Craft a Creative Business by Fiona Pullen - review and giveaway

So earlier this week I got my hands on a copy of Fiona Pullen's book, out today, Create a Craft Business, which is the only craft-related book you will need buy this year or next year. 237 pages JAM PACKED with information, tips, advice, suggestions, ideas and plans for your crafting business.    And that could be any crafting business at any level at all, whether you're the biggest fabric shop in Europe, a small Etsy retailer, a fabric printer, a market crafter or one small blogger starting out.  You can get hold of this book here right now,  from Amazon next week or from Amazon in the US in January or you can leave a comment below to win one of four copies I'm giving away.

The most useful crafting book I've ever bought

The book covers six main areas, each in huge detail.  Those areas are Where do I start? Legal matters, Presentation, Social Media, Selling online and Selling offline.  Within each of those chapters, there is a wealth of information presented in an easy to digest way.  Fi herself says this book  is "designed to be dipped into so that you can go straight to the aspect you want to learn about at any given time."  Each page is filled with bite-sized chunks of information such as tips on post-it notes, activities to complete, useful links, information from people in the know, regulations you need to know about etc.  I knew how hard Fi had worked on this book but had no idea how much information would be packed into it.

Hundreds of little post-it note tips give you advice throughout the book. 

Areas I instantly found of particular interest to me for example included how to improve the traffic to your website, taking great craft photos, getting started on new social media such as a blog or twitter, how to get started on doing you own accounting and many many more.

Advice for all kinds of craft businesses

This is the kind of book you need to carry around in your handbag (or briefcase), leave on your bedside table or leave in the car door so that you can dip into it at any time and pick up a few more snippets of information and advice to help build and expand your business.

Fiona Pullen shares her wealth of knowledge on SEO in this book

A lot of the advice comes from Fi herself who I regard as the pivot around which the whole British sewing community revolves.  Her website The Sewing Directory brings together every element of this community in one place and she is always the person I go to for good, sound advice in relation to my business with Lily's Quilts.  She is also a lot of fun and is THE source for all information sewing-related in the UK.

 

Six useful chapters each contain endless detailed chunks of information within them. 

It is her own experience and knowledge in setting up and running this business that she draws on  principally in this book but she also draws on advice from all sorts of other figures in the crafting community including for example, advice from Nel Whatmore on licensing, Kristin Link from Sew Mama Sew on community building, Alex Veronelli from Aurifil on Social Media and many many more.

Packed full of tips and advice from industry insiders

To win a copy of this fabulous and indispensable book, just leave a comment and I will pick four winners a week from today.