The Visual Artisans Newsletter
Tip Sheet#2
1. Use Paypal to accept all of your credit card payments for your business services, products, and art sales. Using Paypal beats paying monthly credit card merchant fees. Learn more about Paypal by visiting www.Paypal.com and see page 117 of the Visual Arts Resource Manual.
2. Setup a separate checking or savings account to receive or make payments using Paypal. This also protects your business and person bank accounts, if something goes wrong.
3. Setup custom payment invoices in your Paypal account for your business services, products, and art sales.
4. If you regularly shop at Staples for office supplies or copy services, sign up for their Business Rewards Card. It 's free. You get free spending money to spend at Staples. Definitely a perk !
5. If you still shoot film, buy your supply of film for the summer months before early June. Especially Infrared Film users ! And please do not tell me you purchase your film by the roll when you need it. Buying film in bricks is the only way to save money. Learn why in my future classes. Send me an email to be placed on my future class mailing list for class details.
6. Protect your precious 35mm slides with individual slide protectors. Slide pages are not enough. Purchase slide protectors from Light Impressions, see page 55 of the Visual Arts Resource Manual.
7. One way of saving money while creating artwork, is to develop standard sized art pieces. In other words, create art on standard sized canvases that can be framed in commercially available sized frames and not custom made frames. The same for photographers. Now that photographers and artists can make print their own ink jet prints in their studios, the standard 11X14 and 16 X 20 have gravitated towards 13 X 19. Sizing your final prints to fit standard sized mats and frames can save the artist a lot of unnecessary expenses. Some art purchasers are fussy about the style of framing and would prefer to purchase the print unframed. Creating standard sized art also helps your art purchasers.
8. Outdoor Art & Craft Show season will be here soon, have you checked your art tent to see if any repairs or annual maintenance is needed? I always do a dress rehearsal of my full display setup in my back yard on a sunny day to verify everything works and I have not forgotten something. I make an inventory list of all of the essential items I need.
9. Ink jet prints are quite convenient to make in your studio, but what would you do if you need to make a large quantity for a special project or event? There are specialty labs that make reproductions of artists and photographers work in large quantities. They reproduce your original and send you proofs to look at and tell them what changes need to be made. Once the lab meets your desires, they will store those print settings on file for future orders. I have ordered as few as 25 prints at a time. The prints have always been consistent batch to batch. The individual cost of the prints were less than having them made by an area lab. This type of Lab can be found on page 66 of The Visual Arts Resource Manual.
10. Protect your art and photos from copyright infringers by regularly registering your art and photos with the Copyright Office in Washington DC. See pages 3 thru 6 of The Visual Arts Resource Manual for copyright information sources on the web and organizations that have information on unique aspects of copyright . If you are interested in learning how to register your photos with the copyright office, send me an email, I plan on offering a workshop on the copyright application basics, if enough people are interested.
Mr. Gamble is the author of "The Visual Arts Resource Manual". Information for purchasing copies of the book may be found at the authors web site : www.DuaneGamble.com
Contact the author at the email address below to be placed on his mailing list for his future classes and workshops : "The Business Side of Photography & Art".
Email : info@duanegamble.com
©2007 Duane V. Gamble, All Rights Reserved
Published as the Visual Artisans Newsletter, Tip Sheet #2 - May 2007
No part of this document may be copied, or reproduced by any means: mechanical, electronic, optical, or distributed or transmitted in any form, including information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the author, Duane V. Gamble. For further information or to order copies of this document, please contact the author at the mailing address listed above. Thanks