"I'd Rather Be in the Studios" Part 2

As most of you know, I have been reading Alyson Stanfield's "I'd Rather Be in the Studio: The Artist's No-Excuse Guide to Self Promotion" and so far, I'd have to say that by doing the "actions" in this book, I have noticed an increase in attention of my artwork. More people are reading my blog and have been visiting my website. I have gotten a few shows by following up on some leads. I have more "hits" for my name on Google alerts. Even though I have to confess that I have not been very good about marketing myself in the past two weeks (I got engaged two weeks ago and have been caught up with all the excitement and planning of a wedding), I can see the power in self-promotion and know that it is a constant practice. You can't promote yourself for a week and expect that to be enough to launch your career for a long period of time. Self-promotion has to be constant. You have to schedule time to do it and it takes time.

One of the big components of increasing your presense is to blog. Online communities and blogging is huge and what better way to let people know what you are doing than to write about it and post pictures? Here are some things I am doing to increase my online presense. Thank you Ms. Stanfield for helping me do what I am already doing even better. (Those of you out there trying to increase your presense...BUY THIS BOOK! I highly recommend it.)

1. I have been making a concerted effort to write a blog entry at least twice a week. People can't read what you don't write. I write about what art related books I am reading, what I'm working on, and what inspires me.

2.I registered my blog on some blogger sites which let readers know when there's a new post and signed up for icerocket.com so that I could track the number of readers I have.

3. Whenever I write something, I Twitter about it and also post it on Facebook.

4. I have started posting "My Favorite Artist of the Month" entries for two reasons. I get to share who inspires me and I get to network with the artist that I am featuring.

5. I've started adding other people's blogs to my site and have been added to others as well.

6. I read fellow artists' blog and comment on them.

Readers, please feel free to comment on any of my posts. I welcome all!

Image: "Swimmers 2", 24" x 24" This image is a pre-waxed version of the painting.