Taunton Art Association Spring Art Show

Scheduled for Sunday, May 7, 12-4 at the Williams Street facility, the Spring event will conclude. I have placed three paintings in the show, mostly for fun. My painting was limited this winter for one reason or another. Two of the three paintings are shown in the right column.

Origin of Bigfoot --- click below for link

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0y7N-q0XANgY2NQN0tuYjRsRHM

2016 Attleboro Arts Museum Annual Auction

The annual auction was held early in November. It is always a grand affair and always interesting to me to note what sells and for how much. As in the past several years I donated two pieces. They were displayed in the Online/Silent auction area. Both sold, one for $100, the other for $200. I think I now have somewhat of an idea of what the public likes and how much they pay. However, as for what judges deem as good, that's somewhat more of a mystery. My course at the Cape Cod show was very helpful, but judging is a subjective endeavor.

2016 Attleboro Arts Museum Members Exhibit

The Members' exhibit will have its awards reception from 2-4 pm on Saturday, December 10. I counted approximately 200 artists in the mix. Wow! I imagine there will be abut 300 pieces or more to judge. From the work I have seen of the New Bedford-based judge, I don't think this will be my breakthrough exhibit in Attleboro where I achieve a thing. There are a number of monetary-type awards to be handed out and some honorable mentions. My entries for Taunton earlier and this one are identical.

2016 Taunton Art Association Fall Art Show

I wasn't able to make the exhibit on Sunday for the judging results. Nevertheless, good news. I received a second place in acrylics for the Swamp Reflections painting. Oddly, this was not the one I would have chosen, even after I took the session on Judging at the seminar at Hyannis last weekend. It's (judging) subjective, of course.

Painting Update

I've mostly left painting for this fall and winter. During this time of year and through the fall, I search for photos and scenes which I feel I could use as subject material. It's the lighting and the fall colors which capture my attention. Then it's up to me to select the subject material and its composition in the scene to be painted.

The Taunton Art Association will be holding its Fall Art Show on September 30th. I've chosen two pieces for that. These are the ones:

The Attleboro Arts Museum is holding it annual charity auction early on Saturday, November 5th. I have already dropped off two paintings to be donated to the cause. They are:

Wild Men - A Status Update

I'm quite happy with the sales of Wild Men. They have exceeded my expectations. Of the several books I have written, its sales went out of the box the quickest. I have been able to direct market it to interested parties through Twitter. I also took the advice of Mark Coker of Smashwords to build up pre-sales prior to its release and that decision was a winner. On and off for the first 2-3 months, Wild Men was the best selling book in its category on Amazon. I was flabbergasted. The reviews, just three, have been very positive. All in all, I'm quite happy with its acceptance and success.

Wild Men Earns Second 5 Star Review Rating in Amazon by Readers!

Not much more to say but thank you!

A Couple New Paintings Posted to the Right

Wild Men Notches Best Seller Status on Amazon!

My new book, Wild Men, shows up as a Best Seller in its category from time to time on Amazon. I watched over time as searches on Amazon for the title 'Wild Men' showed my book fourth, then third, then first. I didn't think anything of it until I noticed the little orange banner with 'Best Seller' on it a few weeks back.

Amazon seems to be the best channel this time, better than Apple or Barnes & Noble. It's definitely selling at a faster pace than my best so far, the apocalyptic Zombie thriller, Flatline Virus, which is 4-star rated in the Apple iBookstore (28 reviews). Wild Men currently has one 5 star review on Amazon.

Another painting completed

I posted it to the right.

Paintings

To the right I have posted some of the paintings I've completed this winter thus far.

Wild Men

I am so pleased with sales of Wild Men. Sales are rapidly approaching levels in the time since the book's release in February 19th that are half of my best Zombie book's results for the first year.

The subject of men or beasts running around in the forests in the 1800s and early 1900s seems to be as compelling to others as it was to me. My first thought before the research was that a portion of these must be sightings or encounters with something that people did not know what they were seeing. Certainly many, maybe most, of the sightings were men who, for one reason or another, crazy or solitary-minded, sought the quiet and solitude of the forest. The time was right, i.e. the excitement of the wild and untamed west. I was most enthralled with how newspapers described the subjects of the stories. Some encounters or sightings were very likely those of beasts, e.g. man-like apes that roamed the uncivilized areas of North America and not just the Pacific Northwest. Witnesses may have exaggerated or imagined more than what they saw. Did they see claws, glowing eyes and the like? Thirteen foot beasts? We'll probably never really know.

Wild Men - Results thus far

So far, and it hasn't been a month since the book's release, but the response has been much better than I expected. Better even than Flatline Virus, my first novel and best seller, although it is too early to draw any solid conclusions. I have only the results from Amazon to gauge sales by. In the aforementioned case, Amazon provided about one-third of my total sales, the rest going to Apple at 50%, then Barnes & Noble, and the balance of the Smashwords channels. It would seem that I should be able to surpass it, although we all know that book sales will taper off.

At any case, I am quite satisfied with the result thus far. I am at 20% of Flatline Virus' total for the first year after only just under a month.

Wild Men

Early returns for 'Wild Men' show sales that are exceeding any of the other books I've authored. I guess this tells me that my new marketing methods are more effective, i.e. pre-ordering, more focused targeting of the interested readers, and the subject material being fact vs. fiction.