Your work is very good. I have been on DPW 3x and step off for awhile when I go months with now sales. I have noticed that when I first joined in 2018, that I got a lot more views and gallery views than I do now. I wonder if a lot of those viewers don’t follow DPW anymore. Hope you get sales this go around.
Maureen,
I like your work too. Nice soft light on the portraits! I will try for a bit. Yes, now not many views compared to back in 2014! A whole lot back then.
In addition to the traffic statistics that each artist has access to for their own gallery and art, you can also view a chart of sales for all of DPW by month.
Just go to our What’s Sold page and click on the Sales by Type button near the top. You can see all sales by type - through DPW PayPal Link, DPW Auction, and offsite.
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I can’t help but notice that almost nobody that responded here has their website linked to their name. If I want to see the artist work I have to go back and type in the name. So that is the first and easy thing you can do 
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The very first thing I would do - stop relying in dpw to bring you customers. It does almost nothing. Yes, it’s nice and very convenient platform with paypal but for 99% of sales you have to bring people yourself. Otherwise it could be months with no sales. Maybe about 10 years ago dpw was one of the kind but now it’s not. People buy art on instagram, fb etc where you can find basically everything. I also think it’s useful to find someone who has sales and analyze how they make it. And the last but not least - working on your skills. So many people are painting now so to outstand the crowd you really have to work hard and consistently and sure learn a lot. Good luck!
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How to link your name on here to your gallery page:
Click on your name on your post.
Click on 2 more.
Click on Preferences then Profile on the left side.
Somewhere in there is website: enter the url of your DPW Gallery page.
I just figured this out myself. Didn’t even know you could do this…
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Thank you Cynthia. I had forgotten how I got my link on there.
Julia, I agree completely about not relying in DPW only for your sales. It is a great website and very easy and convenient to use, but if you’re serious about selling it can’t be your only egg in the basket. I am no expect on sales, still working on that, but I’ve learned a lot from a couple of “art of the business” workshops, and there are also a couple of great websites and bloggers. Some that I follow;
https://artbizsuccess.com/blog/ https://reddotblog.com/
https://www.artbusiness.com/artists.html
There are also local art organizations that might have great workshops. In this area we have the Arts Council of the Finger Lakes that has a series of workshops, and since everything is online these days it is easy to take part. They list them on their facebook page.
And working on skills is always good advise!
Happy painting!
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Since I signed up for DPW earlier this year I have sold 2 paintings directly to customers on the DPW email list and the rest have been through my own promotion on IG and FB. 99% of my sales are from people I actually know though. DPW is a great place to showcase your art at a minimal cost. Even though I post my art on social media, when people want to purchase they seem to want to go to a website to complete the transaction. I’ve owned websites and it’s extremely difficult to drive traffic without spending a lot of money on marketing, often with no reward. I’d rather not deal with that part anymore. The art market is saturated. If DPW has 5000 subscribers and that list is not growing then it would explain the lack of sales. How many pieces does a customer buy over a period of time? Most people aren’t collectors. They buy a piece when they are remodeling their kitchen for example and that’s pretty much it for their art purchases for a while. That’s been my experience.
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I have wondered if the number of subscribers is less now than several years ago. When I was on DPW in 2018, I had a lot more gallery views and my picks than I do now. I closed it down for awhile when sales came to a standstill and then re-opened it June 2020. I agree the art market is saturated, and my facebook ‘friends’ just post comments, but are not the art buying crowd.
I said it before, but you have to diversify; you can’t just upload paintings and sit back. I believe I have been on DPW 3 years now and got maybe 2 or 3 sales from random strangers. For the rest it has been from people who saw my work elsewhere; facebook, art festivals (non-existing this year), or shows. Newsletters are important, but I admit I am bad at sending those out regularly. People are buying even now, surprisingly. I have found that this year people are looking for something nice, and giving themselves some art to look at. I have several people that are return customers.
I know that I really appreciate your comments on my work, Eric. Thank you! Shari
I sold 2 last January, 1 in May, 1 In August, and then boom! I sold 8 in December! Go figure. I post a lot on Facebook in several groups as well as my own artist page. I did a couple of online courses in the fall so maybe I got better 
Thank you for the great tips. I love DPW - the layout, the ease of posting & sharing, and being customer friendly.
The support artists provide to each other is very reassuring.
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Hi everyone, this is an interesting discussion. I am new to dpw (joined mid-March 2021) after having my website (by that I mean my own domain-named website) with another “for artists” site for about six years where I got zero legitimate inquiries about buying my art ( but quite a lot of humorous, if exasperating, scammer “requests.” )
Truth be told though, I don’t blame the site — I did not know enough then to know that I had to do a heck of a lot more marketing work myself! It is something I am striving to get better at, since I really do want to sell my work. From many of the comments here, it seems many artists are operating under the idea that sales will just “happen.” Geez do I wish that were true!
The truth is (and believe me it is just as frustrating for me as I think it is for many artists, as we would much rather spend our time painting!), we MUST do our own marketing and promotion in order to get significant sales.
There were some excellent suggestions on how to do that by other writers in the thread above (thank you!). Two resources I am finding particularly helpful is Cory Huff’s book How to Sell Your Art Online, and the ArtsyShark website. Both are run by people who know the business of selling art and are dedicated to helping artists succeed! (Much like the founders of dpw!)
Oh and I’d like to give my 2 cents about leaving comments. I lost my “day job” to the pandemic and am unable to afford buying ANY “extras,” even modestly priced art at this time. I leave comments occasionally when a painting strikes me particularly strongly, and I do so in the spirit of letting the artist know what I really appreciate about her or his work, even though I am not able to buy it. I think everyone likes getting a compliment, (I know I do!), and for some artists it may be the encouragement that gives them a smile, if only for a moment, to have their talent, skill and hard work acknowledged.
Good luck everyone! Please keep sharing what works for you, we can learn so much from eachother!
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Thanks for the marketing book suggestions. Like you say we all would rather spend more time painting, and none of us really have time to do both. It is easy to get spread so thin, especially as things are opening up now too. One of the galleries I show my work in promoted my work to the community which was appreciated. I guess we just have to keep hanging in there, and doing more self promotion.
Oh, I was also thinking maybe we aren’t selling as much because we are artists selling to artists. I don’t really know what the break down is of people who get on this site. A friend recommended the site to me. I had never heard of it. There is so much I like about it, especially the Art Talk. Wish I had more time to avail myself of it.
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I’ve had a few! I’m new to art selling though.
Sharing links on your social media with your images of your gallery helps! I’ve sold to several people that aren’t artist that way 
I listen to Art Marketing Podcasts while I work. Art Storefronts is a good one. Patrick Shannigan on there tells it like it is. It gets me motivated and I learn marketing…“artists suck at marketing” he says. True- we were never taught marketing or sales in school and we do not want to be bothered with it. Best way to find these podcasts, go to YouTube Art Storefronts Podcasts. I have listened to a zillion of them. He says in every podcast, “the way to market in this world is to make a video of yourself in your studio holding up paintings, show the back of it… now do 1000 of these videos. Post on FB & IG”. Getting the customer’s email is key so that you can announce a sale. Keep your buyers by romancing them, i.e. treat them like royalty, send them “thanks for supporting me to reach my goal of being a self-supporting artist.” Send them Xmas cards. He says that Q4 is upon us- i.e. 4th quarter, which previously began on Black Friday- no more! Now marketers create a buying frenzy early in October. Q4 is when most yearly sales are made and when you REALLY need to do marketing, building up to the Christmas Holiday. Most of you do not need to sign up with Art Storefronts- very pricey. But if you do, they build you a website that makes it simple for a buyer to purchase prints or originals. The prints are made by the best printers in the industry and they handle the whole process, and send you a check for your sales. However, no one ever goes to any website unless YOU get them there. The videos of you in your studio, posted on FB, linked to IG etc. are how you get them to your site. If you do sign up with Art Storefronts they teach you how to post your videos on IG & FB. He says forget the other social medias, no art sales are made there. The pandemic has made it such that more art has been sold than ever. People staying home decide to fix up the house, including art on walls. Galleries exploit the artist such that when the artist looses the gallery they loose the business they have spent a lifetime building up, having no idea who bought their art. Direct contact with your customer is best for so many reasons. He encourages any other way of obtaining revenue in addition, such as a gallery that has worked out for you, or a site such as DPW.
People are accustomed to buying stuff online where it is so easy…if buying your art is not easy, they will be frustrated and go buy something else- a new refrigerator. Patrick tells it like it is and says how much work it is, for the first 4 years, but that you will make a decent or great income. If you are young you really need to consider all this… if 70 like me, heck, just enjoy painting.
He says test out your art in mini art/craft shows- this tells you : “does my art suck?” or not. The artist thinks the work is good, friends tell them it is, but does it stand out among the thousands of artists that you compete with?
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This is fantastic. Thanks so much for sharing.