I'm Moving -- to a New Blog Address!

Please join me at my newly re-designed website and blog, now integrated into one.

Come on over to www.janedavila.com for all the latest news on products, workshops, books and magazine articles, and events.

This blog will remain live to preserve all of its great content, but all new posts will appear on the new blog.

Please remember to update your blog readers too. Thanks! See you at my new place. :)

Art Business Housekeeping

December is a busy month for most people, but it's also a good month to attend to some year-end art business housekeeping tasks. Steal away 15 minutes here and there and you'll be off to a great start when January rolls around. Here is my list of suggestions of categories to work on this month, one at a time, as time allows.

Update your website
Most of us finish our website and then stop thinking about it once it's published and uploaded. If you haven't updated yours in a while to reflect new work, a current calendar, new workshops, etc, take a bit of time and make certain it's up to date. Pro Tip: Set a reminder on your phone to update it at the end of every quarter (or more often!) Websites that are updated regularly rank higher in search engine results than websites that are stagnant.

Review your business cards and other promotional material
Business cards often need updating too. Sometimes the image on it might not reflect what you're currently doing, or you might have a new blog or a new email address. Take a business card or postcard out now and check to see that everything on it is up to date and that you're happy with it. If not, spend the time to correct it. Then order new ones so you have them on hand for all of the holiday gatherings you'll attend. Pro Tip: My favorite place to order business cards and postcards is Moo.com. The cards are high quality, you can have different images on each card for no extra cost, and their "moosletter" is chock full of great info for marketing and promotion and they offer coupons and discounts. Get 10% off your first order with this link.

Update your mailing list
When I go away to teach I take a notebook with me so I can collect email addresses from my students for my email newsletter. What I often forget to do when I get home is transfer those names to my emailing list program (I use Mailchimp). December is a great time to make sure that your emailing lists are up to date Pro Tip: If you haven't added a widget for an emailing list sign up to your website yet, now is the time to do it. And if you haven't signed up for my newsletter yet, please do!

Please subscribe to my mailing list

Update your Etsy store or online selling platform
Check to make sure that all of your listings are up to date, your prices are correct, and shop and shipping policies are current. Pro Tip: Review your descriptions and labels. These two things are the most important (after good photos) in getting found and getting sales.



If you'd like to join my online mentorship group with tips, tricks, and homework like this all year, please sign up for my mailing list above to receive notification of when it starts in early 2016! 

Workshops - Online, In Studio and One-on-One Mentoring!

I'm pleased to announce a new line-up of classes that will be starting in the new year! One fabulous online course plus a number of workshops to be held in my studio in Connecticut. Tell Santa - a workshop makes a great gift!

Jump Start Your Art Career, my intense action-packed, knowledge-rich, six-week online course, will begin on Monday January 13, 2014. This class can help anyone with a creative business - working artists in any medium, art teachers, people wanting to get published in magazines or write a book, anyone wanting to start an art retreat, and so many more. We dig deep into a wide variety of topics and, through worksheets and homework, you'll develop a plan for your own business moving forward. Find more details and a sign-up button for Jump Start Your Art Career here.

The Jump Start class is an online class with extensive written material, informative blog posts every week day for 6 weeks, interaction with your fellow students, focused advice for your creative business, deep thinking exercises, and great resources! I hope you can join me.

Workshops held in my loft studio in Bridgeport Connecticut are of both the learn-new-art-techniques, make-cool-stuff variety and the nurture-your-creative-business variety. You can find classes in gyotaku (fish) printed collages, creative stamp making, spirit flags, and a sampler of all of the fun surface design supplies. Plus workshops in building a website, creating and editing videos, making art connections with social media, and as a special bonus - I will be offering one-on-one creative mentoring in 2014!

If you'd like a chance to work directly with me on your art business, either online and over the phone or in person, this is your opportunity. There are only a limited number of mentorships slots available for the first quarter and I'd love to work with you.

If you have any questions about the online or studio workshops, or about the one-on-one mentoring, please contact me at info @ janedavila dot com

B2B Mondays - Professional presence

Today's business tip for artists has to do with your professional presence. Your business cards (and postcards if you use them) are an excellent marketing and networking tool that you should carry with you at all times.

You have no idea where the next opportunity will come from and being prepared with a snazzy business card with all of your contact information printed on it means that you won't miss the opportunity and you won't be scrambling for a napkin on which to jot down your details.

Keep in mind that your business cards should be in alignment with your brand so tie them in to your blog or website design, colors, and fonts. Use the space on the card to highlight a photo of your work, even a thumbnail is great!

If you're low on business cards, or if you haven't printed any yet, take time this week to design and order some. Think about adding links or icons for social media so your contacts can connect with you on the platform of their choice.

My favorite online resource for business cards is Moo. The quality of their cards is outstanding and their customer service is amazing. I have ordered cards from them for years and have been more than impressed every time. If you'd like a 10% discount on your first order, click here. Disclaimer: I receive a credit to my account when you click that link, but I love Moo so much, that I'm just as happy if you visit their website directly and bypass the affiliate link (there's no discount if you do though, lol).

There are, of course, many other places to have business cards printed, both online and locally, so I encourage you to explore all of your options. Think carefully about using a "free" printing service if the catch is that they print their logo or web address on your card. This option appears much less professional because it gives the receiver of your card the impression that you aren't serious enough about your business to invest money in it.

Another great option is to design and print your own business cards. Most office supply stores carry business card blanks - sheets that you can print in your own inkjet or laser printer that snap apart easily and look clean and professional. I did this for years before discovering Moo (and still sometimes resort to this option when I've run out of cards before a new order arrives). One drawback I've found is that the paper isn't quite as thick and luxe as the paper used by a commercial printer.

If you design and print a new business card, please add a link in the comment section here so we can all see it!

B2B Mondays!

I'm excited to start a new feature on my blog - introducing Back to Business Mondays! Every Monday I'll be offering an art-related business tip to start your week off with an action you can take on your art career.

This week's tip is for all the smart phone and tablet users. Create a new photo album and upload some images of your most recent work into it. Then, when you meet someone who wants to know what you do and what kind of art you make, you'll be all ready to go and won't be scrolling through a million photos looking for the right ones. A little work up front will result in a more professional encounter! This is also a really excuse to make sure that you've taken photos of your recent work.

Remember when you're processing your photos to save the original image separately, and then, leaving that one untouched, save the image at different sizes and resolutions for various purposes (websites, blogs, Facebook, etc). You can always go back to that original, untouched image and create a new size or resolution as needed, without loss of image quality.