The start of the 2012-2013 club season is the perfect time to bring you up to date on our progress since launch and alert you to some recent tweaks. First, we’re proud to say that this six-month old fledgling internet publication has already been viewed more than 21,000 times by readers in 64 countries. Our photo essay on the June 2012 overnight Draw-a-Thon garnered over 1500 views in just the first 24 hours after it was published. We’re getting referrals from all the major search engines (Google, Yahoo & Bing), plus Facebook, Twitter and Salmagundi’s weekly Patron Mail sends and our readers have been clicking through to all the links in our posts. Most importantly, we’re able to get the news out as it happens … no interminable delays as was the case with the earlier print versions.

What this means to you: To share this extraordinary resource with all Salmagundi members, we’ve created Around Town, On the Trail and the Bulletin Board. The posts in these sections contain listings of upcoming gallery exhibitions, open shows, art fairs, workshops and other events involving members taking place outside the four walls of the club. Getting the word out to fellow Salmagundians and friends has never been easier and while this won’t replace your current publicity efforts, it will supplement them in a huge way.

Deadlines: There are no concrete deadlines in the conventional sense. A blog post never goes to the printer and can always be updated, however the time of publication becomes an ersatz deadline. Why? Upon publication the post, with all its content, is immediately emailed out to blog subscribers (sign up on any blog page), after which links are uploaded to the SCNY Facebook page and Twitter feed. Finally the post is referenced by another link in the weekly Patron Mail email from the club. Together with additional referrals from search engines and various other online sources, a post can have an ultimate reach approaching 2000 views. Additional (late) listings can be edited in later but they won’t achieve the same exposure as those in that initial publication blast.

So what’s the deadline? After chomping on the pencil for a bit we’ve come to the conclusion that the best date to publish a given month’s listings is the 25th of the previous month. This means October’s Around Town and On the Trail listings will be published on September 25th. November’s posts will be published on October 25th, etc. Get your listing to us by the 25th and it will be included in the blast. Miss the deadline? Send it to us anyway and we’ll edit it into the post. When it comes to publicity, every little bit helps. Items for the Bulletin Board are published individually as we receive them and therefore have no deadline.

A word about TAGGED: Our goal is to have photos of all 850 members published within 2 years. Impossible? perhaps …. but we’re going to give it our best try. Since we’re obviously not going to be able to cover every single event around the world, we need everyone to pitch in by sending us their own photos, especially those that are way out on the trail.

Covering your event: We really do want to cover as many events as possible in person and get those photos published but if you don’t invite us, we might not find out on our own (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), so please keep us in the loop.

THE FINE PRINT: Click on About/Submissions in the index on the top or right hand column of the page and it’s all spelled out.

Thank You! It’s been quite an adventure thus far and getting more exciting each day. If you’re interested in working with us on The Salmagundian, just drop us a line: thesalmagundian@verizon.net

Have a wonderful year and I’ll see you at #47, around town or on the trail.