How to Make Money with NFTs as An Artist

NFTs have taken the world of digital arts by storm. Beeple, a digital artist, sold one of his masterpieces, “Winkelmann’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days” for a whooping sum of $69 million. Eminem, the world-famous rapper, just bought an NFT from The Bored Ape Yacht Club for 123.45 ETH. Last year, the NFT market generated over $23 billion in trading volume. 

If these crazy numbers suggest anything, in particular, is that there is a huge shift in the way digital artwork is perceived. No longer do people consider it just an “image” or “gif”; it’s viewed from a collection point of view. The conjunction with blockchain technology to tokenize the digital artwork is radically being collected by collectors and art enthusiasts around the world. It can therefore be concluded that there is a huge opportunity for artists of all kinds to take a piece of the pie while it’s hot. 

This blog post covers everything – from minting to selling NFTs – to give you a complete overview of how to make money with your NFTs. 

Step 1: Create NFTs

The first step to start with the process is to have a digital item that you can sell as an NFT. So, as an artist, you should create digital artwork that can be auctioned or sold online. This piece of work should be valuable and no similar artwork should exist, meaning it should be scarce and unplagiarized. Once you have your work ready, it’s time to mint its NFT, which simply means converting a digital item into a non-fungible token (NFT). 

Here is a detailed guide on creating (minting) an NFT on UnicoNFT

In brief, the process is simple: you create an account on an NFT marketplace as an artist, select whether you want to develop multiple NFTs or a single NFT, and then pay a small network fee to create your NFT. Usually, an NFT of an artwork can be created within a few seconds. However, it depends on the underlying blockchain network. For example, since Ethereum is a much bigger network than Polygon, the creation process on Ethereum blockchain is considerably lengthier than Polygon. Similarly, the network fee varies from network to network. More traffic, the costlier the transaction fee. 

Step 2: List NFT for Sale

The next step to sell your NFT is by putting it out in the market. If you have created it on an NFT marketplace, the chances are the same platform will also allow you to display it. For example, after minting an NFT on UnicoNFT, you can list it in the platform’s gallery. However, irrespective of the marketplace you pick, you’ll be required to pay the “gas fee” of the network. 

As soon as you pay the gas fee, the platform will ask you to set a price for the artwork. Some platforms also offer artists to choose whether they want to keep a fixed price of their work or put an auction that allows collectors to bid their price. Marketplaces like UnicoNFT offers an option to set a royalty so that each time an artwork is resold, its artist gets a percentage of the price. 

Once you have followed these steps, the platform will list your artwork in the gallery for the community to look at and buy or bid on.

Step 3: Market Your NFT

With everyone jumping onto the bandwagon, how would you ensure that you sell your NFT and make money from it, especially if you are just entering the space? For artists that are popular, selling NFTs isn’t really difficult. All they need to do is go to their social media channels and announce their NFT collection – or possibly share the link to their NFTs for easy access. However, both beginners and popular artists can use marketing strategies to promote their work so it reaches the right audience. Here are a few handy tips if you are planning to market your digital artwork:

• Post it on Twitter and Instagram: These two platforms are probably the best when it comes to showcasing your NFT artwork. Thanks to the “Retweet” functionality of Twitter, artists can use it to create a robust community of digital artists that can help market each other’s work. Instagram, on the other hand, can be used to show your work because the social media network is largely used for pictorial representations. 

• Use Right Hashtags: Remember hashtags? The one that starts with #? No, they aren’t dead yet. Make use of the right hashtags to increase your chances of being noticed by potential collectors and buyers. 

• Share Your Work on Discord and Reddit: In addition to chatting services, Discord allows users to share and store digital data on the platform. Use these professional features to share your artwork. Also, you can join several galleries that have relevant audiences and have restricted access to only the NFT community. 

Reddit, the biggest content aggregator, includes community threads like r/NFTart, r/NFT, etc., with a wide range of audiences. You can participate in these communities and share your NFT work. 

Ending Note

In the past two years, the NFT market has completely disrupted the traditional digital art industry. Experts have been weighing in their opinion that we are just starting. It might be the ideal timing to get started with the minting process and make some money out of it. However, at the same time, making money by selling NFTs isn’t as straightforward as it seems. 

Challenges like high gas fees and risks like not being able to sell your artwork are the most popular tradeoffs for minting NFTs. But, with the right guidance and some marketing, we can address these concerns. 

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. Please DYOR before minting NFTs for the sole reason of making money.