How To Sell Paintings?

Some may know that the great Vincent Van Gogh didn't sell many of his paintings during his life. I feel like I would be the same, partly because like my writing, blogging, and other pursuits; I don't tend to do it for the money or any financial gain, but mostly because I consider myself to be shit.

Considering my artistic ability would be some "below standard", I also publish my works because of what I'd call personal prestige, honour, recognition, legacy, and personal achievement to name a few reasons.

Right now under the stairs of my new house that I've only very recently moved into, I have all but 4 of my paintings in that place. "Particles #2" still stands in my mum's house, "Self-Portrait #1" is above the stairs in my place, "Particles #4" is in my living room, and "Ode To Piet" belongs to my best friend, Louise. Over the last couple of weeks after publishing "Jack Soley's Art Book", I want to try and offload my works to you, the great people of the internet and the world. My journey of selling art hasn't been great, here's why:

Car Boot Sale:

I tried to sell my works at a car boot sale last week, to no avail; I had interest and lookers but no takers, the most interesting painting was "This Art Is Worthless" and it was most likely due to those looking to take off the banknotes as they could see it was more than what it was worth rather than appreciate the work for its artistic merit.

eBay:

I then took the works to eBay, with low prices on the smaller prints and more appropriate prices on the larger prints including postage fees, still needed a bite.

Instagram:

I then decided to post my paintings on Instagram to garner social media interest, there was a gentleman who I'll call out by his Instagram name @bankroll_drooo who I thought was legitimate because of his decent number of both posts and followers. I won't give you the rigmarole of what happened but I have screenshots of our conversation for context, this came about after he left a comment saying he liked my painting and was interested in looking to buy. To avoid potential legal complications, I have blurred his "address" as much as I don't want to.

Facebook Marketplace:

Selling online, especially on Facebook takes us back to the trouble with value, yes it's free and people will fall down the rabbit hole of browsing and may find something that looks good; but the odds of someone buying a painting like mine are absurdly low, in my opinion. The beauty is I can renew the adverts once every so often and it might generate new interest.

Possible Charity Shop Donation and Solutions:

Call this a potential but last resort solution, even though I don't want to do art for money, there is a thought present at the back of my mind wanting to donate, especially the large paintings to charity shops and smaller shops to see if they can try and make some cash for the charity, and so I can free up some space.

Yes, I could keep the paintings at my mum's house in the attic, but if they weather away and/or lay forgotten, I would have wasted all that time whereas if my paintings were donated and someone had a slim chance of buying the works of mine, then I would feel reassured and chuffed knowing that the works were being viewed and admired rather than laying to rot and wither away in a loft below a tin roof.

All of my paintings come with a certificate of authenticity and I printed individual certificates that were homemade and stapled onto the frame; I also bought tamperproof stickers with numbers that correlated with the picture and the certificate, to make it look more reputable. A lot like my blogging back in the day, I'll most likely never make money with the paintings, but if it makes me happy, I'm all for it.