Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

>How do you maintain a steady income?

There's at least a very simple answer to that question.  You don't. 


> >Other than word of mouth, how do you market yourself?  

This must be prefaced with the fact that most cottage industry crafted items 
are not things people buy on impulse.  They look, think about it, contemplate 
it, compare it, decide on it, change their mind, think about it some more, 
.... and then some of them buy it.

I got a call this summer from a cooperative retail store made up of local 
hand crafted items.  A 22 year old woman wanted to buy one of my products 
because 
she'd seen it there when she was 16, could not persuade her parents it was 
equitable, and so as an adult and settled in Denver, she came back to 
Abingdon, 
Va, asking for the item ... which was no longer there as I had parted ways 
with the outfit years previous.  The store and I made an exception to our 
usual 
M.O. and she got the item she came for.  But it is not unusual for the 
initial 
contact and the sale to be eight years apart .... which goes somewhat to 
answering the first question.

So ... if you are contemplating a specific item or type of item you are going 
to make, look into the trade magazines.  In my case a quarterly insertion in 
the most popular trade magazine 4" x 3 1/2" costs about $40.  The second most 
popular magazine is $25.  Also I have joined all the internet discussion 
lists 
having to do with the product I make and I have a signature line with my 
website.

You can put the item on eBay "buy it now" for 30 days at a time.  The cost is 
minimal and although you might not sell it, you are permitted a link to your 
website page describing it which itself can contain a link to the home page.  
It gives you tremendous exposure for very little cost.  Likewise there is an 
outfit that only allows hand made objects for sale ....   www.etsy.com

We have scores of festivals in this area every year.  I do to some of those 
and demo the product and pass out cards.  No one buys one there, but a month 
to 
five years later they do.  I have six items in the shop right now unfinished 
and all of them are promised.  A few months from now I may have ten in the 
shop completely finished and no one making an offer for them.  

 James


"The master craftsman makes a cut.  He does it one time and it's good enough."
(the late and very great luthier Robert Lundberg)