Kelly Rand - Handmade to Sell: Hello Crafts Guide to Owning, Running, and Growing Your Crafty Biz

Copyright 2012 by Hello Craft

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Potter Craft, an imprint of the Crown
Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.pottercraft.com
www.crownpublishing.com

POTTER CRAFT and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Handmade to sell : Hello Crafts guide to owning, running, and growing your crafty biz / by Kelly Rand; with Christine Ernest [et al.]; illustrations by Jaime Zollars 1 [edition].
p. cm.

Includes index.

1. SellingHandicraft. 2. HandicraftMarketing.
3. Small businessManagement.

HF5439.H27 R37 2012

2011046776

eISBN: 978-0-307-58711-4

Photography credits: ,m, n, o, p, courtesy Hello Craft

Illustrations by Jaime Zollars
Cover design by Jenny Kraemer
Cover illustration by Jaime Zollars

v3.1

For those who want to make something awesome

Hello Craft was born one evening at a restaurant, over much laughter. Many thanks go to Tina Seamonster for being there at the beginning and for her continued support as a member of Hello Crafts board of directors. Hello Craft wouldnt be what it is without Tina and the other wonderful and dedicated members of our board. Thank you.

Much thanks to Kate McKean for her tireless support, enthusiasm, and meaningful advice. Also, thank you to our editors and all the wonderful people at Potter Craft.

And, most important, thank you to our dear friends and families, who helped see us through the process of writing this book. Much love and gratitude.

Now go make something awesome.

ello! Were so excited to have you here! We four crafters and craft fair organizers share a love of making, and we hope youll find this book to be chock full of useful information on how you can start, grow, and sustain your awesome crafty business. Having been involved in the handmade community for, well, basically for our whole lives, as well as having taken part in the founding of Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts Fair, we know that this handmade thing is a big deal.

Hello Craft, formed in 2008, is a 501(c)6 nonprofit trade association dedicated to the advancement of independent crafters and the handmade movement as well as to empowering small-business owners and educating the public on the benefits of buying handmade. These basic tenets are all meant to support the handmade community and to reinforce one another. We provide accessible crafting opportunities by bringing our Make Something Awesome Area to various events around the country, bringing together crafters who want to share their love of making with the public, who are given the opportunity to try different craft projects and learn the joys of making.

Hello Craft also highlights the benefits of buying handmade by producing indie craft markets such as Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts Fair and the Show of Awesome. These markets help support the members of the handmade community and provide unique shopping environments where consumers can purchase handmade goods and interact directly with the makers.

The biggest focus of Hello Craft is the advancement of independent makers and the empowerment of small-business owners. Everyone seems to be clamoring for the secrets of success for starting and growing a crafty business. DIYers want to make and sell, and consumers want unique and personal productsnot the same mass-produced things everyone else has. Hello Craft aims to bring makers and consumers together.

There hasnt been a whole lot of business information out there that speaks to crafters. Sure, there are the Small Business Administration and the Chamber of Commerce, but are you asleep yet? We know that crafters are different. Were DIY to the core, and no amount of Charlie Brown teacher-speak is gonna make it through. But you know what? We could all use a dose of sound business advice. For that reason, Hello Craft produced the very first Summit of Awesome in Washington, DC, in 2009. This three-day conference is aimed at empowering crafters to become small-business owners and to teach the joys of making. Successful crafty folks came to talk about their experiences. Sessions ranged from a seminar on product development to one titled The Ins and Outs of Wholesale. The second annual Summit of Awesome took place in Portland, Oregon, and the third in Baltimore, Maryland, and each time the summit improved, getting more awesome from year to year. Because crafters are the presenters, it all makes sense to the crafters who attend.

With the continued success of the Summit of Awesome and with more and more people looking for crafty business information, the next logical step was for us to boil down the summit into portable book form. So here it is: the Summit of Awesome in paperback. From this book, youll learn from crafty pioneers who have come before. And its all in language you can understand. Were bringing the crafty business knowledge to the people. (Or at least to the people who buy this book!)

We are your people. We get that you want to learn and make on your own. We know you are DIY, and so this book caters especially to you. Were here to guide you, be your personal cheerleaders, give you that kick in the pants you might need, and tell you that while you can do this, it is going to be hard work. You can do it, thoughand you can be amazingly awesome at the same time.

We love you!
xoxo,
Kelly, Christine, Sara, and Kim

n the spring of 2011, Extreme Craft blogger Garth Johnson attended the San Francisco Fine Art Fair. The show filled the Festival Pavilion at the Fort Mason Center with fine-art gallery booths offering works in postwar and contemporary art. He had a pleasant enough time. The economy was slowly coming back after being hit hard a couple years before, and Garth thought to himself, Okay, this is nice. People are buying all of this fine art.