Crafts and Craft Shows: How to Make Money

by Philip Kadubec

Everything artisans need to know for turning their crafts into lucrative income is spelled out in this guide to tapping into today's booming craft show industry. Based on his extensive experience and success both as an exhibiting crafter and as a teacher/promoter of craft shows, the author tells readers exactly how to market and price crafts, select shows, work with promoters, create effective booth displays, and deal with customers to build skyrocketing sales. Straightforward language and easy-to-follow instructions make this the essential business companion for anyone who wants to flourish in the world of craft shows.

Genres: Crafts

208 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2000

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Moderately useful advice, but most of it seems to be outdated, even with the updates.

[Beverly McCall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read through this book in a day. Content is straight forward and helpful to the person who has never participated in selling craft products. Although the complete in the range of context, I did not learn anything new. I did not like the book cover. The the title is what drew me to pick up this book.

[Jen Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are selling generic country crafts and have time traveled to the 1990's, this book is for you! I found the first few chapters had some good advice on organizing your finances and finding a show, but the author's ego occasionally came through the anecdotes of other crafters' mishaps and took me out of the stories. I wonder how his business selling baskets would have fared in today's economy. I searched for a picture of the author's product to see what all the fuss was about, which I found in the back of the book. His baskets may have been unique (a word he often uses to describe them) by 1990's standards, but I found nothing unusual about them. They are baskets. A few have compartments, but you can find the same thing (albeit, a little cheaper) at your local craft store today.

By the chapter on designing your booth, I started skipping pages. The pictures of sample booths involved a lot of lattice, white picket fences and wind chimes. Great for antiques, not so much for plush creatures.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Godawful cover that kind of matches the aesthetic of the scary country baskets the author and his wife make. Interesting and semi-useful information, but the book was published in 2000, so I wonder how much of this applies to today's world, since all things interweb are barely mentioned, there has been a resurgence in DIY and crafts, and the demographics of crafts seems to have scaled younger and hipper than in 2000. But worth a read, especially as the author has this hilarious cranky tone that's all "The craft world is dog eat dog and everyone is out to get you!" Uh, okay.

[Holly Embry · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was not the most riveting read, but it was pleasant. And for people who participate in craft shows or plan to, it contains priceless advice on how to set up an attractive booth, what customers expect from you as an artist, and how to keep your business organized. A lot of the information regarding internet sales are outdated due to the fact that the book was written right before E-commerce was something that pretty much anybody could undertake, but I still found quite a bit of useful information for selling crafts in a modern day marketplace.