Back in August I indicated I was developing a new section for the Art Business Info for Artists website.

I've now published the NEW SECTION page which I'm calling PRACTICE  as shorthand in the main menu.

However it's full title is PRACTICE - How to be a successful artist - and it's about being and artist and what else you need to do besides making art!

It has three sections which each have 'home' pages which have also been published outlining their future content

• Habits,
• Real Life Practices and
• Learning & Development

Plus I've also published two NEW pages in the Learning section which now have a decent amount of content - but will be developed further.

These are:

• Art Schools in the UK
• Art Business Courses
  

In terms of future development of this section, it would be especially helpful to know what are the things that

• matter most to you
• you find it most difficult to find out about.

I've included forms on the published pages if you'd like to make any specific suggestions as to what you'd like to see included and/or prioritised.

I'll be developing more content for this new section over the winter so....
if you want to keep up with more developments and new content
I suggest you
Subscribe to Art Business Info. for Artists - NEWS by Email

Here's some of the things it has highlighted this week:. I'll continue to do periodic round-ups - but you'll see the news first on the Facebook Page!

Art Competitions

• a reminder that art competitions are a great way to raise your profile
• link to an explanation of the Call for Entries for the 3rd Derwent Art Prize for Pencil Art

Art Exhibitions - Private Views

• I went to an art exhibition this week which was extremely well attended from 11:00am in the morning to when it finished in the evening at 8:00pm. I'm going to be commenting next week on my main blog about the reasons why I think this happened

Art Market

• This is an Artsy article about Figurative Painting’s Market Boom, in 5 Charts

Commercial Art & Licensing 

• This is the blog of Henri Davis who is an independent retail adviser - the sort of person who provides tips about retail trends and who advises stores about licensing art. (LOTS of you were very interested in this from which I take it that stories about licensing and retailing art would be of interest)

Communication

• Can you learn anything from the different approaches that artists use to create an artists statement - about themselves and their art? I shared the page on this website which provides examples of what famous artists say about themselves and how they say it

Money and Tax

• I highlighted a webinar last week run by HM Revenue & Customs about Simpler Income Tax for the Self Employed -  for UK tax-payers with self-employed income (and expenses!)

Selling Art Online
​This week I did a couple of blog posts which summarised the messages from the  The Hiscox Online Art Trade Report 2016.

• Selling Art Online 2016 (Part 1: Key Points) looked at the key points and trends in selling art online in the last 12 months
• Selling Art Online 2016: Part 2 - Online Platforms identified which were the main platforms used and preferred for selling art under £10k in the last 12 months

SEO

• I highlighted 

Social Media

• Did you know that Instagram is revising its algorithm so it will reorder content in your feed? Check out Tech Crunch's article about the impact it has had
• I highlighted a video that Facebook has made about News Feed: Getting Your Content to the Right People

Techies & SEO

• I highlighted an infographic providing a great BIG SEO checklist - in 75 tip boxes - for optimising how your website appears online and in response to search queries.
  
• Did you know you can test out how your website looks on other people's computers, tablets and phones - no matter what the size?

Websites

• Periodically I will post websites what impress me. This week I took a look at Wolf Khan's website and the slideshow of images on the landing page made me go "Wow" - how about you?

Yesterday I 'soft' launched a NEW Facebook Page associated with this website.

You can find it at ​https://www.facebook.com/artbusinessforartists/ Before I formally announced it had some 60+ likes. Since going public earlier this afternoon it has now got over 200 likes in its first 24 hours.

The rationale behind the new Page is explained in Making A Mark on Art Business and Marketing.

In summary - the intention is that this should provide an easy of keeping up to speed with interesting news and updates about matters relating to:

• the art business 
• marketing in real space and online
• techie matters about the law, money, tax and being online.

The content will include posts by me and will also share posts by others. However the content will always be focused on the type of topics indicated above.

Some of what you see on the Facebook Page will also be the subject of posts on this blog. Some items will relate to new links and updates to the website.

Bottom line - it's a different way of keeping up to date with what's happening - and the speed of change in the environment in which artists have to operate these days.

If you have a Facebook account and you'd like to keep up with it you can link to it by 'liking' the page. It should then appear in your news feed - and will continue to do so if you regularly indicate an appreciation of what is posted.

(Note about how Facebook works: If you just look and do nothing then chances are it will disappear from your news feed in time. Your Facebook news feed is always configured to present you with information you like looking at and respond to!  It does NOT contain every new item on every page you have ever liked.)

Artists in the UK who are just now remembering they need to complete their Self-Assessment tax returns for their self-employed income by 31 January may find my Tax Tips for Artists page useful.

This includes three sections of particular relevance to UK artists:

• Tax Tips by artists for artists
• A hobby or a business?
• Tax in the UK and the HMRC

Tax Tips for Artists has recently been updated with some outline information about the proposed new digital tax account and quarterly reporting for all those having a turnover in excess of £10,000 p.a.  

Making tax digital (pdf) is the formal paper setting out what changes the government proposes to introduce and how it will work. ​Consultation on the proposals is occurring at present so nothing as yet is set in stone.

I'll be writing more about ​this in future.

If you want to stay in touch with updates about art business matters generally and digital tax accounting and quarterly reporting in particular please subscribe to this blog. 

I've been commissioned to write a series of ten articles for The Artist Magazine - part of Painters Online.

They'll be published on the last page of the magazine (page 66) throughout 2016.