokitties, you’ll get a percentage of the sale, but if someone sells it on a different platform, that’s where your royalties aren’t applicable.
- Market Volatility: NFTs are a relatively new marketplace. Prices are likely volatile, and due to the small number of buyers and sellers, trading isn’t as commonplace.
- Fraud Potential: The blockchain offers some protection, but the internet still has loopholes. Several NFT artists found their work in online marketplaces without their knowledge.
- Unreliable Income Source: You can’t put all your eggs in NFT baskets. They won’t generate return potential due to their volatility and price depreciation risks.
- Not Environmentally Friendly: The blockchain technology used to store NFTs emits carbon dioxide.
What You’ll Need to Sell NFT Art
Before you sell your NFT art, consider the resources you need.
- Creator Platform: You’ll use this to create your NFT art. It can be through Adobe Photoshop for digital art drawings or gaming software.
- Digital Wallet: The wallet will manage your transactions when selling your NFTs. You also need it when connecting it to an online marketplace.
- Cryptocurrency: Purchase cryptocurrency to keep in your digital wallet. You’ll use it for several payments, from gas and listing fees to commission and transaction percentages.
- Online Marketplace Platform: Choose a place to market your NFT. Fortunately, you can find several options available that offer ease of use.
Where to Sell NFT Art
The NFT marketplace stretches far and wide. Each option offers a unique selling approach to gather buyers and sellers.
1. OpenSea
OpenSea boasts an exceptional marketplace with various art pieces, such as virtual spaces, collectibles, and trading cards. It also has ERC721 and ERC1155 assets and other digital assets like Axies and Cryptokitties.
The online marketplace is an ideal choice for beginners starting their NFT-selling business. It’s easy to navigate, and you can set up an account for free. It streamlines the minting process and offer management.
- Fees/Commission: 2.5% on secondary sales
- Payment Methods: ETH, USDC, BNB, DAI, AVAX, and SOL
2. Rarible
Rarible is a community-governed platform that hosts multi-channel uses, like buying, selling, and creating NFTs. The platform also launched its native ERC-20 token, RARI.
Rarible veers toward artistic ventures, such as music albums, books, movies, and digital art. You can sell your art by paying gas fees. The online marketplace prioritizes security by creating a verification process to prevent scamming incidents.
- Fees/Commission: 1% to buy and sell
- Payment Methods: ETH, FLOW, MATIC, and XTZ
3. AtomicMarket
AtomicMarket is an online platform based on the EOS blockchain. It’s a dApp or decentralized application with open-source software on a peer-to-peer blockchain.
You can primarily use it for Atomic Assets to create, sell, and buy NFTs. It verifies well-known Atomic Assets and blocks fraudulent profiles.
- Fees/Commission: 2% on sales
- Payment Methods: EOS and WAX
How to Sell NFT Art: Step-By-Step Instructions
Selling NFT art isn’t as complex as it may sound. The process involves setting up a digital wallet, filling it with cryptocurrency, minting your NFT, and waiting for offers.
Step 1: Create Your Artwork
NFTs aren’t limited to digital drawings like the famed Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). You can draw inspiration from video snippets, music, or games.
For example, you can create video game skins or purchase a real estate spot in the metaverse as NFTs.
Step 2: Find a Digital Wallet
You need to create a digital wallet to enter the blockchain system. It’ll navigate your cryptocurrency purchases and manage your NFT trades.
Ethereum is a popular choice for NFT exchange, so you’ll want to find a digital wallet that supports the cryptocurrency.
You can use options like Exodus or Metamask to activate your digital wallet and kickstart your transactions.
Step 3: Fill Your Digital Wallet
After creating your digital wallet, inject it with cryptocurrency funds to pay the gas fees. Since blockchains consist of physical hardware, their use requires these fees. The amount depends on the blockchain’s demand.
You can avoid gas fees by selling your NFT before minting it. By including the gas fees in the purchase price, you don’t have to pay to mint.
Step 4: Find Your Marketplace and Connect Your Digital Wallet
Now you need to list your NFT in a marketplace. When choosing one, ensure that you’ve read their terms and conditions. Choose one with adequate resources, an easy user interface, and support.
Be aware of any platform fees, and make sure it supports the cryptocurrency you’re using. After picking the marketplace, connect your digital wallet. The process is usually similar within each platform.
The latter should provide clear guidance, where you’ll likely notice a “Connect Wallet” option. It’ll ask you for your digital wallet provider. Once you’re connected, you can now mint your NFT.
Step 5: Mint Your NFT
Prepare your NFT by ensuring it’s in its best shape, in the correct format, and ready to be witnessed by potential buyers.
Most platforms have a similar process. You click “Create,” fill out a form and upload your NFT. Try to be creative and unique in your description.
Some NFTs’ unique selling points come from the stories behind them rather than the artwork itself. Use details that’ll encapsulate unsuspecting buyers.
Selective platforms provide you with an option to set the royalties amount. It’s the percentage you’ll receive if a buyer resells your work on the same platform. The maximum cut stands around 10%.
After filling out the form, the website will prompt you for listing fees. These costs don’t end there. You’ll also have to pay for commission and transaction fees, which fluctuate depending on your NFT’s value.
Step 6: Price Your NFT
You can choose between two options when pricing your NFT. There’s the fixed price choice, where you sell your work for a stable amount.
Choosing a fixed price relies on your knowledge of your NFT’s value. Although you could end up setting a price, but then realize you could’ve sold it for more.
The other option is auctioning. You can choose the highest bidder from the minimum bid or reserve price.
The option is more profitable than setting a fixed price. The type of payment procedure splits between timed and unlimited auctioning.
The prior restricts the auctioning to a set time, while the other doesn’t limit the bidding availability.
Step 7: Go Live and Monitor Your NFTs
After filling out the form, adding a description, pricing your artwork, and paying the listing fees, you can go live. In most cases, platforms provide notifications to alert you of incoming requests, but it’s also best to check often anyway.
If you have a fixed price set, buyers will purchase the NFT, and you’ll automatically receive the amount in cryptocurrency.
With auctions, you’ll get notifications of bids. You can get offers lower than your reserve price, which can come from competition or bots, so be wary of those.
Step 8: Manage Offers
You can either make a public sale, accept a bid, or make a private transfer. The prior is when buyers purchase your NFT for a fixed price.
When accepting a bid, make sure your buyer isn’t a bot or rival by checking their profile. With private transfers, you want to guarantee the person is trustworthy. You can complete the transaction with a friend or someone from the community.
Things to Consider When Selling NFT Art
Before jumping on the NFT bandwagon, you’ll want to consider a few factors about selling NFT art. After all, the process involves more than selling photos online.
It’s Not a Quick Money Solution
Selling stuff online could be a quick-money passive income solution. With NFTs, the case is different.
As an artist with little recognition, your NFT may not garner as much attention as former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet.
In a digital world with thousands of NFT works, yours has to stand out to earn a solid return. Otherwise, stick to your 9 to 5 or other side hustles.
NFTs Are Taxable
Selling NFTs online is taxable. The IRS taxes it as property like other cryptocurrency transactions.
The tax liability involves NFT trade, purchasing, and selling. Next time you’re writing your taxpayer identification number when filling out your tax returns, consider your digital art pieces.
Tax Write-Offs are an Option
When it comes to common tax write-offs, NFTs can be a contender. If you have a one-year or older token and sell it for a loss, it applies to the long-term capital loss rules. Tax write-offs can cushion a failed NFT project.
Fees Involved
Even though you’re the seller, you’re liable for several fees. You need to pay initial gas fees to get a blockchain spot. There are listing, transaction, and commission payments that tend to add up.
You Can Sell Your Work Digitally and Physically
After seeing how much it would cost to sell your NFT, you’ll likely want to find alternative selling options. Fortunately, you can sell your artwork in a gallery or through private transactions and endorse it digitally on online marketplaces.
Some collectors prefer to have their art on a wall. Others might lack enough space for a portrait and would rather keep it in their online stock.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Much Does it Cost to Sell an NFT?
The cost depends on your NFT’s value and the online marketplace platform you’re selling it on.
For example, some sites charge 2% to 2.5% per transaction. If you’re selling a piece worth 1 ETH or about $1,918, the marketplace will take off $38 to $47.
Is it Easy to Sell an NFT?
Unless you have a social media presence and a large following, selling NFTs is a challenging business. You need to reach your niche of buyers and stand out among rivals while maintaining a reasonable price.
Similar Tutorials to Check Out
- Trade in Cryptocurrency: Investing in digital currency offers a reliable asset build tracked by blockchains.
- Starting an Online Business: The model is more cost-effective, reaps better returns, and generates better exposure than the NFT business.
- Sell Pictures Online: Selling images doesn’t require as much start-up costs as NFTs since you only need a camera and an internet connection.
Wrapping Up
Cultivating your NFT platform will take time, especially if you’re a rising artist.
The good news is that the process is streamlined by blockchain tech, where you need to create a crypto wallet, find an online marketplace, set up and mint your NFT, and sell your artwork.
What’s the point of all this? Well, selling NFT art can provide you with a portion of passive income and boost your art exposure. You can diversify your art portfolio through the digital medium as well.
Let us know what you think about selling NFT art, and don’t forget to share the article if you liked it.
