What I Have Been Reading (Business, Yarn, and other)

One day I will do a post of my favorite business books that *actually* apply to yarn related businesses.  It seems like most art-business books are focused more art fairs, setting up the business, or how to find inspiration. Helpful, but not generally what people are looking for if they already have a business they are trying to grow. And then there are the other business books that are maybe a bit intimidating to artists- what if you don't want a business you don't have to be present for or don't want to create ten million skeins of yarn? That will have to come later though! One day I will also post a "how to  ACTUALLY price stuff"...with a breakdown and calculator.


The Business of Being an Artist I know most businesses (and artists, especially yarnies) struggle with pricing and the "how tos", trying to figure out if they should price based on what business books say (5 or 10 times mark up? For yarn? All the skeins would be $100!), or if they should price based on the heart. This is more practical... Geared towards visual artists, but does talk about finding a niche versus working in a variety of styles, offers some practical pricing advice, and talks about what people do with artwork that doesn't sell (something I rarely see discussed in business books!).

Artist's and Graphic Design Market  If you are doing more design work, illustration, or other more visual art, you should check this out. It lists opportunities for artists, and comes out yearly.  It is unusual in that it does not just list places to market work like fairs or galleries, but also companies that would buy your work to use on images (like card companies).


Art/Work Geared at beginning and mid level artists, but what makes it intersting/worthwhile is that it talks about the nuts and bolts of business for artists in more detail than most crafty business books (it actually mentions insurance and storage issues, for example), without the legalese of most regular business books.


Science of Shopping I had way too much fun listening to this as an audio book while spinning yarn. Amusing and witty, it is geared as  much at businesses (please for the love of g*d place things where people can FIND them) as it is at customers (ever wonder why displays are arranged the way they are?). While not anthropology, if you like anthropolgy based of spaces (spheres of influence...), especially public spaces, this book will be interesting to you. Makes me wonder how I should be rearranging my website for easy of reading and finding information- and if maybe I have the text too small on my site.

And there has been fiction too:

The Martian Chronicles  What can I say? I am taking a break from Asimov, and already reread Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and a number of other fluffy books over the weekend. Rainy weekends on the boat are good for that (and thank goodness for my Kindle, since it is a total pain to haul so many books around otherwise).

Farm City. Entertaining. Not as good as Plenty, but I suspect I have a soft spot in my heart for Plenty (aka 100 mile diet) since the authors are practically local to me. I have no real desire to farm or grow large amounts of food, my love of post apocalypse books aside. World Made by Hand: A Novel is a pretty good post-disaster scenario book though, in a very non-scifi sort of way, as it takes place years after the government has already fallen, in a community that has reverted to farming.