NFTs are all the buzz at the moment. Every artist seems to be talking about them. You’ve probably heard about young artists making millions from selling their digital works, or how In just the first three months of 2021, more than $2 billion worth of NFTs were sold
But what does it mean for you an artist? Well, creating an NFT of your work enables you to prove digital ownership, create scarcity of your work, and earn money from your work.
If you’re looking to get into creating and selling NFTs, you’ve come to the right place. From finding the perfect platform to create and showcase your work, to helping you avoid the most common pitfalls, we’ve got you covered. We’ll even share some tips on how to generate marketing buzz around your work!
Lets dive in at the start - creating (known as Minting) your first NFT.
What it means to mint an NFT and why it benefits creators
When you transform your digital work — image, music, video or otherwise — you store it as data on a blockchain, a distributed public ledger. This process is called “minting” (we recently covered minting in detail in a previous blog post)
While this may not automatically protect your work under copyright, it’s an excellent way to mark the digital assets you’re creating, and control their supply. By turning your digital art into a scarce object — no longer easily duplicated — it protects the value of your work and ensures you get paid a fair price and recognised as the rightful author.
The top three pitfalls of minting NFTs, and how to avoid them
Here are the three most common pitfalls you may encounter when you’re starting out in the NFT market:
1. Hidden gas fees, or fake ‘free’ minting.
Minting an NFT takes energy, in the form of computing power. “Gas fees” are the payments users of an NFT-platform make to compensate for the cost of the computing power used to process and validate this transaction on the blockchain.
Sometimes, platforms claim to offer free minting (no payment of gas fees required) but neglect to highlight this offer is only valid under certain circumstances — like if your artwork is paid for in cryptocurrency instead of USD, or if you only accept offers that match or exceed your asking price.
For example, let’s compare the fee structures of five established NFT-platforms:
- OpenSea. Dubbed “the ebay of NFT marketplaces”, they’re a marketplace that curates and sells art from other platforms while allowing users to mint NFTs directly on OpenSea. They don’t charge an upfront gas fee (due to their use of a process known as “lazy minting”) but grab a 2.5% marketplace fee for each sale. Further to that fee, you have to pay gas fees upon accepting an offer to purchase your NFT. These gas fees can be anywhere between $50-$800 or more depending on how busy the network is.
- SuperRare. Artists on this exclusive platform are charged a 3% fee and 15% marketplace fee for every sale.
- Mintable. Another playform that uses 'lazy minting', Mintable, doesn’t charge an upfront fee. Instead, users pay transaction fees based on what they’re selling: 2.5% on normal items; 5% for gasless items and 10% on printable series.
For all the above platforms, the gas fee is volatile, and changes depending on how busy the network is. This means you may find yourself “selling” an NFT that actually costs you money, as the gas fees you pay turn out to be more than the sale price. Momint is the only platform that removes this volatility.
- Momint. A truly-free NFT marketplace, at Momint you pay nothing to mint your work — no catch, guaranteed. To cover the cost of running the platform we charge a 15% commission on sales. Importantly you can sell an NFT for as much (or as little) as you like, and every sale will always result in profits.
Its worth taking some time to truly understand the cost implications of every type of transaction on an NFT platform before committing to mint and sell your work there, or may risk losing money.
2. NFT fraud and Sleep minting
For now, you technically don’t need to own the copyright to mint something. This can leave unsuspecting artists unprotected, as the NFT-community learned when some unscrupulous characters took “proof of concept” a step too far when minting and selling work they didn’t create — all while posing as the artist Derek Laufman, on Rarible. There have also been structural flaws in SMART CONTRACTS which have left unprotected NFTs open to reproduction — minting extra editions without the artist being aware of it.
We've detailed some of the primary NFT platforms' approach to security, copyright and authenticity:
- Opensea. To qualify for account verification, you must have at least 10,000 followers on Twitter or Instagram. Artists with smaller followings are therefore left wide-open to the risk of impersonation — as the OpenSea team won’t consider reviewing (and hopefully, verifying) smaller accounts. Unfortunately, an artist’s social media popularity isn’t a reliable judge of their skill, and Twitter and Instagrams’ identity verification methods aren’t known for being thorough!
- Rarible. To be verified as an artist on Rarible, your account is manually reviewed by a staff member. However, as the Laufman saga proved, this is open to error — all someone has to do is have a completed profile, with at least one minted item!
- SuperRare. Artists hoping to sell their work on SuperRare have to pass a fairly strict application process, which includes proving their identity. In addition to the fairly standard requirement of linking to social media sites or online portfolios, artists also have to provide a short video explaining the story behind your art. Competition for space on this platform is fierce, however, and it can put digital creators who are just starting out (or who don’t have teams of their own marketing assistants) at a significant disadvantage.
- Momint. Creators who’ve proved their identity have their accounts verified with a tick on Momint. Each application is personally reviewed and takes into account the size of the applicant’s existing following, the novelty of their content and their target audience. Everyone is welcome to apply — no matter where they are in their career or the size of their social media following. Momint judges the quality of the work, and verifies that the work does in fact belong to you - that’s it! This verification system creates a point of legal accountability. Additionally, our terms and conditions ensure every user agrees they have the rights to the content they mint — adding another layer of legal protection.
While minting may still be in a legal grey area and there may be some technical kinks, your platform’s stance on fraud needn’t be. They’re going to become a key part of your digital success, so it pays to do due diligence and find someone you know will have your back with a truly ethical approach to profile verification and authorship.
3. Minter’s regret
Activity on the blockchain is indelible — the permanence of each transaction is kind of the point. But that means that there’s no room for error, as once you’ve minted a piece, you’ve minted it for life.
Momint limits the frequency you can mint NFTs. This ensures there’s active thought behind every single post on the platform. We also allow artists to edit the title and description of each NFT after the fact, which lessens the risk of “minter’s regret” even further.
The best way to avoid making mistakes is to develop a strategy that powers your entry and growth into the NFT market. Know exactly what work you’ll be minting, how many editions you’ll offer, and the price-point you’ll offer them at.
Winning tips to boost your success
Let’s switch the focus to how you can boost your chances of success as an NFT artist. We’ve distilled it down to four important tips:
1. Learn from other NFT artists
Start following established artists you enjoy, and dive into the NFT community on the social media platform of your choice. This is a quick way to glean tips and tricks that can boost your artistic skill and crypto-savvy.
2. Tell the story behind your work
It’s proven that you’re much more likely to remember something, if you know the story behind it. Through storytelling, you’re also able to develop a deeper connection between yourself and your audience.
Think of the nature of NFTs themselves: someone will take pride in their ability to own it forever. Embrace this significance and sentimentality and tell the story of how you came to be a digital creator, and the inspiration behind your work.
3. Engage with, and grow, your community
When someone collects your work, it’s always good to acknowledge them and say thank you. Engage with collectors and creators on Twitter, Discord and other social media platforms to gain exposure within the community.
In these ways, you can establish personal connections with those who appreciate your work and network with others in the community.
Get started today — join the conversation on our Discord channel. It’s a great place to ask questions about NFTs or the Momint platform, leave comments and connect with fellow digital creators.
4. Give your audience context
The NFT industry is only just beginning and, as an early adopter, it’s important to give audiences who aren’t familiar with NFTs some context — let them know why you’re creating them. Introducing your friends, family and fellow artists to the NFT space can help sell your work and grow your community faster than you would otherwise expect.
Here’s an example of a little introduction that we send to some of our creators on Momint to help them frame their work to their existing followers:
“Hi! I’ve just created my first NFT on Momint.
NFT technology gives you the ability to prove who created a piece of work online and records the history of ownership.
Content is regularly stolen from creators online, and reposted by other groups without credit or compensation. Using Momint, content is easy to post, collect, and share.
Momint allows users to collect work for free or tip what they can afford and uses a Proof of Stake blockchain which means transactions are 2.4 million times more efficient than ones that use bitcoin.”
It really can be that simple!
That’s all for now — we hope you found this article helpful! We’re going to keep on creating short content about NFTs, blockchain technology and digital art. If you have any questions or if you would like to watch/read something related to these topics, then email us at help@momint.so.
