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About The Book
Turn your creativity into a business
You have the creative skills. You have ideas. Perhaps you are already making and selling things — or perhaps you are wondering whether your creative passion could become a business.
How to Build a Craft Business is a practical, no-nonsense guide designed to help you make that step.
Drawing on 45 years of experience, the book takes a pragmatic, ‘learning-by-doing’ approach to building a craft business. It focuses on the practical realities of turning creative ideas and skills into products that people want to buy — and developing those products into a sustainable business.
Whether you are just starting out or looking to take an existing craft business further, this book provides practical guidance, useful ideas and real-world experience to help you move from making to making it work.
Who Is This Book For?
This book is for makers, creatives and handmade sellers who want to build a business around what they create.
It’s particularly useful if you:
✓ Have a craft idea and want to turn it into a business
✓ Are starting a handmade or creative business
✓ Already sell your work but want to develop it further
✓ Want to understand the business side of being a maker
✓ Need a more practical approach to pricing, marketing and selling
✓ Want to turn your creative skills into a commercially viable business
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PRACTICAL & PRAGMATIC
Real-world advice that actually works
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LEARN BY DOING
A hands-on approach to build your business
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45 YEARS EXPERIENCE
Practical knowledge you can trust and apply
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MADE FOR MAKERS
For anyone who wants to turn their craft into a business
What does each chapter of this book cover?
Chapter 1 sets the scene for how you look at your business and how you should approach it. Entrepreneurship or Enterprise? By asking this question, you can save yourself a great deal of time and energy. Are you seeking new markets, which is an entrepreneurial approach? Or are you creating an enterprise which will promote your unique work?
Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the branding, marketing, sales, and digital/social media which should be at the centre of your business. These chapters outline your options, so that you can think carefully about how you will market your company, then use the simple systems this book offers in order to sell your product.
Chapter 4 covers the legal structure and framework of your business. It lays out all the options you have around being a sole trader, partnership or limited company, and it documents your most important obligations.
Chapter 5 explains the detail of registering and defending your intellectual property rights. You need to understand how to formally record your designs and products so that you can prove they are yours and can protect them from people who might try to copy your work.
Chapter 6 discusses the finances of your business and the elements you need to master. These include creating a portfolio of jobs to keep the money coming in, handling sales and purchases, bookkeeping, banking, getting support and raising extra funding.
Chapter 7 completes the book with three case studies of successful and inspirational artist-craftspeople.
Finally, I include a short summary of what to do next and a list of useful books, as well as two worksheets and a month-by-month financial to do list.
