Poetry Forum

Be there if you can! Over two hundred pictures, including more than twenty of my own for sale at knock down prices. Also, this being a village hall: lots of lovely homemade cakes and cups of tea, plus a tombola with daft prizes.

Good luck to the exibition and sale of your art works. My teacher won the first prize in the watercolor category at our State Fair and the drawing was sold for $2500. How exciting!

That's brilliant! I know I'm always really pleased when any art teacher of mine wins a major prize. It shouldn't matter one way or another, but human nature being what it is, one does see it as a validation and guarantee of quality.

Ah! I dearly wish I could come - but it's too far, too far, so don't look for me.
I love village hall exhibitions, especially of the kind you describe.
Have fun, best of luck, and a nice cup of tea or three.

Jane

Thank you Jane, and I will

Hi Delph -

Please see PG Guideline No. 4 - which perhaps you were not aware of:

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=3497

Have a good exhibition.

Mic

I never openly plug my books here, or individual artworks for personal profit. This is not 'my' exhibition. It's an exhibition of the work of students of artist Trish Hudson-Moses. Profit from the exhibition goes to helping her buy art materials for some of the groups she teaches, particularly those in care homes where there is no funding to cover such things. Many of the art students in the exhibition are disabled in some way - through physical conditions like cerebral palsy, dementia, etc.

So apologies if I worded this as if it was a plug for my own work. Obviously individual artists who sell work will get some money, but that's not the point of the exhibition.

Having read the guidelines, I see I went against the letter, but possibly not against the spirit.


On a more upbeat note, I've just sold Patrick Stewart

delph_ambi wrote:I never openly plug my books here, or individual artworks for personal profit.

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=17170

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=17477

Was delighted to see Pauline from the forum at the exhibition half an hour or so ago. She'd come with her son, and they bought plenty of raffle and tombola tickets. The exhibition has now made enough money to pay for the hire of the hall, so all this extra money is going towards supporting the art groups with materials, as mentioned in a previous post.

It's always great to see forum people in 'real' life. Pauline mentioned how nice it was to see the paintings in 'real' life too, having seen some of them on the forum.

*

Mic, if you would like to check through the ezines, magazines and publications section of the forum, I think you'll find huge numbers of people talking about their publications and giving links to where they can be bought. This is NOT spamming. It is not self advertising. It's letting their fellow writers know what they've been up to, and it's a chance to congratulate people. Spamming is where people come onto a forum and ONLY post advertisements. It's hard selling. I have never indulged in this, and neither has anyone else here as far as I'm aware.

Writing forums like this one are about supporting each other in creative endeavours by offering critique and encouragement and then celebrating successes.

Delph,

In the two and bit years I've been on the forum, I haven't noticed anyone else selling their books here (and if they are doing it, I don't feel they should be).

The only person I see consistently doing this is you. (You aren't even a particularly active member here - as you freely admit yourself.)

Others may well disagree, but my feeling is that asking people who are here to develop as writers, to buy your books and artwork really does go against the letter and spirit of Rule No. 4. What if we all started trying to sell our books and drawings here?!

(And there are so many other places to promote creative output and generate sales.)

I'd hate to see PG go from being a community of people interested in developing their craft and helping others do the same to becoming a sort of online market stall. I think the founders of the site might well have felt this too, hence Rule No. 4.

(Letting others know that we've had a poem published and where, is a very different thing, I think, from trying to sell and promote our own work to each other!)

Anyway, it may just be me, but in addition to everything I've said above, I also find this kind of self-promotion irritating.

Michaela

delph_ambi wrote:. Spamming is where people come onto a forum and ONLY post advertisements. It's hard selling. I have never indulged in this, and neither has anyone else here as far as I'm aware.

I don't think you are spamming - which is covered in Rule No. 5 - (although it feels close to that to me sometimes).

I am concerned that you quite often ignore Rule No. 4, which asks that we...

4. Please do not use this site to plug your own websites/books/publications etc.

You may not have known about this, so I was just pointing it out to you so that you don't make the same mistake again.

Michaela

This, in my view, is blatant selling and, therefore, constitutes misuse of this forum:

"Serpentine has finally arrived! You can read Neil Marr’s blog about the book here; try out the first couple of chapters here; and buy directly from the publisher here. Also available from all the usual ebook stores. Read, buy, enjoy!"

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=17170

Michaela

It's not just you, Mic.

There is a very clear difference between "I've had a piece accepted by a mag" and "buy my book". The proper media for "buy my book" and "come to my exhibition" (no matter how noble the cause) are facebook, twitter, craigslist, blogs, and pretty much the entire rest of the internet. PG is special because its users understand this distinction.

Well, I did see some people provided links in their posts without others' questioning. So I thought it is permissible. Now I know I am wrong? Just asking.

Lake wrote:Well, I did see some people provided links in their posts without others' questioning. So I thought it is permissible. Now I know I am wrong? Just asking.

Lake it is fine to post links and let people know about your successes - people love hearing about this kind of thing, it inspires and encourages.

The guidelines ask only that we don't try to sell our books or artwork, or plug our websites here.

Michaela