I have to admit I hadn’t heard of Pamela until today, I know, my slip is showing isn’t it? *blushes*
For all you crafty entrepreneurs, Pamela’s written an ebook “How to Start a Creative Manufacturing Business”, sounds like the perfect title, doesn’t it.
Excerpt from the book, there’s also a sneak peak, so off you go…
I love my job. But like they say about the army, it may be the toughest job I’ve ever loved. There is the constant pressure of coming up with the next big idea. The grind of trade shows. Customers who cancel orders or don’t pay their bills. Companies who steal your ideas and feel no guilt about it.
But for every employee who is pain in the ass, for every bounced COD box, for every customer who closed up shop in the middle of the night without paying for their goods, for every bad experience, there is the unbeatable joy I get from making my living making things of my own design.
This book won’t give you the grit it takes to start your own business. But if you read carefully, you’ll find everything else you need to know to get you started.
via Oh Joy!
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I purchased Pamela’s book after reading about it on Oh Joy…and while at first glance it looked like a good resource, its really hard to navigate since its just a word document with no contents or page numbers, and a lot of the info seems like its just common sense. I have to say, while I really like Pamela’s work and certainly respect her efforts–I’ve never written 83 pages of anything–I’m kind of disappointed in this, and I’m a little bummed I spent $20 on it.
Fair enough. I haven’t read it myself. However I will say that your common sense might not be someone elses :)
I purchased the e-book several months ago and printed it out, punched holes in it and put it in a three-ring binder of creative work inspiration stuff. It’s difficult for me to read anything of that length on the computer and preserving the copy makes my $20 worth it!
I enjoyed reading it and found it motivational, but I also enjoy Barsky’s writing style.
I was fortunate enough to rent time on Pamela’s letterpress for the small amount of time that she had it…I feel like the few short conversations I had with her were loaded…i took from it what i could, which was sometimes what not to do and sometimes what to do. I think ultimately, we can learn from her mistakes as well as her opinions. It has never occurred to me to buy her book, I feel like I can get all the info. I need from her blog.
my experience is that most gift business newbies make the same expensive mistakes and i’m pretty sure reading about my experiences will save most readers at least the cost of the book. (i’m sitting in a starbucks where people are lined up to buy $5 cups of coffee. i feel strongly the time and energy i took to put my experiences down on paper worth more than a couple days worth of caffeine.)
I was thinking about buying this book, but the example on the website about where to find ideas wasn’t terribly helpful for me. I need help with the pricing, sales and marketing aspects, for those of you who have read the book, do you think it is helpful for these types of things?