This post is by guest author, Karen Cooper.  This article has been edited and published with the author's permission. You should submit an article and share your views as a guest author by clicking here. We've promoted this post to feature status because it provides great value to the FineArtViews community.  If you want your blog posts listed in the FineArtViews newsletter with the possibility of being republished to our 17,000+ subscribers, consider blogging with FASO Artist Websites.  This author's views are entirely her own and may not always reflect the views of BoldBrush, Inc.

Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa. Let's talk about the calendar today.

After all, timing is everything. Don't you just hate that phrase? Timing is everything. Most people say it to you with sympathy on their faces, because you've made a timing erred mistake. Or when an opportunity is lost because the perfect time has already slipped by. There are those people who make it their living to forecast the perfect time to get something done. Sigh--even they are not 100% perfect.

A little while ago there was an article in the FineArtViews newsletter about Ebay. Be it noted here I am not an Ebay fan, but allow that for some people, it works. That's not the point however, rather the comment included in the letter:

"When the art goes off is extremely important. You don’t want the auction to end Christmas Day or on any other big holidays. Use your brain."

Did not that author just say, "timing is everything"? I was reminded of this paragraph when I opened the stats page of my website today. All of you who have FASO artist websites know that little bar graph that pops up there, right? It shows how many people have visited your website today, or yesterday, or whenever.

Aaaach! Flat lined! My personal bar graph is apparently glued to the bottom. What does that tell us? NO BODY and NO ONE (except for me) is sitting in front of their computer on a holiday weekend. Okay, actually, there were a whopping seven there yesterday, and eight today, but trust me when I tell you that doesn't give your bar graph any perceptible motion.

Now then, what's the lesson to take away and retain? That brilliantly written blog post article, or that beautifully crafted newsletter? DON'T send them at holiday time. There's no accounting for all of your reader's travel plans and vacation times, but by looking at the calendar and using your brain, it's pretty simple to forecast that your bar graph will be flat lined for a day or two. In essence, your very important information will fall on deaf ears. Unopened ears, errr, emails, I mean. And those same people probably won't have time for you the first day back from holiday either. Really, everyone is playing catch up and it's way too easy to file things away for reading later. A later that often never happens.

So if you are one of those crazy seven or eight, sitting in front of the machine, designing that newsletter, when everyone else is out on holiday, look at your calendar. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Schedule that article/newsletter to go when there's actually someone there to receive it.

Thanks for stopping by.

Later, Cooper

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Editor's Note:  You can view Karen's original post here.