Post great articles here

[Spincus]

Here is a link to a site that I have meaning to post about for a while and kept forgetting. The blog is killer. This article is about how to write blogs.

[Spincus]

This is not an article per say, it is a poll. But what is important is that it lists a whole bunch of possible art sites for you 2d flat artists out there that might be good venues.

[artsfarm]

Howdy :-)
Good list, and the comments afterwards I'm sure will yield some good feedback. Someone mentioned WetCanvas; I've been getting their newsletter for about 2 years and it's very good. Never visited the forums though; that might be something to check out.

[Spincus]

Here is a decent article on how to get free advertising.

[artsfarm]

Pretty neat, all good ideas.
Same goes for blogs, too, especially ones specifically related to what you do/sell. Once you're on there a few times you can ask the owner to consider your product. A lot of them are looking for new things to plug, so it works out both ways.

Also, writing content articles and submitting them to content directories gets you out there as a knowledgable source of information on your topic (again, include your signature/site link). There are quite a few of them around; I'm making a list of places like that, plus selling venues with details which will I'll post here over the weekend.

[artsfarm]

I've been hearing a lot, for quite some time about 'Project Wonderful' but didn't know much about it. All the feedback has been good, so I'm going to try it out and let you all know what happens. I'm not sure yet if I'll use it for Etsy, or on my website, which links to my Etsy shop. I'll have to see which will work better.
Anyway, here's a link to a thread on Etsy about it, with some statistics from a seller who uses and endorses it:
Project Wonderful

[Spincus]

Here is a link to free on line marketing classes offered by HP the printer computer folks.

I have not looked at this series yet, but am looking forward to hearing what a big boy says works. Looks like lots of other free classes offered on their site also.

[artsfarm]

Checking it out, Kahuna :-)

[Spincus]

Looks like Ebay now allows folks to post on Ebay.UK for free as part of your normal US listing process. Given that Europe still has money, this might be a killer feature for some of you,.

Here is an article on it

[artsfarm]

DaWanda is supposed to be really good. It's a European site and all transactions are in Euros. Once you get used to the conversion (not sure if I'm up to that, but I'm sure I'll try at some point), it's not hard to do, according to sellers who are on there.

[Spincus]

Has anyone tried out DaWanda yet? I think this would be a killer or some other such site with a Europe site geographics base would be a killer Idea.

foreign exchange is pretty easy to work out. You take our dollar and multiply by another number to figure out the listing price. The price of the dollar varies over long periods of time, not short periods of time. So a check on prices ever 3 months of so would be all that you would need to maintain value.

Shipping would be another issue, but that also could be worked out.

[Pam Hawk]

When figuring out exchange rates, I recommend http://www.xe.com/.

We use it at my day job (insurance) when sending payments out of the US.

As for shipping, try DHL for price, and delivery locations.

[Pam Hawk]

The Pass It On Plates studio is split between my home in Oregon and my mom's home in Wisconsin, and mom and I collaborate via internet, phone, and snail mail to get things done. While that's tough sometimes, my focus is on design, production, and computer stuff, and mom works with a local inventors' group, local business development people, and marketing. Yes, I do that from my end as well, but she does the legwork to get us plugged into the right programs and pointed in the right direction for what we need to accomplish.

Lately, she has been talking with the gals at Boost Your Bottom Line. They're local, and my mom's networking talent has her operating in the same circle as these marketing 'spitfires.' I've been reading my way through the free articles and blog and thought you may be interested in their tips.

Here are the free articles: http://www.boostyourbottomline.com/free_articles/
And here's the blog: http://boost-your-bottom-line-blog.blogspot.com/

I've found some great tips here -
-Pam