So, what have I been doing? I have been taking a class on the business side of art called: GYST (Get your shit together) and is offered By the Pasadena, CA non-profit Side Street Project http://www.sidestreet.org/ in conjunction with the owner of GYST-Ink, which makes organizational software for visual artists. This is a great class, and I would reccommend it to anyone in the visual art industry to get a perspective of the modern practices of the business. In a class disscussing types of venues that can be used to exhibit artist's work, we came 'round to the discussion of Vanity galleries. They offer a "Pay-to-Play" situation. I have had experience with that and shared my account with the class. Well since then, GYST-Ink has added a new blog to their website about bad galleries and art dealers to stay away from. They asked me to write my account down and it has been published as the first article for this blog.
You can read it here: http://gyst-ink.com/blog/?p=177
For any artists out there, I would definately reccommend check out both Gyst's website and sidestreet project's. Even if you don't take a class, they both offer informative articles and resources to help you out.