I came up with an idea I am going to try. I am going to create a site that does monthly art contests. Each artist will be able to submit up to 5 works into the online show, the entry show will be $5 per art work and the winner will receive a cash prize, first place will also get a one month one-man show on the site where they can post even more of their work. Visitors will vote on the works to choose who will win. This will not only make me some money, but it will also help artists get their work out there. And the only investment I have to put in it is some time and $ for the webspace and domain name. The great thing is that there will be no merchendise to ship and easier to market. Of course I will still be marketing my own art too. What do you think of this idea? I am scheduled to launch on Feb. 4th

I have been trying to figure out how to safe guard the voting process on the site, I'm still pretty new to this though. Do you think people will actually pay to vote? If I have to, until I get the whole system perfected, I figured I would have a voting form on the site where people have to enter their name and email address to vote, and I would just have to tally up the votes manually. This would also allow me to gather info for marketing the site by sending e-newsletters. I think doing a weekly competition would be better, but since I won't have the whole process automated I will still have to do things like updating the exhibition page manually until I figure out how to streamline everything so I don't have to do so much. After I get it all figured out and streamlined I will have more competitions. It won't be perfect when I launch on the 4th, but i can make changes as I go. I already have a huge list of collectors to send some promotions to, and plan to open a myspace account just for the gallery and getting as many friends as I can for more advertising, not to mention making classified ads on craigslist and myspace and placing an ad on artist deadline, which is a site with information about juried shows and art fairs across the country.

The vision is basically to get artists on there by giving them exposure and the cash prize, and get buyers on there by giving them something fun to do, vote on their favorite pieces. This would hopefully result in sales for the artists and more people signing up as time goes on to make me more money. I'm trying to create a win/win situation.