The Craft Business Handbook

Wish you could turn your talent for making lovely things into cash? Bored of the 9 to 5 and dreaming of starting your own crafty business, but not sure where to start? Then this is the book for you ! The Craft Business Handbook has ALL the information you need to get started making money from your crafts - NOW ! From setting up as a proper business, producing and pricing your goods for maximum sales and profit, to the various options for selling online, at craft fairs, trade shows and getting your products into retailers, right through to gaining magazine coverage, promoting your business online and managing your business as it grows, this is THE essential guide for any would-be crafty entrepreneur! Whether you're just considering getting started with a crafty business idea, or already selling your wares and looking for ways to grow your business ( think sales reps, fulfillment houses and more!), this handy book - written by craft business expert Alison McNicol - shares tons of insider tips, practical information, and shows how you too can achieve Craft Business success! PLUS - some of the most successful crafty business people around share their stories - how they started and grew their successful craft businesses - prepare to be inspired with in-depth interviews from some of your favorite crafty entrepreneurs around! About The Author Alison McNicol is a serial crafty entrepreneur who has launched several successful craft businesses, selling her products in stores worldwide. She is also the author of several successful craft and craft business books, and founder of The Craft Business Community.com, an online community that provides resources and networking opportunities for crafty entrepreneurs from all over the world. Alison is also author of Craft Business Heroes: How We Did It ( 30 Creative Entrepreneurs Share the Secrets of Their Success)- a companion book to the Craft Business Handbook, featuring 30 more interviews from leading craft entrrepreneurs - Amy Butler, Amy Karol, Sublime Stitching's Jenny Hart, Subversive Cross Stitch founder Julie Jackson and tons more !

If you want to turn your hobby into a money-making venture or improve your current sales, you will benefit from the dozens of tips inside this book.

Addresses all aspects of turning a creative interest into a profitable business, covering business planning, licensing, budgeting, time management, and legal issues.

The Craft Brewing Handbook: A Practical Guide to Running a Successful Craft Brewery covers the practical and technical aspects required to set up and grow a successful craft brewing business. With coverage of equipment options, raw material choice, the brewing process, recipe development and beer styles, packaging, quality assurance and quality control, sensory evaluation, common faults in beer, basic analyses, and strategies to minimize utilities, such as water and energy, this book is a one-stop shop for the aspiring brewer. The craft brewing sector has grown significantly around the world over the past decade. Many new breweries are technically naïve and have a thirst for knowledge. This book not only covers how to maximize the chances of getting production right the first time, it also deals with the inevitable problems that arise and what to do about them. Focuses on the practical aspects of craft brewing Features chapters on equipment choice, QA/QC and analyses, and beer styles Provides insights into successful breweries around the globe

Storytelling has come of age in the business world. Today, many of the most successful companies use storytelling as a leadership tool. At Nike, all senior executives are designated "corporate storytellers." 3M banned bullet points years ago and replaced them with a process of writing "strategic narratives." Procter Gamble hired Hollywood directors to teach its executives storytelling techniques. Some forward-thinking business schools have even added storytelling courses to their management curriculum. The reason for this is simple: Stories have the ability to engage an audience the way logic and bullet points alone never could. Whether you are trying to communicate a vision, sell an idea, or inspire commitment, storytelling is a powerful business tool that can mean the difference between mediocre results and phenomenal success. Lead with a Story contains both ready-to-use stories and how-to guidance for readers looking to craft their own. Designed for a wide variety of business challenges, the book shows how narrative can help: * Define culture and values * Engender creativity and innovation * Foster collaboration and build relationships * Provide coaching and feedback * Lead change * And more Whether in a speech or a memo, communicated to one person or a thousand, storytelling is an essential skill for success. Complete with examples from companies like Kellogg's, Merrill-Lynch, Procter Gamble, National Car Rental, Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut, and more, this practical resource gives readers the guidance they need to deliver stories to stunning effect.

With over 400,000 sellers on Etsy, how can you make YOUR shop stand out and increase your sales? This is a key question for many crafters and artists who are selling online these days. Now here are all the answers and much more from author and Etsy seller Derrick Sutton. Based on Sutton's self-published guide, and drawn from his practical experience, you will learn how to boost your Etsy sales, attract more customers, and expand your online presence. He shares his proven online sales and marketing knowledge in an easily accessible format, complete with simple actions steps at the end of each chapter. Learn how to completely optimize your Etsy shop, website, or blog, and much more. Some of the topics covered include: -How to design a catchy Etsy banner -How to gain an instant analysis of your shop and where you need to focus your efforts -A crash course on photographing your items and key mistakes to avoid class -Fail-safe copywriting secrets -How to take advantage of Etsy's forums, Treasury, and more -The effective way to use Facebook and Twitter, and why so many people get it wrong A perfect gift for entrepreneurial artists, How to Sell Your Crafts Online offers crafters practical internet marketing techniques from an experienced Etsy seller that will pave the way for a profitable online business! Praise for Derrick Sutton's e-Guide Crafting Success: "This is really a great guide through the mind-boggling thicket of internet selling. It's so easy to follow and straight forward..." --- Etsy seller jenniferwhitmer "I definitely saw a difference in my sales after doing many of the things suggested." --- Etsy seller mishmishmarket "A true wealth of useful information." --- Etsy seller helixelemental "[The steps are] easily presented, so making changes to your shop can be done instantly as you are reading." -- Licky Drake, HappyGoLicky Custom Silver Jewelry "A tremendous amount of information. I learned more from [this book] than from anything I have purchased in five years." --- Etsy seller HandpaintedGifts

Here is an intimate and revealing look at how men and women in a wide variety of creative endeavours live their lives and manage their businesses. Join them and Barbara in this book's unique 'networking sessions' -- you will feel like you are right in the room with them. You will benefit greatly from their experience in how to find enough space at home for business, make changes forced by new technology, market with greater success, and manage stress. You will also learn how to use computer technology and specific software programs to more effectively manage your business, design and market products, create professional printed materials and much more.

Essays from twenty-seven leading book editors: “Honest and unflinching accounts from publishing insiders . . . a valuable primer on the field.” —Publishers Weekly Editing is an invisible art in which the very best work goes undetected. Editors strive to create books that are enlightening, seamless, and pleasurable to read, all while giving credit to the author. This makes it all the more difficult to truly understand the range of roles they inhabit while shepherding a project from concept to publication. What Editors Do gathers essays from twenty-seven leading figures in book publishing about their work. Representing both large houses and small, and encompassing trade, textbook, academic, and children’s publishing, the contributors make the case for why editing remains a vital function to writers—and readers—everywhere. Ironically for an industry built on words, there has been a scarcity of written guidance on how to approach the work of editing. Serving as a compendium of professional advice and a portrait of what goes on behind the scenes, this book sheds light on how editors acquire books, what constitutes a strong author-editor relationship, and the editor’s vital role at each stage of the publishing process—a role that extends far beyond marking up the author’s text. This collection treats editing as both art and craft, and also as a career. It explores how editors balance passion against the economic realities of publishing—and shows why, in the face of a rapidly changing publishing landscape, editors are more important than ever. “Authoritative, entertaining, and informative.” —Copyediting

It's taken nearly 40 years, but at last craft distilling is beginning to catch up with microbrewing and artisan cidermaking. For far too long, official red tape and perceived high costs have been a barrier to all but the hardiest entrepreneurs - but now the dam has broken and new and exciting gins, whiskies, apple brandies and vodkas are being made all over the country. If you've ever dreamed of firing up a gleaming copper pot-still of your very own but have found the maze of customs and European regulations just too daunting, expert Ted Bruning lays them all bare and brings your vision within reach.