Craft Business Reviews

The Craft Business Handbook by Alison McNicol

Written by the owner of the Stitch Club franchise and the Sew Easy sewing kits both aimed at teaching children to sew Alison shares her knowledge of the craft industry to help crafters turn their hobby into a business.

It takes you through the key steps involved in planning and setting up a business to help you decide what you want to sell and how you plan to sell it.   The first chapter gets you thinking about what you want from the business and what your personal goals are, there are a few exercises to work through to help you work out exactly what you want from a business. The following chapters then cover branding, the legal/tax requirements when setting up a business, creating a business plan, pricing, PR & marketing, social networking and selling.

The book does go into quite a lot of detail and it provides the relevant information for the US as well as the UK when it comes to things like tax, company formation, trademarks etc.  Although it’s worth noting the UK info is under the US info so it’s best to skip straight to that to avoid confusion. 

I love the exercises throughout the book that really get you thinking your business idea through; you can fill them out in the book as you go and then you have all your ideas in one place.   This book is a fact packed guide for someone thinking of setting up a craft business.   I enjoyed reading it and I wish I’d had a guide like this to hand when I first started out.

This book is published by Kyle Craig and can be purchased here.

Craft Business Heroes by Alison McNicol

This book is a companion to the Craft Business Handbook.  At the end of the Handbook you will find a few interviews with popular crafts people, Alison interviewed several people for the book and decided that the interviews were so useful they merited a book of their own.

There are 30 interviews in this book and they are split down by section of the craft industry: Jewellery, Paper Goods, Homewares, Sewing and Fashion/Accessories. The interviews tell you about each business, how it came about, what lessons the crafts people have learnt along the way and sharing their top tips for business success.  Some of the businesses featured are from the UK and some from the US.

The interview questions cover areas such as trade shows, selling direct v selling wholesale, managing the finances, business expansion, what advice they can pass onto others.  It might be tempting to skip straight to the businesses in your section of the industry but there is a lot to be learnt from the other interviews too. Some of the interviews are followed with a useful top 10 tips list.

This book makes a great companion to the handbook, you can’t fail to be inspired by some of the stories in there and you can pick up many useful tips.

This book is published by Kyle Craig and can be purchased here.

GIVEAWAY

The author is setting up a Craft Business Community on Facebook, which will allow people to network with other businesses as well as pick up tips and advice.   Plus we are giving away 5 sets of these fantastic books in our giveaway so make sure you check back on Wednesday for details of how to enter.