I am finding that there an awful lot of books of advice about home based businesses and self employment, and I am new to this side of things and haven’t a clue which of them are likely to be genuinely of use. Can anyone suggest anything they’ve found helpful? I’m looking for tips on things such as making good business plans (for example, regarding which sorts of craft item to concentrate on for the next few months), organising working time and space, bookkeeping, keeping up with the (sometimes quite complicated) legal requirements on copyright and trading standards, promotion, dealing with customers, offering and handling commissions, and similar. I prefer things that offer adaptable techniques to things that are very prescriptive: for example, I have got on very well with Julie Morganstern’s organisation and time management books. Anyone any thoughts?
Sorry I’ve not used any books but bascially if a someone has designed something that design belongs to them ie character from books or films belong to the film company or author so will be copyright or Trademark so you can’t use them.
Same with TV and adverts they belong to the owners.
You can’t use quotes from books that are in copyright still which is usually legal till the 75years after the authors death or longer if the copyright has been updated by the auother’s estate.
You can’t make your own drawing/paintings/likeness of living famous people ie ‘Fan Art’ to sell unless you have their written permission.
Now you’ll find people will do all the above so don’t go by what you see on the internet as those who brake copyright and Trademark are opening themselves up to having their items removed, their shops closed down and in some cases being sued.
Hope some of this helps when it comes to the Trademark and Copyright issuse.
Oh forgot to say you can’t use materials/fabric that are Trademark or copyright either to make something for example you can’t buy disney frozen materials/fabrics then make something out of it to sell. These fabrics/materials are for private use only not commerical use ie make to sell.
There are quite a few books out there depending on what aspect you are looking at. I have the following book
Craft a Creative Business: Making & Marketing a Successful Creative Business by Fiona Pullen (have to confess I haven’t read it yet due to lack of time but thats my new years project!)
and am thinking of getting this one by Folksys own Hilary Pullen - Online Marketing for Your Craft Business: How to get your handmade products discovered, shared and sold on the internet
Both have good reviews on Amazon and I have seen them mentioned a few times on various craft forums.
Sorry I can’t offer a definitive answer as I still have to get round to reading!
There are quite a few interesting and useful articles on the Folksy blog, covering quite a few of the areas you’ve mentioned. The trouble with books, I find, is that they’re often out of date in certain areas by the time you read them, so I’d recommend contacting a specialist or looking up the latest rules on the internet for anything ‘legal’ or ‘regulation’ based.
I used to get books from the library on marketing and setting up a business - some were good, others not particularly useful, but I picked up bits of information from most of them. I think a lot of it is learnt as you go, so be prepared to make a few mistakes and see what works for you.
A lot of towns also run small business networks, and these can be very useful for sharing information with others. There are often ‘experts’ in different aspects of running a business that you can talk to.
Perhaps the easiest for being up to date, but not a book, is to sign up to HMRC self employed updates via their website. You will receive items that do not pertain to you but there is a lot of good advise particularly about book keeping.
