Become a Professional

So you’d like to make some money from your crocheting?….Here are some questions to contemplate and suggestions to move you along.

1. Are you aware of all the possible ways to make money from crochet:
• • Designing patterns for publications
  • Designing patterns for sale yourself (Etsy, Ravelry, etc.)
  • Pattern testing
  • Contract crocheting
  • Selling crocheted items
  • Creating/selling crochet tools, aids
  • Tech editing
  • Employee in the industry for a yarn company, publication company
  • Having your own yarn shop
  • Teaching
  • Artistic crochet (eg., installations in art galleries, strange high end stuff)
  • Writing
  • Which ones interest you?
2. How much money would you like to make? Six figures/average wage/enough to support the habit/more interested in fame than fortune.
3. Corollary to that: How much time do you have (be honest with yourself here)?
4. How are your computer skills?
5. How’s your internet social presence?
6. How are your business skills?
7. If you’d like to design for magazines, look on their websites for submissions guidelines. If you don’t find anything, contact them to be added to their request for submissions/proposals list.
8. To write a book you’ll need to write a comprehensive proposal. Check publishers websites for outlines. Some will not take unsolicited proposals and you’ll have to get an agent. (Libraries have reference books for finding one.)
9. To find publishers interested in crochet, take a look at books currently out there.
10. To sell patterns yourself look into Ravelry, Etsy and similar sites, or establish your own website.
11. Actual projects can be sold at local art fairs or gift shops, on Etsy, your website or other sites.
12. For contract crochet and tech editing, join CGOA and get on the lists for those skills. Also contact designers (locally or elsewhere) and see what their needs are.
13. Teaching locally can be done at your LYS (local yarn shop) or find a place and advertise through bulletin boards, stitching groups, whatever you can think of. To teach at a regional or national level, find out about event organizers submissions process. You’ll generally need to have a widely recognized name.
14. Working for a publication or yarn company is like any other job. Use the usual job hunting methods.
15. For writing, just do it and see if you can sell it somewhere. Magazines do articles here and there, but it’s not a big field. Try writing a humor/history/inspirational/whatever book and then shop it to publishers.
16. Artistic crochet is another “just do it” and look for galleries to show it, high end shops to sell it, people to buy it, locally or online.
17. And then there’s the dream of having your own shop. This is one of the most difficult of all. Get lots of business development advice and plan and plan and plan. Don’t start just as a recession hits (good luck).