• Artist Database surpasses 1000
• Introducing Ruth Payne
• Art Marketing Tips & Tactics - The Secret for Artists
• MyArtClub.Com Payment Services
• New Catalog feature
• Google XML
• Blog Spam
• Taking it to the next level

The MyArtClub.Com Artist Database has continued to grow as new artists join in a variety of categories (both through groups, as part of the artist showcase and as regular members. This month marked a new high water mark as the number of artists in the MyArtClub.Com Artist Database passed the 1000 mark. Thank you for allowing us to serve you.

Introducing Ruth Payne

For many of you in the Vancouver area, Ruth Payne will need no introduction. Ruth is the curator at the Ferry Building Gallery and the Visual Arts Coordinator of West Vancouver Cultural Services. Ruth brings 25 years of experience as a gallery curator, visual artist, stress management consultant and teacher and runs the popular Arts Connection Networking Salon for visual artists.

Ruth will be a contributor to the MyArtClub.Com Newsletter writing under the heading of "Art Marketing Tips & Tactics". By the way, Ruth is presenting a workshop at the Hollyhock Educational Retreat Centre on Cortes Island in May. (800) 933-6339

Art Marketing Tips & Tactics

The Secret for Artists The Secret for artists is first knowing what you want to have happen in your art career. The film THE SECRET (if you haven't watched it, DO!) spells it out in simple terms. The Law of Attractions is always at work and you create what you think about. You must have a clear dream so why not make it big as well as real for you? As Somerset Maugham quipped, "it's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it." Dream from your heart while keeping your feet firmly on the ground. This will give you your heart's desire and a vision that you can articulate. Before you delve into the specifics necessary to present yourself to a gallery with the intention of having them represent you, it is necessary to do some in-depth self examination. This authentic, reflective and investigative journey is worthwhile for all artists…and it makes the journey simpler. Art-making and art marketing is a heartfelt journey; to keep that connection is essential. I believe it is in the heart-space that one knows what the dream is. Do you really want to exhibit in New York City in a world-class museum? Or do you want to be a weekend painter, giving your art as gifts to your family and friends and occasionally exhibiting in a local community gallery? Do you prefer the art festival and outdoor market type of venue? Do you want to sell your art as a sideline business which you run as a sole proprietorship? Does the idea of exhibiting in a group show appeal to you more than showing solo? Do you prefer to show people your work in your home or studio and not exhibit in galleries? Are you an Internet buff who would rather spend more time promoting yourself on-line? These are just a few of the questions you want to ask yourself…now you know where to start. Spend at least a month on this, journaling your thoughts and inspirations on what success is going to look like to you. Draw pictures, use lots of colour, cut out images and sayings in magazines. Make a Personal Success collage of your art business. Set aside a special sketchbook to make notes, jot down ideas, successes, tips, doodles, goals, dreams and entitle it: My Successful Art Career. Visit galleries and look at as many other artists' work as possible (advice from painter Gordon Smith). This will give you an idea of where you fit in the art world. Also think about where you fit in art history. What is your style, influences, mentors? Then share your findings with a fellow artist, trusted family member or friend. The next step is to Begin with the End in Mind by imagining yourself at the end of your life. This is a very useful visualization, one of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People from the book by Stephen Covey. What did you do with your art that you are so thrilled with? What did you accomplish that was just right for you? Now you can work backwards to present time and make plans, goals and commit to making your dream happen. Next, write it all down. As long as the idea is just in your head it is a slogan. I believe to make it a goal and make it manifest, you have to write it down. Now you can begin the path to successfully exhibiting and marketing your art. Stay tuned for more in April on the specifics of organizing your art business for success. Ruth Payne, Visual Arts Coordinator, West Vancouver Cultural Services, Ferry Building Gallery

MyArtClub.Com Payment Services

Several artists have contacted us to ask MyArtClub.Com to provide our credit card payment services to handle payments for your art work online. These payment services would allow you the artist to add MasterCard, Visa and American Express credit cards to your art pages or art catalogue and then process the payment through. MyArtClub.Com.

Note that we do not capture any credit card information. It is all processed by the web based TD Bank/Canada Trust payment services. The service fee for this offering is between 12 and 15% of the cost of the transaction. The artist is still responsible for packaging and shipping their art work. Sign up for these services on the Maintain account page if this is a service of interest to you.

New Catalogue Feature

We have made some changes to the catalogue feature to enhance the way in which you can sell your art directly online. We have increased the number of different offerings for each work of art from 4 to 8. Therefore if you sell your original art, giclees as well as prints of your art in different sizes and perhaps cards, then you can list all of these formats in the catalogue with different prices attached to each. You can set up your catalogue so that you can use PayPal for payment service by email or bank transfer, have the customer contact you directly for payment, use your credit cards through a merchant services account or use the MyArtClub.Com Payment services. The catalogue is linked to the individual art page so that the payment options are also available on the art page.

Google Sitemap file

The way Google, Yahoo, AltaVista and other search engines review the artist and art pages is constantly changing. Google recently added a new process whereby the artist and art pages are presented in an XML format referred to as a sitemap. This sitemap provides Google and other search engines with a speedier way to find and catalogue your website, access all the links on your site and track the last time site pages were updated.

MyArtClub.Com is pleased to advise you we have added this enhancement for all the artist, group, art and blog pages within MyArtClub.Com. We feel it is important to constantly update your site with these new methods so your website pages are most easily found by all those searching for you.

Blog Spam

Several of you have noticed that just as the email spam begins to get increasing attention and hope of some relief, a new menace appears. Several of our blog sites have been attacked with Blog Spam whereby the spammer makes a reply to your blog by adding a comment which is typically nothing more than a lot of links to other sites, selling everything from pills to all those other things that showed up in our email spam. MyArtClub.Com has installed a blog spam filter will traps these spam comments before they can be added to the blog. Thanks to the artists who brought this to our attention.

The troubling aspect of this particular attack was that the links planted in the comments were to other sites that had been hacked with Trojan files within them that redirected the user to yet a different site. As they say, never a dull moment. Which is not to say that they won't be back again using a different attack strategy.

Taking it to the next level

MyArtClub.Com has developed a presentation on how to use your MyArtClub.Com site to market and sell your art on the Internet. For art groups in the lower mainland, we are delighted to offer our presentation to your group if this is a topic of interest. Contact us at [email protected] to arrange a date and time.

Well that is it for this month's update.
Thanks for reading – hope you enjoyed it, look forward to seeing your latest art and comments on the Internet!

Peter Newell and Cam Anderson,
MyArtClub.Com

Do you have any questions, comments or suggestions?
Please write to us at: [email protected]

P.S. Previous issues of this newsletter are available on the MyArtClub.Com under the Member's Help Section.

P.P.S. please pass this newsletter along to others. Any artist who doesn't have a site with MyArtClub.Com is welcome to post up to 3 of their images in the MyArtClub.Com Showcase Gallery at no charge, and will receive newsletters too!

Easy, Effective and Economical Internet Marketing!