World Wide Art Books Inc.

I received an unsolicited email (see it after my comment) from World Wide Art Books Inc. This company publishes art books under the titles International Contemporary Masters, Current Masters and Important World Artists. This publisher “selects” and “approves” artists for their books mainly by sending unsolicited emails.
In the email below, WWAB claimed they contacted me previously and they saw my artwork on a website for an artist organization that I am a member of which both claims are false. For one, I never received an email from WWAB in the past. And second, only my name is on the artist organization’s website, no images or links to images of my artwork exists on the artist organization’s website. Matter of fact, I don’t have a website or an Instagram account yet. Of course this raised a red flag for me so I checked out their website and it indicates an artist has to pay a participation fee of $1385 for just 1 page, up to $9800 for the front cover. I also researched Metropolitan Art Museum in Las Vegas, where WWAB claims artists featured in their publications are invited to exhibit, and this “museum” is actually a vanity gallery on the 2nd floor of a tourist mall on the Vegas strip.
If you receive an email from WWAB, don’t respond, just immediately delete it and block the wwabs.us domain so you won’t receive any more emails from WWAB. Also, I wouldn’t create a portfolio on their artavita.com website because they probably use it to find new victims to scam.

As mentioned above, here’s the email I received:

Dear [Artist’s Name]

I have contacted you in the past about inclusion in our publication but I have not heard back from you. Have you received my message?
I am pasting it below again. I would appreciate if you let me know.

I came across your art though the [the name of place where artist name came from] and I liked it so I would like to invite you to submit your portfolio for inclusion in Current Masters, International Contemporary Masters and Important World Artists three leading juried annual art publications presenting noteworthy artists and photographers from all over the world.

We have a large distribution and the purpose of the book is to promote the artists in it. Besides delivering it for free to galleries, art collectors, museums, etc. we distribute free copies to all visitors and exhibitors in art shows that we participate, such as Spectrum-Red Dot in Miami, Art Expo New York. Only artists who are up to the standards of our art committee are selected.

As a result, the artists in our books are approached by many galleries to exhibit their art.

Please note that inclusion in the books is not free. Approved artists must pay a participation fee which varies according to the number of pages of the artist’s presentation.
Galleries, agencies and groups of 2 or more artists receive special discounts.

Artists appearing in the book are invited to participate in the exhibition organized by WWAB at the Metropolitan Art Museum in Las Vegas, dedicated to each new volume.

You can review our previous books on our site wwab.us (to visit the website you can type the address in your browser)
If you are interested, I can send you detailed information.
We also have a tremendous art portal, artavita.com where artists can create their portfolios for free and sell their art directly to their clients, paying no commissions to anyone! Regardless of inclusion in the books, you can use artavita for your free portfolio and art announcements.

Thanks for reading,

Matt Benson — Assistant Curator
E-mail matt@wwab.us

World Wide Art Books Inc.
5533 Cathedral Oaks Road
Santa Barbara, CA 93111
United States
Tell 805 770 5136 and 5137

*World Wide Art Books was established in 1997 and we have represented and promoted thousands of artists.
In BBB (Better Business Bureau) which is an organization providing information for every company in the US we are A+ without one single complain all these years.
You can find the link on our website.
If you click on it, you will find all the information about our company.

10 comments
  • Anonymous

    Hi [Artist’s Name],

    I sent you a message a few weeks ago about participation in our projects. Did you receive it? I am pasting it here as well. I would appreciate if you let me know.

    All the best

    Diana Taylor

    I saw your work online and I liked it so I would like to invite you to participate in our art projects.

    Our projects are the following:

    1. Participation in major art fairs, such as Artexpo New York, Spectrum – Red Dot Miami during Miami Art Basel Week in December and Art San Diego.

    2. Promotion of artists through our books: International Contemporary Masters, Current Masters and Important World Artists, three leading juried annual art anthologies presenting noteworthy artists and photographers from all over the world. All these books are distributed ONLY for Free and the artists in them can also get up to 50 copies for free so they can offer them to whoever they want and promote their work. For more information, and to see the digital version of past publications, go to wwab.us.

    3. World Wide Art Online Art Magazine, again a magazine that presents noteworthy artists and photographers from all over the world.

    The magazine is only online and not in print and all the promotion is online through social media and large email campaigns.

    4. Our online art gallery Artavita. Here artists and galleries can create their own portfolios, either completely free (up to 5 works), or for a small subscription of $6 a month for a Featured Artist or Featured Gallery portfolio with an unlimited number of works, a special directory, and random featuring on the home page of the website. Artavita is a very large and extensively visited website with over 20,000 members. You can sign up by going directly to artavita.com.

    5. A brand new project – we offer it online right now when all artists need to show their works as all shows have been cancelled: a 3D walkthrough online gallery where artists can select the size of the space they want and create an impressive virtual exhibition, inviting their clients and art fans to visit it and view the art as in a virtual gallery and buy art directly from artists. The artists can promote their show through social media and email campaigns or any way they see fit.

    Please note. Our projects are not free. Artists who want to apply will be juried and if they are approved, they have to pay for the number of pages they want in the books or magazines, for the wall space they need in art fairs and for virtual art exhibitions.

    If you want more information about participation and costs for our projects and applications, please let me know.

    Thanks for reading!

    Judy – Diana Taylor – Assistant Curator

    diana@wwab.us

    World Wide Art Books Inc. website: wwab.us and artavita.com

    5533 Cathedral Oaks Road

    Santa Barbara, CA 93111

    United States

    Tell 805 770 5136 and 5137

    Business Established in November 1998

    Up to now we have released over 35 titles of books, a lot of online magazines, hundreds of art shows and we are rated as A+ Accredited Business in BBB

  • Anonymous

    I spoke with the curator of these books while exhibiting at ARTExpo NYC 2021. I picked up three books from the gallery booth where they were stacked and given away for no charge, and saw many fairgoers walking around with them. The printing and layout were good. This is a legit pay to publish business.

  • Colten Rowland

    Metropolitan Gallery in Las Vegas is not a vanity gallery. A vanity gallery is a gallery that is supported and hosts the work of a single artist and uses the artists name to represent the gallery and the work in it. The metropolitan gallery hosts the work of many artists from all over the world. World Wide Art Books offers a legitimate service for artists to get their work published in a physical publication. This lays the groundwork for the artists history. All legitimate works of art have a history of physical printed publication. The publishing of books costs money. The graphic design work, the writing, the printing, the binding and transport of the physical final product (the books) costs money in time, labor, materials and other resources. These are necessary steps to go through in order to make a fine art publication necessary.

  • Ali

    I too almost fell for this as I thought it might help promote my work but after seeing their outrageous request for the fee of one pic, I turned them down.

  • Crystal

    I’ve received so many email attempts from them in the past. I entertained the idea at first and asked questions about pricing and who the books get sent to. Immediately after receiving the pricing information, I declined the offer and called out the rep for taking advantage of artists. That same rep continued to email me for years until I sent a very curt email instructing them to remove me from their mailing list.

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