Send them out, forget about them and send out some more - keep on sending out!  Do not stop sending out!!!!  EVER EVER EVER!

Righto, now that I have that off my chest we can begin. 

Having been in this business for some 15/17 years,  I know the system well.  Unusually I know both sides of the story - submitting my work to a gallery and the otherside of being the gallery and looking through our submissions to select potential Artists work to exhibit.

So, as an artists first (as I am now solely) sending out is a part of my trade that I and every other business just has to do on a daily basis.  When I was on the dole and brassic (seems like yesterday!) I would work into my budget at least 15 letters for every two weeks.  Somehow I just seemed to know that unless people saw my work - how would I ever get to sell any?  

Today thankfully all is made so much easier with the internet and online artist submissions.  The very same etiquette remains the same...send out a nice letter - entitle your email 'Artists Submission for (whatever) gallery'.  Nice cover letter and I suggest about 6 VERY LOW RES images.  Low res is important because the gallery doesn't really want to be spending ages downloading yours when they have a gazillion things to be doing at once. 

Now, I am quite sure that I don't need to be saying this (as of course you are most savvy and worldy-wise) but there are many very basic things that one can so easily forget (things that can blow your chance out of the water in an instant) these are:  Your full name, address (if sending out) email and telephone number - I know I know but invariably when I had my gallery it would always be the artists we liked that put no blinking contact details in - I promise you, this is the most annoying thing to a gallery. 

Secondly, entitle your jpgs with at least your name.  If you are sending out proper (eg mailing) give dimensions of works in cm - (length by width is standard).  Also include the medium (acrylic, watercolour, etc etc) and also what your work is on (canvas, paper, board, etc etc)  So for example, I would write:

'Doggies Day Out'

Mixed Media on paper (Cut & Collage)

cm x cm

next to my print out or in my email - making sure the gallery knows what your painting is called and what its made of.

Lastly, I would encourage you to give some sort of indication of pricing - what did you sell your last work for?  You might like to say something like:

I am happy to discuss the pricing of my works with you.  For your reference, my most recent sales have been around the £...mark.   (MAKE SURE YOU LET THEM KNOW THAT THIS IS YOUR PRICE TO THE CLIENT - NOT YOUR ARTIST PRICE)

At the risk of sounding like 'Mrs Minus' I would now encourage you not to expect a reply - or only one with your submission in it.  Its horrid I know but if you expect it and see it as an everyday part of your trade it gets easier and easier.  I would heavily suggest that you send out an SAE if you are mailing and if you are emailing, ask at the bottom of your email for a quick line to 'confirm that they have received your submission'.

Its boring, hard and thankless but its so important.  Keep going - some of my best shows have been gained this way.