I’ve just had an update from Dawn over at ScrapventurePro who has released a very interesting and potentially invaluable new book for people considering – or just starting out in – their own scrapbooking business.

If you signed up for my free newsletter you’ll already have receive Dawn’s free ebook on starting a scrapbook business so you’ll know this one is well worth a look.

It’s also remarkable value.

The book is, in effect, the first eight lessons of her personal coaching course. That course itself is an unbeatable way to start and build your scrapbooking business but during what are difficult times for many, the monthly fee is perhaps a bit of a stretch.

Hence this book, which for eight scrapbooking business lessons actually adds up to the price of less than two. Got to be worth a closer look, don’t you think? What’s more, everyone who buys a copy will also receive a free personal email consultations with Dawn for a full 30 days – usually that costs $60.00 on it’s own! Full details here.

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If you are considering your own digital scrapbooking business as a way to get out of the rat race and make a good living working from home then I’m about to give you the 5 minute secret to your success.

That’s about how long it will take you to read this piece – possibly less – and in a nutshell it contains everything you need to know to take your scrapbook business to any level you like.

Oh, and it’ll cost you less than fifty dollars to start.

Ready?

OK, first thing you’re going to need is to get yourself on the internet. Go get a proper dot com domain name so you look like a pro. Under ten dollars for a whole year. I use Namecheap.com

Next you need some hosting for a blog or website. Get professional hosting, not free. This is a digital scrapbooking business you’re running – emphasis on the word business. You don’t want to look like an amateur. Depending on the deal this can cost you between six and nine dollars a month. I use Hostgator, have done for years, what more can I say.

I’d recommend a blog rather than a traditional website and I’d recommend Wordpress. It gets in the search engines quicker, it’s easier to run and more customer friendly. Wordpress is free and has a huge number of themes so you can customize its appearance and plug-ins to extend it’s abilities. It can do virtually anything your scrapbook business needs. If you get hosting with Hostgator it’s a simple install – just a couple of clicks.

If you don’t have Word or a page-layout program get a copy of OpenOffice (free) so you can create sample digital scrapbooks. Save them as PDF format so that you can offer them as free downloads from your blog.

Now subscribe to a mailing list / autoresponder management service so that you can collect names and email addresses of visitors to your blog. I use GetResponse. This is absolutely vital and can dramatically increase your income. Your free digital scrapbook download should be offered in exchange for their details. This will cost you just under twenty dollars a month and will repay that investment over and over again.

Depending on your precise scrapbooking business model, find a couple of affiliate programs that you can promote alongside your own business for additional income. Any reputable scrapbook affiliate program will be free to join.

Finally promote your  digital scrapbooking business via your blog posts and article marketing. Both free and extremely effective.

Is our five minutes up?

OK, you might think this article is a bit tongue in cheek, and clearly there’s a lot more flesh to put on these bones, but the above really is all you need to create the framework for your own digital scrapbooking business. Building it from part-time pennies to substantial full-time money is just a question of putting in a bit of effort. Over the next few weeks I’ll be expanding on each element to give you the bigger picture, and I would be more than happy to answer any questions you have.

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If you’re thinking about starting your own home scrapbook business, it will become part of an industry currently worth $1.4 billion per year in the US alone. What does that mean to you? Well if you want to make a substantial income working from home it helps to be selling something that people want!

Which might seem like an overly obvious statement but it’s something a lot of people don’t consider. Lots of people start a home-based business based on doing what they love. You might wonder what’s wrong with that? It might be exactly what you intend to do.

Well on the one hand, it’s great to be able to do what you love and get payed for it. The challenge is that what a lot of craft people and artists fail to do is research whether there is actually a market out there for what they make. In the field of “pure art” you might say “well I’m just going to paint it because I must” and hope someone will buy it. In the real world that most of us live in, we need to put bread on the table, don’t we!

So your plan for a home scrapbook business can at least tick one very important box. There’s definitely a market for it!

Now of course a big chunk of that scrapbook market is people doing their own scrapbooking. No doubt about it. But even if only 10% is people running scrapbook businesses then that still represents $140 million dollars per annum. How many scrapbook businesses do you suppose there are out there? A thousand? If there were a thousand professional scrapbookers in the USA then we’re estimating that they’re making $140,000 a year each. Not bad money!

Now I have no way of calculating the actual number of people who scrapbook full-time but even if we double that number, which seems a bit high to me, we still get you earning $70,000 a year from your own home scrapbooking business. Now let’s be honest, it’ll take some work. It’ll also take a while to build to that level. This isn’t “get-rich-quick” or any of that nonsense, this is about building a solid, sustainable home-based business. You can see what’s possible though, what’s achievable if you put your mind to it.

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Number one priority for your home scrapbook business has to be customers, right? You might be a great designer, you might have lots of scrapbook supplies, great ideas, etc., but without customers all you’ve got is a hobby!

The good news is that you have certain advantages over a lot of traditional business models. For a start, many business people are constantly chasing new customers. With your scrapbooking business there’s the opportunity to sell more than one scrapbook to the same client. Births, baby’s first year, weddings and other special events are all great scrapbook subjects.

Another advantage is that you sell something people will love and cherish. It’s not a box of soap powder or an auto part, a scrapbook can become a family heirloom. What’s more, people are likely to show it to friends and family, some of whom almost certainly want their own scrapbooks. There is no better way to do business than to be recommended by a third party!

What about a few other avenues?

How about a scrapbook party? Party plan has always been popular. This could be an opportunity for people to see your work, or perhaps you could offer scrapbooking classes? By diversifying your business like this you can build a consist income. If you only have few scrapbooks to make you always have a steady stream of students.

Moving on from the teaching theme, could you offer scrapbooking classes anywhere else locally? Where I am they have all kind of evening classes people can attend and the organizers are always looking for more teachers. There’s not just the class income, anything that spreads your name is a good idea!

Do you have other crafting friends? Is there something you could work on together to help promote each other? What about attending a craft fair? You can not only display a couple of examples of your scrapbooks but you can take some supplies and work while you’re there. People would much rather see you doing your craft than a static display. They’ll ask questions, which is a great way to explain what you do. Make sure you’ve got some business cards with you!

Beyond that, the internet (and blogging in particular) offer enormous opportunities to get your home scrapbook business better known, particularly if you’re doing digital scrapbooking which doesn’t have the distance limitations for some that traditional scrapbooking has.

Other opportunities to expand your home scrapbook business will occur to you if you just keep it on your mind. I don’t know why but we tend to find the things we’re actively looking for. Make sure you keep a notebook handy though – we have a tendency to forget ideas just as quickly if we don’t write them down!

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Hi there!

Welcome to the scrapbooking business blog. If you like the idea of working from home and making a living from your scrapbooking, this is the place.

I’ll start by saying I’ve got nothing to sell you! The idea is that I’ll research scrapbooking supplies, scrapbook techniques and people who can help you starting a scrapbooking business and I’ll let you know about them here

Some of these people might want you to invest a few dollars to build your scrapbook business but then you’d expect to have to do that anyway, right?

If you’ve got any comments or questions, please add them to the relevant post. I’ll be checking by often so you shouldn’t have to wait long for an answer!

Until next time, enjoy your scrapping!
Bob

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