Friday, June 20, 2008

Crafting Your Business: Start & Run a Craft Business

Time for another book review! This time, I'm reviewing Start and Run a Craft Business, by William G. Haynes (published by Self-Counsel Press, 2001).



This book is another one of my favorites. It is clearly written, with lots of solid, sensible advice from the author, who has run his own craft business since 1976. This book covers a range of topics, including setting prices, doing wholesale v.s. retail sales, and record-keeping. It also includes a CD-ROM with useful forms to help you plan how to start your business and keep it running smoothly.

One of the biggest strengths of this book is that it goes into the various aspects of planning a business in much more depth than many other books on this subject. For example, one of the forms on the CD-ROM, called "Forecasting the Future," walks you through a series of questions designed to get you thinking about factors that might affect your business. For example, what if that fabulous printmaking paper you've been using, and completely depend upon, is suddenly discontinued? What if your usual supplier for that really-hard-to-get-ahold-of supply goes out of business? By thinking ahead about issues like that, you can be prepared for whatever comes up.

All in all, a very useful book for us artsy-type people who are looking for ways to get our work out into the world.

1 comment:

Acornmoon said...

The book looks interesting, depending on external sources is always tricky. Lots of bookbinders I know use a leather pairing machine which uses old fashioned razor blades, now out of fashion and getting harder to find.