Must Have Books for Starting a Craft Business

If you are thinking about starting a craft based business and you have questions like "How do I price my goods?", "Where is the best place to start selling my goods?", "How should I market my products?", etc. then I have a couple books I highly recommend getting first. The Handmade Marketplace by Kari Chapin and Craft Inc. by Meg Mateo Ilasco are two books that have great basic start up information for first time business owners. I didn't have the luxury to take any marketing or business classes in college so these books where great references that helped me develop a basic business plan.

Some of the useful information you will find is:

• Branding your business and products
• Finding the right venues to sell your products (online verses market base business)
  
• Reaching out to your crafting community
  
• Establishing basic business practices
• Marketing, advertising and publicity
  
• Product pricing plans
  
• Finding your customer and market base
• Expenses and budgeting
  

Meg Mateo Ilasco also published Craft Inc. Business Planner to compliment her book. It has great layouts and simple steps for calculating your start up costs, projecting revenue, creating a budget, marketing plans, etc. It also has additional advice from crafters & designers as well as a great list of contacts & resources. All three books can be found brand new on Amazon.com for under $12 or used for as low as $6. GOOD LUCK!