Step-by-Step Guide to Creating and Selling an NFT without Gas Fees

How to turn an artwork into an NFT? How to choose a marketplace? What are gas fees? How to avoid them?

NFT is a new hot topic that some creators managed to turn into a real fortune while many others don’t even know exists. NFT stands for non-fungible tokens which in simple words means unique. Once something is registered as an NFT, it gets a unique digital stamp that allows linking between the owner and that exact digital asset.

What Can be Registered as an NFT?

Anything can be registered as an NFT: digital artwork, an audio file, lines of text, etc. Even this blog post can theoretically be transformed into an NFT. NFT may also link to physical objects like oil paintings, sculptures, or even real estate properties. Digital illustrations, digital photography, videos, and animations fit perfectly into the NFT world.

What’s a Good Software to Create NFT Art?

You don’t need any special software to create an NFT. You can create your art, just like you would for a client or your portfolio. I usually use Adobe Character Animator *, Adobe Illustrator *, and Adobe After Effects *, so that software was the software I use to create my NFT.

How to Turn Artwork into NFT?

For a digital asset to become an NFT it should be signed with a smart contract on a blockchain. This process is called minting. It can be registered by code or can be done for you automatically when uploading artwork to a specialized marketplace.

The Process - Summary

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Follow these to publish your first NFT:

Step 1: Select Your Marketplace and Create an Account

There are many NFT marketplaces available. Among the popular ones are:

The marketplaces differ from each other by:

Due to massive interest, some of the marketplaces will require an invitation.

The most popular cryptocurrency used to buy and sell NFTs right now is ETH and the majority of the marketplaces support this currency.

A term that is important to be familiar with when starting out in the crypto space is “Gas Fees”.

What are Gas Fees?

Gas fees are costs that come with almost any transaction that occurs on the Ethereum blockchain and are supposed to cover the expenses for the computer energy that is wasted in this process.

Some of the marketplaces will require the creator to pay gas fees for each transaction: listing an item for sale, selling the item, and more. While others may only require gas fees to get started and some will allow you to start with 0 cryptocurrencies in your wallet.

Surprisingly, you will find out that gas fees can actually be very high. In many cases, the gas fees you will require to pay for creating or purchasing an NFT are higher than the actual price of the artwork itself. That is due to the increasing popularity and high volume of actions on the Ethereum blockchain.

Gas fees depend on the number of transactions on the blockchain at each moment. They change drastically during different periods and times of the day. Gasnow.org allows you to check what is the gas price right now and also shows heat maps for higher and lower gas cost periods.

Which Marketplace Has No Gas Fees?

You can list an NFT for sale without paying any fees (even if you have 0 eths in your wallet ) if you use Mintable Marketplace or Use the Polygon Network on Opensea.

At the time of writing this post, Opensea is the largest and most popular marketplace for NFT artworks.

Step 2: Create a Digital Wallet

To create an account on almost any NFT marketplace you need to have a crypto wallet. A crypto wallet will hold the cryptocurrency you will earn/spend on the marketplace. Different marketplaces support different digital wallets. Metamask is one of the most popular wallets to work with, it is the default wallet for Opensea and it is very easy to set up.

Create a new password.
You will now get a secret backup phrase that consists of 12 words. You need to write it down somewhere (maybe couple of places). That is the secret phrase to your wallet. If you lose it you will lose the wallet as well.
After you click next, you will be asked to re arrange the words of that phrase in the right order. Once you finish and confirm you know the phrase your account is ready.
Click on All Done.
Click on View Account.
You can see your wallet address below the account name.

Step 3: Create an Account on Opensea.io

Step 4: Create a Collection

Fill in the name of your collection and write a description (It should be no longer than 1000 characters).
Select a category that is the nest fir for your collection.
Add links: you can add links to your own website, discord channel, Twitter, Instagram and Telegram.
Write down the Royalties. Royalties is the percentage you would like to receive on the future re-sales of your work. Max percentage is 10%.
On the Blockchain section, select "Polygon" (This is the gas free option, you will not be asked to pay any fees when uploading or listing items for sale on Polygon).

Step 5 : Create Your NFT

Create a new item window will now open up.
You can drag you art file, it can be image, video, audio or 3d model. File size should be less than 40mb.
Give your artwork a name and a description. You can also add a link for more info on the item here.
You can add properties. That is most relevant to collection with many similar items that differ from each other by certain elements.
On supply list the number of copies you want to list of the same item.
Make sure that the selected blockchain is Polygon and click create.

Step 6: List Your NFT for Sale

Listing an artwork for sale for the first time is the place where one will be required to pay gas fees. That is you used the Ethereum blockchain. Polygon blockchain will not require any fees to complete this process.

For me, it took a couple of sessions to properly unlock currency. Several times I tried to unlock the currency for the first NFT I listed for sale I got an error message stating: ” There was an error with your transaction, please try again”.

I was a bit worried that it might be due to the 0 eth on my wallet, but it had nothing to do with that. Apparently, that was just a technical issue on Polygon (Which may happen from time to time), a day after the same operation went smoothly without any change on my part.

Now What?

Now it is time to market your work and get it sold. Marketing is still a field I try to understand. It seems that being active on the relevant channels on Twitter and discord can be helpful. Any tips you can share are highly appreciated.

Stay tuned for new updates on the topic and check out my NFT Collection.