August 2008
The Untapped Source Newsletter topics
 
1.) Moved into new office
2.) New 44” Image Prograf 8100 Printer
3.) Goals to become THE artist resource site
4.) More Paper Types For Artist Buy Program
5.) We’ve added fully integrated Pay Pal Payment Method
6.) Search Engine Optimization Update
7.) Payment Options
8.) Being On The Artist Page
 
1.) We’ve moved into our new office and are putting the finishing touches on everything. Not much else on this, but we’ll be adding pictures of the new office, along with the different surfaces we print on to the site on the “About” page soon.
 
2.) We’ve acquired a new 44” Image Prograf Canon Line Printer (best printer on the market, 12 inks, photo/matte black inks…amazingly fast and accurate)
           
+Let us know if you want new prints larger than 24” width (smallest dimension), the artist shopping cart should be available within a month or so, but we have been taking orders through email and using paypal as a payment system. Give us a shout if you need any prints of your own work…
 
+We’re still not sure if we’ll be offering anything larger than 24” in width for general purchase through the site, but with the Artist Buy Program (where you would purchase your own work through the Artist Access Center and you’re personal shopping cart) you’ll be able to purchase whatever you need and forward that onto your customer, which in the end, will result in more profit for you and a signed and numbered print (if you so chose) for the buyer. Developing relationships with clients is very important in our experience while selling our own works (we’re all artists working for The Untapped Source by the way, if you didn’t know.
 
3.) In staying unique, we’re moving forward with our ideals to be the first true “Artist Resource Site”…there are plenty of social art networks…we want to help you with services. Let us know what you feel would be useful.
 
4.) We’ll be adding more paper types for the artist buy program (where you buy your own prints for much lower than retail prices!)…please let us know if you have any media types you would like to see in our repertoire and we’ll look into it.…we’ll also have the ability to do custom sizes not available on our site…we want to be as accommodating as possible to satisfy your printing needs.
 
5.) PayPal has of course been added for convenience. It will also be included in the your personal Artist Shopping Cart system.
 
6.) We’re neck deep in our second month of SEO work. This work consists mainly of rewriting the site, and working hard to get us up high in organic Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. rankings. This is being done in house by one of our web design team, specifically, Mike. We’re gonna be making blog features for all of you to take advantage of, but it’s always helpful if you have other blogs to mention The Untapped Source.
 
7.) Payment Options for print sales note
International Certified Checks
    -Currently we get charged $6.00 USD per certified bank check we send out of the continental United States. We don’t charge you guys anything for that. The point behind mentioning it is this…we’ll never charge you anything to be on The Untapped Source web gallery pages (check fees, web fees, etc…) unless we have the proper services and value in place to do so (as is, we’re quite a ways off from our goals, which are pretty lofty). On that note, let us know of any services you feel would be useful and we’ll work on implementing them. We want to be a valuable, professional, artist service center for custom, high end printing and web space. All of you will always have a place with us, not matter
 
8.) Being on the Artists page:
-In order to be on the artist page of The Untapped Source Gallery, you need to have submitted and have up at least 5 works in your gallery. The page is too cluttered at the moment with artists showing 1 or 2 works. Your work will remain in the gallery, your personal page will remain active as well, but there will be no link to you in the Artist Page. We have to do this at this point, sorry if this is objectionable to any of you.
 
 
The Future:
I hope you all appreciate what The Untapped Source is trying to achieve. I also hope each and every one of you that is reading this knows how honored we are to have your work in The Untapped Source Gallery. It’s everyone’s site, so as usual, we’re always willing to listen to any ideas you may have. Nearly everything implemented so far has been a suggestion by one of the artists in the gallery, so your thoughts are truly taken into consideration…of that you can be assured.
 
I hope you are all well personally, and as always, we look forward to see more of all of your works!
 
Best Regards,
 
Drew Grundfor
Artist/Admin/Founder
The Untapped Source