Making a Living: How to Craft Your Business by Sophie Rochester
| Making a Living: How to Craft Your Business by Sophie Rochester | |
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| Category: Crafts | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: If you've ever thought about turning your crafting hobby into a business you MUST read this book. If you go ahead, everything you need to think about is here. On the other hand, it might persuade you to keep your crafting as a hobby. Highly recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 192 | Date: December 2021 |
| Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1529393934 | |
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Starting a creative business has never been easier.
If not now, when?
I know that I'm not alone in having wondered whether or not I could turn my hobby into a business. There's a lot of motivation to do so: I make more items than we can sensibly use and there are a lot of people who have been delighted to accept what I make as gifts. Selling would offset the costs, which can be quite considerable and it could be fun to do, couldn't it? But where to start? What do I need to think about? Well, the first thing anyone who is considering turning a crafting hobby into a business should do is to read Making a Living.
This is real, hands-on advice, backed by stories from people who have made the leap from crafter to entrepreneur. They're from a good range of skills, too: jewellery makers, artists, printmakers, basket weavers, terrarium makers and ceramicists, to name a few and this is all backed by Sophie Rochester's wide-ranging knowledge. She's the founder of Yodomo, the online learning platform for arts and crafts. (If you're wondering if this book is essentially just an advert for Yodomo - don't worry, it isn't.)
There are now more ways than ever before to reach customers and sell - whether you're selling hand-made products which you've created or running courses and workshops to teach other people your skills. The snag is, of course, that if you want to do this properly (and can there be any other way?) then you have to become a digital content specialist, online marketer, e-commerce expert, accountant and manager - and find the time to produce the goods to sell. Rochester takes you through it all and for a relatively short book, there's a great deal of detail that you can use. You might find that you'll need to delve further into some areas, but at least you'll be aware of the need to have public liability insurance or of the intricacies of intellectual property law as well as many other things. I was particularly impressed by the advice on pricing, which is an area that has always rather frightened me - I have a tendency to undervalue what I produce.
Perhaps the most important section of the book is the part where Rochester helps you to decide exactly why you want to turn your hobby into a business and this convinced me that I will never turn my hobby into a business. I've already done that once: reviewing has spoiled reading for me. Turning any hobby into a business risks diminution of pleasure because you have a need to prioritise making money. My need is for validation and this is why I donate what I make to Oxfam: it gives me great pleasure to see the substantial amount of money they earn from what I make. Making a Living clarified in my own mind that I was doing the right thing.
I'd like to thank the publishers for making a copy of the book available to the Bookbag.
If you'd like to take the possibility further, we can also recommend:
Success before Start-Up: How to prepare for business, avoid mistakes, succeed by Steve Bridger
Make it Happen: The Prince's Trust Guide to Starting Your Own Business by The Prince's Trust
Start It Up: Why Running Your Own Business is Easier Than You Think by Luke Johnson
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