How do I start my own art-based company?

I’m an artist and am looking for creative and new ways to use my ! For Christmas I had one of my paintings printed on and sold them to people I know. I’d love to get into marketing, actually creating my own company, web site fun, etc… I know Etsy is one way to sell my creations but I’m looking for more ideas.

Some questions I have include: Any good/cheap websites out there? How do I watermark images so they don’t get stolen?

I’m looking for advice/ideas/things to think about/whatever as I work on this new project!

Conversation started by Robin Oas at 6:16 pm on April 2nd, 2009.



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  1. that’s awesome, and yes, you’ll be getting questions for sure :) thanks!

    Posted by Robin Oas on April 7th, 2009 at 11:57 am.

  2. You can operate your business as a sole proprietorship if you don’t have a lot of personal assets - this attaches the liability of someone suing to your SS# (if you were making a lot of money you should form a LLC - Limited Liability Company).

    Buy a .com - GoDaddy is near the cheapest, but certainly has the best customer service. You then can install Wordpress (a blog format), but has tons of easy themes and plugins that can make it look nothing like a blog.

    Then you should open a Google Checkout sellers account. No monthly fees and super easy to have a shopping cart. You pay near industry low of 3% for credit card processing.

    While, I cannot do it for ya, I can answer your questions when you get stuck and searching Google does not prevail.

    Posted by Cody Caudill on April 3rd, 2009 at 11:14 am.