Archive for the ‘legalities’ Category

Some interesting thoughts going through the mind over the last few days, primarily thinking about future directions for the business. We really enjoyed our guild demo and would like to do more, so moving up the to-do list is a plan for making that happen. We also spent a good chunk of time yesterday planning out two now major art pieces, something we haven’t done in a long time. Hubby has some great designs from a number of years ago that we want to bring to fruition. So it’s been really fun to look at the artistic side of planning.

Thanks again to Laura Bray and her e-course on Multiple Streams of Income (also available in an ebook – Click here to visit katydid designs.). For the first time I understand marketing and art-planning. I was too focused on marketing and not enough on actually creating art to increase income. My second season on 100 days ends on November 18, and I am already thinking about new sets of goals and increasing the range of goals. It’s turning out to be another good month for us, and I so want it to continue. My linking you to Laura Bray’s work is an example of a passive income strand, another area I am focused on building; you visit sites I recommend, purchase something, and I receive a commission. If you visit the Resources tab for the blog (at the top), you will see people and businesses I recommend – some of which pay me a commission, and some who don’t. Either way, I am only sending people to you that I use/have used and have confidence in.

That said, I keep reading and processing more information about building success as artists. Here’s a couple of articles I’ve found in the last few days that may be timely for you.

Thinking about giving up the art business? From Fine Art Views blog comes “Boiling Point.” A good read if you are discouraged by success as an artist.

From Joanne Materra comes a great post on potential scams we all have to be on the watch for. Called “Don’t Fall For It,” it’s a look at potential scams.

And along the same line, from Artsy Shark comes an article about applying to exhibitions, “Five Tips on Getting into More Juried Art Exhibitions.” A word about Artsy Shark – we will be a featured artist sometime in the next few weeks….stay tuned!

Have a great week marketing and building your joy!

Interesting post today from Social Media Examiner, and I think I need to share this, if only so that I can better understand what’s what with giveaways.

Evidently it’s not as easy to do giveaways and promotions on Facebook, and in general there are a lot of guidelines to follow – which I think most of us small businesses do, just as a matter of ethics. Requiring people to “like” a page or become “fans” or do anything changes the rules and makes this a contest, as opposed to a give-away. If you read the comments in the article on Social Media, you’ll find a lot of confusion, especially as regards to doing this on Facebook.

When you read the “Promotions” guidelines on Facebook, (and we’ve all done that, right???), you’ll notice that what many of us have been doing doesn’t seem to fit those guidelines. I think most of us with some sort of fiber giveaway to celebrate milestones – a certain number of fans, reaching a major number of blogs – do so with pure intent – like this and you could win something. We just need to be aware of what we’re doing and make sure everything that we need to do according to federal guidelines, we are.

It’s similar to the FTC guidelines about bloggers promoting an item where they receive a commission – we need full disclosure that we get paid to do this. If you start looking at your spam, you’ll notice a lot of it doesn’t have actual names and addresses at the end of emails to tell you exactly where all this is coming from. More and more sites (mine included) let you know that there are products we promote for which we may receive a commission. That’s how affiliate marketing works, and that’s a great source of passive income for many of us.

So here’s what I’m going to do. When I hit a milestone that I’ve set, I’ll do a giveaway of goodies.  I’ll mention on Facebook that it’s happening, but you won’t need to do anything except head over to read the blog – which hopefully you’re doing anyway.  Any giveaway will run solely through my blog – after I continue to read up on the in’s and out’s of this. I’m interested in your thoughts on this topic.

Boring, huh?  Here’s some eye candy to make up for it (although ya gotta admit this is important information). Enjoy the marbled papers.