Projects that sell

[Gregory Myers]

All you woodworkers out there that have had some reselling experience I want to hear from you!

I recently purchased my first clock parts and plan from Klockit, and whipped it out for a couple Christmas presents. Klockit had offered the kit in Oak, but I wanted to knock it up a notch, so made it in mostly curly maple.

I really like the finished product, and will undoubtedly have a couple very please in-laws, but after showing the pictures around at work, I quickly found myself with 5 more orders for friends. Of course I'm not making much profit on them, but I'm not doing it for free.

Ok, so here's the point. I've been thinking that I can supplement my shop with more tools with doing custom woodworking. So I'm asking this audience, what did you find as a great place to advertise and get some side work. Maybe it's just word of mouth that works. I'm not into paying someone big bucks for a website, that may or may not get me some income. I'm just like most of you, lots of demands, and not enough time to work on projects.

Any suggestions?

Happy Holidays All

Greg

[Gary Max]

Let me start by saying your clocks look great. I tried small desk set clocks and found they could be bought at Wally world for pennies on the dollar. No quality but very cheap price tags.

[Randy Gazda]

Nice work. Nothing beats word of mouth, IMO. There are some easy options to put your work on the web, one is etsy.com, very simple to open an account and post your work (caters to handmade work). Cost to list items is 20 cents each for two months. Having said that, I have yet to sell anything via this website.

Good luck.

[Gregory Myers]

Thanks Gary and Randy. I'm afraid the way I'll have to operate in the near future is by word of mouth. I'm hoping to build up a nice portfolio, so they come to me. My motto is not to get top price but enough to stock the shop with a few new items!

I think you may have more luck on Craigslist, but everyone there is looking for a bargain. I'll check out etsy, but not sure if it's worth the time. Do you think you have listed aggressively, or just not enough market for what you want to sell?

[Prashun Patel]

I'm toying with the same idea. I've been exploring local art galleries and boutique houseware places. It's a little easier to work deals with these guys, and the shoppers generally appreciate the effort, vs. the avg internet buyer who's looking for something specific usually...

[Bill Wyko]

First off, great clocks. As far as selling my work goes, I've had great success with my humidors and turnings. What I have found though is, many turners and humidor builders should ask much more for their work than they do. I was at a little display of artists here locally and saw a beautiful segmented turning a woman had done. She was asking only 60 bucks for it. The wood looked like teak or possibly Jatoba. I thought to myself, I couldn't buy the wood for that, let alone the time it would take to make it. I complimented her on her beautiful work and expressed that I thought her work was worth much more. She said thanks and we went about our day. Artists with that kind of talent shouldn't sell them selves short.

[John Coloccia]

Whatever you do, get some nice cards, stickers, brands, stamps, WHATEVER, and be sure to identify your work somehow AND have a way to get back in touch with you for more. Word of mouth is great but it only works if they know where to find you. "I got this clock from this guy....oh, man, he does awesome work. I wish I could remember his name!".

Register your name as a website if you can: GregoryMyers.Com, for example. Greg@GregoryMyers.com for an email. Put some rudimentary content on the sight explaining what you do. As long as you identify your work, they can always just google you and you'll pop up. Anyone that wants to get in touch with me need only google John Coloccia and I pop right up.

[lowell holmes]

My experience is that making a business out of a hobby spoils it. It took 15 years to buy another camera and 12 years to start doing woodwork again.

I would put pictures up on bulletin boards at local hardware/lumber stores (not the borg).

[Don Jarvie]

Hit some craft shows and church bazaars/flea markets. This way a lot of people can see what you make and it may provide some good foot traffic.

Get some business cards with your company, name and phone number to give out.

Start out with a few products that you can make quickly. You may be able to get different clock faces so the body is the same but the face makes them different. You can expand with cutting boards, etc.

[Gregory Myers]

Great suggestions all...I even listen to Lowell who said that business will take away some passion and drive for woodworking. I suspect you may be probably correct, but I have my eye on a wood lathe and a spiral head planer.

John....great minds must think a like! I order my branding iron from Rockler yesterday and I'm planning on making Custom Wood working cards sometime over the holiday. I think the key is also to build up my portfolio, and perhaps make a few extras so that I can have things to show. I want to start a website for many wood workers like us, but not until I work up some more ideas. As much as I want to quite the 9 to 5 job, I realize that's the one that pays the bills. BTW, I did google you; nice plane!

Definitely want to expand my horizons with other projects...so far I have made:
Entertainment Center (in curly Maple)
Picture Frames (Plain and build ups)
Chess Board (but want to expand it to a table)
Retirement Shadow Box (Retired Navy; I made a ship's wheel)
A couple of Desks (for the kids)
Wall hanging recipe box
Now making a Book shelve with doors (to hide the cook books)
Designed/started a puzzle box
I also have built many remote control planes (crashed them too)

and I have a whole list of other things I want to make...So many thing with so little time

Merry Christmas Everyone, and thanks!
Greg

[Victor Robinson]

My experience is that making a business out of a hobby spoils it. It took 15 years to buy another camera and 12 years to start doing woodwork again.

I would put pictures up on bulletin boards at local hardware/lumber stores (not the borg).

Wow, you too? I can't touch my camera equipment...still hurts too much. That's where woodworking comes in...

I'm going to echo Lowell's point though it's oft-ignored (I ignored it back in the day). It starts with "hey I just want to earn a few bucks for more tools of hobby," then to "hey I just want the hobby to pay for itself" to "hey if I'm spending so much time on this it might as well supplement my income" to "hey I can do this as well as the pros!"

Before you know it, you're running a full-fledged business with all of the pros and cons it comes with. If that wasn't your original goal, it might just rip your cherished hobby away from you. Happened to me with photography. And now I feel it coming on again with woodworking, except I know where to apply the brakes. I think.

[Michael Schneider]

I have also been thinking about a similar thing.

I don't have time to do retail, so I was thinking small scale wholesale.

Maybe something to tag with high ticket item.

Maybe nice ring boxes that could be sold through jewelry store.

Customers are already dropping serious $$, a little more $ for a nice box for it.....

It may help small jeweler's compete against the big boys...

Just thinking......


Merry Christmas All,
Michael

[David Jones]

While shopping for Christmas presents this year I stumbled onto etsy.com it's a great resource for artisans and craftspeople to sell their handmade projects online. I purchased a few Christmas presents from there and the site/software runs similar to ebay. i don't know how much it costs for sellers to set up a store but I plan on using the site to find more purchases in the future. I was able to make my purchases via PayPal and had a very fast response from the craftspeople who had stores there, one gentleman responded within an hour to question I had about an item of his that I was interested in that had just sold and he worked with me to create a new custom one and got it in the mail within a few days.....

The only difficulty I had with the process was that I had to set up an etsy ID to ask questions about the various sellers items because communication between buyers and sellers is directly through an etsy email conversation.

Beautiful clocks by the way, maybe I'll see them on etsy soon!

Merry Christmas from Hawaii!

[Cody Colston]

I supplement my hobby by selling some of my work. I do a couple of art shows a year where I sell my turnings and the rest is just word-of-mouth. It's taken a while but I've gotten to the point now where I have to turn down requests to keep from ruining my hobby.

My problem is that I get bored making replicas of a project. Someone may want four of a particular project and by the time I'm finished with the second one, I'm sick of it.

There is also the tax issue to deal with, too. I got a sales tax number to stay legal and that's led to more accounting work than I want to do.

It can be a good way to make your hobby self-funding but realize that you will lose a lot of the hobbiest benefits...like making only what YOU want to make when you want to make it.

[Ed Morgano]

I supplement my hobby by selling some of my work. I do a couple of art shows a year where I sell my turnings and the rest is just word-of-mouth. It's taken a while but I've gotten to the point now where I have to turn down requests to keep from ruining my hobby.

My problem is that I get bored making replicas of a project. Someone may want four of a particular project and by the time I'm finished with the second one, I'm sick of it.

There is also the tax issue to deal with, too. I got a sales tax number to stay legal and that's led to more accounting work than I want to do.

It can be a good way to make your hobby self-funding but realize that you will lose a lot of the hobbiest benefits...like making only what YOU want to make when you want to make it.

I agree with Cody 100%. Be careful what you wish for. Beyond the sales tax is a Federal ID number, Estimated Federal withholding forms, 1099's for anyone who does work for you as an independent contractor, and then, when it's time to hire someone, FUDA, FICA, state employment security commision will all be happy to have you file some paperwork with them. All have their own "rules of engagement" including filing times and places and methods.