Are you thinking about selling your art as an NFT? That is awesome! 22% of Americans currently own crypto, and experts believe that number will rise to 33% by the end of 2023. People are becoming intrigued by cryptocurrency, and terms like “ETH” and “Bitcoin” are mainstream. NFT’s could be a future sales stream of your art, but we have to train your brain to adapt to how web3 works. Thankfully, the process is pretty simple. Let’s learn how to sell your art as an NFT now.
There are many places or marketplaces to sell your art as an NFT. To keep this article understandable and straightforward, I will not list every one of those methods. Before starting, you will need to accomplish two things: Picking a marketplace and a digital wallet service.
First, What is an NFT?
Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are the latest cryptocurrency phenomenon to rocket into the mainstream. In the simplest terms, NFTs transform digital works of art and other collectibles into one-of-a-kind, verifiable assets that are easy to trade on the blockchain.
Now that we kind of have a better understanding of what an NFT is, we can talk about how to start creating selling.
Step 1 – Pick a marketplace to sell your art as an NFT. I chose OpenSea.
In this case, we are going to pick OpenSea. I selected this platform for a couple of reasons that you may or may not understand.
- OpenSea works with my preferred wallet, Coinbase Wallet.
- OpenSea allows me to create and mint NFT’s on Polygon and Ethereum. Polygon is free, and Ethereum is costly but more desireable. We will go into the pros and cons of each later.
I almost used another marketplace called Rarible, but creating a collection was costly. OpenSea is the oldest and largest source for NFT sales as of this writing. Users can generate NFTs for free on OpenSea and submit them for direct purchase or auction. OpenSea offers Ethereum ERC-721 standard and Polygon (a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum) for minting. You can review many more NFT marketplaces, but let’s not get sidetracked.
Step 2 – Pick a Wallet. I chose Coinbase Wallet.
The wallet is a vital piece of buying and selling NFT artwork. With Web3, you will no longer create accounts for each application you utilize. You will need a digital wallet. The wallet will act as your login, hold your crypto, and store NFT’s. A crypto wallet is a software program or physical device that allows you to keep your crypto and send and receive crypto transactions.
Again, you NEED a digital wallet to:
- Log in to OpenSea (and other applications)
- Pay gas fees
- Buy NFT art
- Sell NFT art
- Edit NFT art
- Create NFT assets
- Store digital assets
To start using a wallet (you need this before operating OpenSea), you can download “Coinbase Wallet” on the Google or Apple app store.
Why did I select Coinbase Wallet? I purchase my crypto at Coinbase. However, many other digital wallets work with OpenSea. Different applications work with various wallets, and it is possible to own multiple wallets.
Is Coinbase Wallet the best wallet? Probably not, but it works for me, and it works perfectly with OpenSea. You can search “How to Sell NFT Art” on Google and find people using many variances of NFT marketplaces and digital wallets. In the end, you need a marketplace and a digital wallet that works with it.
Conclusion
You are ahead of the game if you already have a following as an artist. Selling art in NFT format can be VERY lucrative and add a stream of revenue to your business, thanks to royalties. It may seem challenging to get into, but it is pretty simple. It is just a little different from how web2 works, and that’s okay in my book.
Afterthought
Earlier, I mentioned selling NFT art on Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. For now, minting NFTs on Ethereum is costly, so people are turning to less expensive solutions such as Polygon. Using Polygon allows you to create and freeze NFTs for free on OpenSea. I like free.
You may not understand what the heck this means. Each NFT is stored on a blockchain. Don’t worry about all this right now! I want you to realize that there is a FREE way to start selling your art as NFT’s on OpenSea. What is the catch? Buyers tend to prefer ETH (Ethereum) over other blockchains, but that is slowly changing!
One More Thing
We have not talked about IF YOU SHOULD sell your art as NFT’s. I think selling unique art dedicated to NFT use is better than converting your existing art into NFT, but that’s me. Also, we need to talk about copyright, ownership, commissions, royalties, and more. We plan to write more extensively about all this madness later.
I was not paid in any way to write this article. This article is based on my own experience creating NFT art.
