Turn your hobby into a business

Hobbies – particularly arts and crafts – are for after hours and weekends only, right? Wrong. You too could ditch the lousy job and turn your beloved hobby into a dream career or thriving business. But where do you start?

With nine detailed chapters, Turn your hobby into a business explores various aspects of going solo – and, more importantly, making a success of it. Having an idea is one thing, but what about getting down to the business of franchising, mail orders, advertising and accounting?

The book contains extremely useful information that you’d normally not consider in the excitement of starting up. It teaches you how to focus your idea and get going, to identify your customer, to choose an outlet, to market yourself, to expand when the time is right, to understand and manage your financials and other business must-knows.

It also lists useful contact numbers and resources (guilds, festivals, websites and publications among others), although these might be a bit outdated considering the book was published in 2005.

Every few pages, there are handy hints boxes that answer crucial questions. The case studies throughout the book are also particularly enlightening – straight out of the arts and crafts sector, they are proof that it can be done!

It’s not a particularly pretty or attractive book – perhaps that’s its only downfall. It’s probably got to do with the subject matter which doesn’t require many graphics. That said, the chapters are all very well organised and the entire book flows in a logical, user-friendly way.




Reviewed by Cara Visser

Published by Metz Press