A Magazine Crafted For Sellers and Artisians

The Crafts Report

At the beginning of this year, a friend and I decided to enter the crafts business together. My partner is an excellent seamstress with an eclectic background that brings an international flair to the crafts that she makes. She's also an award-winning local costumer. I crochet and have an undying love affair (overly beknownst to my husband) with yarns. Now, I suppose, we both get to call ourselves fiber artists.

I hadn't known the latter title was applicable until I started to research the crafts industry and what my partner and I needed to do to be successful. In that research, I came across a magazine that I quickly subscribed to, The Crafts Report. With its departments on the craft scene and listings of craft shows, it seemed like it would be just the thing to help us get up to speed on the environmental knowledge that we thus far lacked.

After receiving a couple issues of this magazine, I think I may have jumped the gun. Don't get me wrong, this is an excellent magazine of high quality, but it is definitely not for the beginning crafter. Its audience is full-time crafters and those who make all or mostly all of their living from their crafts. That being said, it is always good to learn from the experts-from those who have been successful.

Each issue contains features of great use to crafters who have turned their hobby into a profession. There are monthly columns on business basics, crafts law, advanced business concepts, crafts technology, crafts retailing, the crafts buyer, regional profiles, and monthly polls. There is a news page that talks about incidents of importance to crafters nationwide. All of these things are helpful in highly pragmatic ways. We may not yet be ready to license any of our products, but it was helpful to know the rules for when we do-or for when we might want to license someone else's design. Excellent photographs accompany all of these columns and articles, each one displaying the various crafts in their Sunday best.

I also found the business basics and techniques to be highly useful. I'm already relatively well versed in business, but the columns in The Crafts Report provide insight in how those basic business techniques and procedures apply very specifically in the crafts industry. It elaborates on what type of photography is most effective to submit to juries and what the crafts consumer is currently looking for. They give advice on how to choose a crafts name and use it as branding. I quickly found myself being educated on price points and how they were rising and falling in different spots around the country. I can't say I've changed any of our business plan yet in response to this magazine, but it has helped us focus on certain areas and opened up venues for us to research further.

The Crafts Report also does an excellent job of finding interesting features-features that are well written by their staff reporters. In the issues I've read so far, they have attempted to balance personal aspects of the craft with more technical articles. One article might focus on an artist and the other on an environmental or economic factor. Both will go fairly in-depth while still staying highly accessible to people of a broad background. All of the articles have been easy to read and understand, never getting overly technical while still providing useful and helpful information.

The Crafts Report also focuses on a different craft each month. I've tended to skim through these sections because they haven't been applicable to any of the crafts that my partner and I are incorporating in our business. However, I look forward to the time when they do address thread décor or wearable art. The feature goes into production methods, items that are popular, where to find supplies, and some of the economic factors affecting that particular craft. They also highlight artists working in that particular segment.

Another feature of this glossy, full-color magazine that I found particularly helpful was the classified section. They have listings of supplies, craft shows, and equipment. I've discovered what sorts of tents and display materials are available-and what their costs are. The listings contain information that is difficult to find elsewhere-even online. I was surprised early on at how difficult it was to find craft show information-at least, information on when to submit to juries, which shows were unjuried, etc.

Thanks to The Crafts Report, I'm picking up an increasing amount of lingo and jargon of the business that I have entered. I am gaining a better understanding of the economic and competitive environment. The magazine isn't immediately helpful to the stage of business that I am in, but it is preparing me for the next stage and helping me develop the knowledge that I will need in the future. For those reasons alone, I'll be keeping up my subscription to this magazine.