Triple stripe dulcimers nearly done!
Good morning, Folkcraft supporters!
Wow - we're getting close on these triple-stripe dulcimers. All four of them will be completed by next week's newsletter.
They're made of curly cherry (which is gorgeous all by itself), but we've taken it a step further, and added triple stripes in the fretboard and in the back. Two stripes of purpleheart, with a stripe of cherry in the middle. Check out these photos (the dulcimers are still in the lacquer area - so they're not perfect - yet):
All four of these dulcimers are "really close" to ready. They'll be on the website by next week's newsletter, and I'll let you see them "finished" at that time.
I've had three dulcimer players contact me with a concern that they had about DulcimerDownloads.com. The players were worried that I was selling downloads of various artists' music, and "how will the artists get paid". That's GREAT that y'all are thinking about the rights (and wallets) of musicians like Bing Futch, Aaron O'Rourke, Larry Conger, and all the rest.
No worries, though. I keep track of all sales (and via an app, the artists can, too) at DulcimerDownloads.com, and I make a monthly payment for music sold through the website. I suppose it would be possible to sell music that I'm not authorized to sell, but that would be both wrong and illegal. The artists we represent at DulcimerDownloads.com are my friends. They've given me permission to sell their music for them (just like for the hard-copy books we sell at Folkcraft.com) and they happily cash the royalty checks!
Now you know.
And for the last segment of this email, could I ask for a favor? Our "organic" (which is the fancy word for "not paid for via advertising") search results at Google.com are becoming more reliant on customer reviews. We've added product reviews to Folkcraft.com, but Google also counts the reviews that THEY collect at Google.com. The more (quality) reviews we have, the more likely it is that our website will show up in their search results.
So, if you have a few extra moments, please consider heading to Google.com, doing a search for "Folkcraft Instruments", and finding the "write a review" button. Include a photo if you like, but it isn't necessary. I've included a screen shot (above) that has the "write a review" button circled in green. This doesn't work well in phone-based browsers, but seems to work great for both desktop and tablet browsers.
That's all for this week - thank you for reading, and thank you for your help with the Google reviews!
Sincerely,
Richard Ash