I've been trying and failing to obtain a Real Job TM all summer, and realized now might be a good time to start trying to take art commissions. I have a basic idea of how it works and am working on fixing my portfolio up a bit, but does anyone who has experience with online commissions have advice for getting started?
My biggest advice is be legit. Get a business license for your state, charge state taxes for any purchases made within your state, and put aside money for your federal taxes and local taxes. A bit of work now will save you a big headache later. Next learn paypal well. Paypal has a two part fee that includes a base fee plus a percentage of the money transfered, so make sure you set your prices at something you'll be happy with after those fees get taken out. Also make sure all your jobs are done though proper transactions for business/transfer of services. Be the person to send out your statements so everything is how you want it. If your commissions will be digital make sure you press that you are sending digital goods, or else they will punish you for not sending goods. Finally be weary with paypal and make sure you transfer your money out of a paypal account ASAP. It is not a bank account and if paypal ever freezes your account with money in it you are screwed. Finally you need to decide how exactly you will be taking your commissions. Most people I know who do commissions say they get more when there are flat prices rather than hourly rates, so while making your portfolio time how long various levels of project (busts, full body, sketch, lineart, full color etc.) so you know how much you have to pay per level to more or less get the hourly rate you want. After you figure out prices you have to figure out if you want to post your commissions on a media site (Tumblr, Flight Rising, Deviant Art) or a commerce site (Etsy, Storeenvy). Media sites are cool because you get to screen commissions before you take the money and you can have people do part of a payment at the time of commissioning and part of delivery. Also with media sites you only have tax and paypal fees to worry about, not an additional fee. On the flip side the cool thing with commerce sites is you have a bit less to worry about being directly involved with payments, and you get paid as the first part of the transaction so there is no uncertainty of getting your money. That being said if you end up dropping out of a job you'll lose money, because you need to pay the person back what you got plus the fees the commerce site took out of it.
