I was thinking of opening one up to earn a little cash on the side, but I do not know if its realistic, worth it, easy to make money/ easy to lose money, and basically the pros and cons of selling through there

I paint, draw, and make necklaces. I currently do it for myself and for friends, but have thought about selling. I also have zero idea on how I should price 0.o

I think you can make money off of it but it is very very hard to earn a steady and useful income from it... I sell painted birth control cases. I charge a lot less than I should, because if I really charged based on how long it took me it'd be way too much for people. My recommendation is make lots of things, lots of different things, and price them moderately... also it helps to make some pop culture related objects. I started getting attention by making sailor moon themed cases, and pokeballs. Then I kept making more and people would notice it! I posted around fandom forums for the things I created and other places I thought people might be interested. For a while I would make at least 20-40 a month off of it. I have lost my interest and time to do it now... but it is possible!

I only know the basic bare bones about selling on etsy. (I've been considering opening up a shop to sell art, but I'm not sure if I'm up to the job of properly advertising it.)

Anyhow, here's what I've got. You can get paid through any method, paypal, mailed a check to your house, credit cards, debit cards or money orders. Etsy requires bank account information, as each time an item is listed, it costs $0.20 USD. The listing will stay up for four months or until it's bought by someone. At that point, they'll also take 3.5% of the money made off of it as a transaction fee.

As far as pricing your wares, I'd probably suggest pricing out how much your materials cost you and figure out how many hours it takes to complete one piece. Then, decide if you're going to pay yourself the minimum wage or a little more then that and then tack that on to the price. Of course, this is all dependent on what the market is willing to pay. Artists are notorious for underselling the amount of work they put into their pieces in order to get sold and it's really unfortunate. I'm sure you've already done it, but poke around a little on etsy and see if anyone is making anything you find comparable to your own stuff, and see if that affects how you would price your own items.

Also, I may be entirely wrong on this since I'm under experienced, but I've found from watching shops that while pieces of art can sell, the best way to earn money in that sector is to offer a commissions option.

Aside from that, just advertise wherever you can. Here, on tumblr, on twitter, on facebook, the whole gambit. :)

-Thanks that helped ! have you ever lost money in a month while dealing with etsy? Like when you first started out did you lose a few bucks due to the listing fee's and lack of attention?

-Thanks that really helped! I always have such troubles with pricing! Someone tried to buy my favorite painting off of me once for $25 and it probably took me oh maybe 20 hours to do it...so $1.25 an hour -______-

Oh good god. >.> People always seem to toss out the tired argument, 'Anyone can draw.' Some folks seem to think they're doing a person a favor just by offering money at all. But I think they forget to take into account the amount of years people put into learning a craft and being able to even produce something of quality. There's a lot of value in the skill that took so much time to cultivate.

You should see some of the stories that pop up on tumblr about freelance art jobs, and folks looking to pay 40 bucks for all of the art needed to create a children's storybook.

I seriously hope you still have that painting. xD

Yeah, I definitely have. I am not very proactive about posting things either. Since I've opened my shop I've sold 18 cases and made 205 dollars. Definitely could be painting and posting more, but I do it for fun now.