openings, grocery store meetings with seldom seen friends, family you forgot you had, you name it, all kinds of people we meet in all kinds of ways. This is word of mouth from the horse's mouth, me. :-)
Another is donating. Donate an original, a limited edition, or an inexpensive print (sign it!) and stack a pile of your attractive website imprinted cards next to your donation gift. Tell your local paper you donated, tell your newsletter ist, tell yourself your gift gives both ways, outwardly and inwardly, and smile.
Give other people credit for things involved in your art, your printer, your art club, your web master, your muse :-) and let them know you've given them credit; if in an email, have your web url as part of your sig; if in a note, have your web url on a neat looking return address label (I have a graphic designer, Edye Giordano, at www.LMNOPeople.net put mine on huge colorful dots!)
If you respond or post to anything online, maybe especially non-art sites (housing blogs, tv show chat spots, pet peeve sites, etc), post your website url there too, no other commentary needed. People look or not. If you're involved in something socially, and can inobtrusively post your website address, you're talking word of mouth.
Pick one or two times for the year, in your local newspaper, in a section that appeals to you and see if they have a special rate for "artists." Print your ad, post your website, and spread the word you have an ad in the newspaper. Austin's a mecca in the spring and fall for outdoor festivals, and I do a lot of Austin area landscapes, so I like the travel/show-full-color 2 or 4 page insert, Travel Central Texas, in the Austin American Statesman (my ad of course is a small part of the insert :-) You almost always can get tear sheets (or full sheets) you can hand out to favorite or promising people, plus keep some as a record of where and how you've spread the word.
Best of all, most of us are doing most of this already. I don't need to skip my favorite food, or lift heavy weights, or run a mile before breakfast (unless I feel like it :-) to get my website attention in better shape.
Now granted, if you are reading this and are a fairly, or hugely, successful artist already, all this may bring a smile of remembrance, or a sad shake of your head; but if you're like me, then it's still a sharing game, a process game. A game of self invention.
Like I like to say, best of luck to all of us!
adan lerma
