I’ve been sending out an online newsletter, or e-zine, for more than six years. It’s a terrific way to keep in touch with our IAPQ members as well as other professional quilt, fiber or mixed-media artists, and creative entrepreneurs who use our resources. Here are six tips to make your e-zine work for you.

1. Clarity. Be clear about your goals and your audience for your ezine. Why are you creating this e-zine and who are your writing it for? If you start with that in mind, you’ll find that it’s easier to write your articles and include relevant materials. You can even keep a specific person in mind (someone in your target market) and write directly to that person.

2. Content. People read your e-zine for the content you deliver. The more relevant it is to their lives and/or business, the more likely they are to continue to follow you. Readers resonate with how-to’s, lists, problem solving. It’s OK to promote yourself or your products, just don’t let that be the focus.

3. Consistency. Be sure your e-zine has a consistent look issue to issue. You also want it to go out the same day of each week. Your readers look forward to its arrival and notice if it doesn’t come as expected. This one currently goes out on Wednesdays. The best days for delivery are said to be mid-week. That may not be true of your audience. How do you find out? Survey them. And, how often should you send your e-zine? Weekly gets the best results, then bi-weekly.

4. Call to Action. Every e-zine should include a call to action (CTA). What do you went someone to do after reading your e-zine? It could be to apply a tip you give them or it could be to look at your art or it could be to take you up on your special offer on quilting.

5. Connection. We all like to connect with like-minded people. After all, we buy from people, not an invisible company. Start your e-zine with a brief story about yourself to connect to your readers. Don’t just connect on a personal level, connect also to the issues of your target market. And, speaking of connection, look for ways to make more connections. This could be by using a “forward to a friend” method or including a signup form on the home page of your website.

6. Compelling title. Your e-zine title should make the topic clear and compel the reader to open it. Spend some time looking at the titles of e-zines you get. Which ones were you curious to open and which ones did you ignore? Just as with the content, people like how-to’s, numbers, benefit statements.

Please share your thoughts on e-zine success on our blog. And, if you don’t have an e-zine yet, be sure to check out our upcoming Internet & Social Medial Marketing Teleseminar. We start with getting your e-zine in place. In case you missed it, that was my CTA.

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WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE?
Please do! Just be sure to include the blurb below.

Morna McEver Golletz is the founder and CEO of the International Association of Professional Quilters, an association to help quilters, fiber artists and other creative arts entrepreneurs build business success. Her weekly e-zine offers tips, techniques and inspiration to help you craft business success from your creative arts passion. You can sign up for a F.R.E.E. subscription at http://www.professionalquilter.com.

As always, Quilt Market is inspiring. Fabric companies have new lines to show, pattern designers have their latest releases, and new products are introduced to the quilt industry. Here’s some of what I saw.

1. Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star. Following up on her success with the Rapid Fire Hunter’s Star, Deb Tucker has introduced a ruler for this block.

2. Big Beautiful Bugs! Andover Fabrics introduced this latest line from Lonni Rossi that features moths dragonflies and bumblebees, bugs with wings. The bugs, all drawn with dots, are available in 3 colorways: spa colors; red, gold and black; and green and brown.

3. Shabby Chic Hits Quilt Industry. Rachel Ashwell of Shabby Chic fame has released a line of cotton quilt fabrics. The 46-SKU line is her first for quilt shops and will be followed by a home dec line. Rachel told me that she was humbled by the tradition of community of quilters.

4. Quilt Designed Hot/Cold Bags. Kona Bay Fabrics introduced a line of hot/cold  bags in 11 designs. Available in two series, the Great Northwest and Elegant Beauty, the bags retail for $8. These would be perfect for shop hops that want to include a meal.

5. Bag, bags, more bags. We continue to see lots of bag patterns. Sometimes I wonder why, and then I remember a bag always fits! I also saw lots of patterns for aprons and little girls’ clothes.

6. Water-soluble, iron-on, pre-printed guides for crazy quilt stitches. These came in kits with wool pieces, threads and the guides. I saw people on the plane using the product and the results were lovely. They were from Sew Cherished.

7. Lots of bright, clear colors. I really like the clean look of today’s fabrics,  and I found lots to like in many booths. I particularly liked the display in Michael  Miller’s booth with the story boards of the colors that went with the new lines.

8. On the gift side, I liked the lotion bar from LaviShea. The bars melt with your  body heat and absorb quickly and completely without leaving a greasy residue, perfect for quilters and fabric.

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WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE?

Please do! Just be sure to include the blurb below.

Morna McEver Golletz is the founder and CEO of the International Association of Professional Quilters, an association to help quilters, fiber artists and other creative arts entrepreneurs build business success. Her weekly e-zine offers tips, techniques and inspiration to help you craft business success from your creative arts passion. You can sign up for a F.R.E.E. subscription at http://www.professionalquilter.com.

Lots of our IAPQ members have published books, whether that’s through a traditional book publisher or self-published. Today we can go even further and skip the printed page and publish solely in an e-book format. Regardless of the format you use, marketing is key. Yes, if you use a traditional book publisher, they do much of the marketing. To ensure the highest level of success for your book, you need to do marketing on your own. Here are tips to market your book.

1. Call your local quilt and book shops and ask if they’ll host a book signing for you. Look for unusual places to do signings. For example, maybe your quilt book features quilts with dessert names. Try a signing at a local bakery. I remember talking with a novelist who was doing signings at the airport. Talk about a captive audience. Don’t forget to promote the signing with news releases.

2. Sponsor a contest. If your book is about adding embellishments to quilts, have entrants post photos of their work on your website and award a prize. You could even have viewers vote to get more people involved.

3. Set up a blog hop to promote your book. I mentioned the blog hop recently in conjunction with a post on blogging. You approach several other bloggers and ask them to review your book or interview you about your book on their blogs, introducing you to a wider audience.

4. Print bookmarks that include the cover image, details about the book and a link to your website. Leave these on tables at shows, and ask your local shop owner if she’ll put them out with other literature. Be sure to include a link to your site on the bookmark in case someone wants more information.

5. Look for opportunities where you can be interviewed about your book. I can think of three right off the top of my head: Art & Soul Radio, American Patchwork & Quilting Radio Show (previously Pat Sloan’s Creative Talk Network), and Creative Mojo with Mark Lipinski.

6. Get others to sell your book for you. Many other teachers or lecturers offer books to their students. If your book compliments their topic, ask if they would consider carrying your book. Several years ago I sold books in the IAPQ booth for one of our members who gave a “Meet the Teacher” talk in Houston. She didn’t have a booth and wanted to offer her students a place to purchase the book. As soon as her talk ended, I was inundated with buyers. This was definitely win-win for both of us.

7. Create a Fan Page on Facebook just for your book. This lets you promote the book and encourage conversation among the book’s fans. Encourage sharing of photos of quilts made from the book. Share your tips for success with the projects.

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WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE?

Please do! Just be sure to include the blurb below.

Morna McEver Golletz is the founder and CEO of the International Association of Professional Quilters, an association to help quilters, fiber artists and other creative arts entrepreneurs build business success. Her weekly e-zine offers tips, techniques and inspiration to help you craft business success from your creative arts passion. You can sign up for a F.R.E.E. subscription at http://www.professionalquilter.com.

Do you have a blog? Blogging can be fun and creative. It can add to your business growth and lets you connect with your tribe. I think that’s the primary reason for blogging: building your community.  Blogging lets you create lasting relationships, and when people know, like and trust you, they are more likely to become your customers. Here are six tips for using your blog:

1. Take your customers on a tour of your studio or shop. I admit that I love to tour other quilters’ studios. In fact, I enjoy it so much, I created a lecture to share the studios I like and feature a studio in each issue of The Professional Quilter for the same reason. And, I love to see the shops I want to visit ahead of time, or maybe just put them on my wish list.

2. Provide information. This can be “how to” or just sharing the latest information on an upcoming show or exhibit. It should provide value for the readers. This helps to establishes you as an expert, the “go to” person on a topic. You can also make offers on your products or provice coupons, etc., but the primary goal should be to provide information.

3. Share yourself, your staff, other professionals. People want to know who they are doing business with. This is your chance to share something about yourself. Let your personality shine. Customers or potential customers also want to know the people that work with you. And, if you have friends who blog, take a turn blogging on each others’ pages. It will help each of you increase your audience.

4. Take advantage of technology to further readership of your ideas. You can connect your blog to Facebook and tweet about your blog. Many of our blog posts originate in this weekly e-zine. They then post to our blog and then to Facebook. I found it interesting that I often get comments on the blog or on Facebook from artists who originally read the material in the ezine.

5. Participate in blog events. Here are just two ideas. Sponsor a blog contest. It could be as simple as asking for input on your latest quilt design, perhaps helping you name it. For a prize, you can offer a copy of the pattern. If you are a book author, create a blog hop. In this case, you find several other bloggers and ask them to review your book. They in turn ask for comments on the post and offer a copy of your book to a random commenter. Each blogger advertises the blogs where your book will be reviewed, so more people learn about other blogs.

6. Be consistent. Bloggers are more successful who keep a constant schedule about blogging. Readers start to rely on you for specific information and will return to your blog for that type of information. Along with consistency comes frequent postings. The more often you post, the more your readership, and in turn your business, will grow. Of course, you have to figure out what works for you. In general, two to three times a week is a minimum.

7. Remember that blogging is one part of a social media strategy for your business. Look for other ways you can connect with your customers, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and your e-zine (online newsletter).

Please share your tips on blogging here on our blog.

The International Association of Professional Quilters offers resources and networking opportunities for you to create a success from your quilting business.  Learn about all the benefits of IAPQ membership and join here.    

By Tara Reed
Tara Reed Designs; $27

Promotion is key for creative entrepreneurs who want grow their businesses, and part of that is getting press coverage. If you are stumped with how to go about getting the press to notice and write about your art, Tara Reed provides you with the blueprint to follow to accomplish this. Tara, a licensed artist who has created more than 15 lines of fabric in the past three years with South Seas, found herself answering questions from other artists about art licensing, and many of those questions were about getting press. This ebook resulted from Tara’s own experiences and that of her clients. She covers the basics of setting up a press release, what it should include, adding photos, how to distribute your release, creating a press kit and even how to make your website more press friendly.  Even if you’re an experienced press release writer, you’ll add a few tricks to your toolbox so you can become your own publicist. I’ve even comb bound my copy for easy reference.

Here’s a link if you would like to learn more about the book and save $5 off the price of the book.

I recently returned from Aruba. One of the highlights of the trip was looking at (and buying) local crafts from vendors at the timeshare where we stayed. This year I saw Aruban artists joined by an American, Doris Iversen. Doris makes beautiful handcrafted bead crochet and wire jewelry encompassing polymer clay. She has vacationed for many years in Aruba, and some years back when she was crocheting at the pool, the activities director asked if she would like to sell her work along with the local artists. It added variety to the selection, and she wouldn’t be competing with locals. Today when she makes her annual trip, she brings all the jewelry she can to sell at the twice-a-week evening events.

As I look back on other travels, I recall similar examples: the painter selling her work in the lobby of a small hotel in Hawaii and the artist-in-residence at the Art Colony Shops at the Greenbrier. If you live in an area frequented by vacationers or even vacation yourself in one particular spot, you might consider this as a possible sales outlet. Here are some tips to get you started:

1. Look at where you live or where you vacation. Spend some time going to resorts and seeing if they offer art or crafts events. Stop in the local galleries or crafts shops and ask if they know of any options. And, at the same time, you might ask about consignment or crafts purchasing. Some of this you may find out with an Internet search or a phone call.

2. If you want to consider contacting specific hotels ahead of time, look for the resources from AAA. Its destination guides will list details on hotels. You’ll also find information on its website (www.aaa.com). The American Hotel and Lodging Association (www.ahla.com) produces an annual guide of members’ establishments that is available to Allied Members or through STR Global (www.strglobal.com). As the cost is relatively high, you might want to look for a copy at the reference desk at your library.

3. Check with your state crafts guild. They may know of arts and crafts outlets. For example, in West Virginia, Tamarack: The Best of West Virginia is a statewide collection of handmade crafts, art and specialty food. It’s run by the Tamarack Foundation whose mission is “to preserve West Virginia’s cultural heritage and the development of a strong, creative economy through its work in the improvement, growth and support of arts-related industries.” From its beginnings in 1994, Tamarack has grown to represent 2,800 artisans. It is located just off I-77 and welcomes half a million visitors annually to its facility.

4. When you do find opportunities, questions to consider include:
· What fees are involved to participate? This could be a table fee or a commission on your work. You may need to join an organization.
· How do they advertise the crafts?
· Can you set up a sales table for conventions at larger hotels/resorts?
· Can you talk to some of the participating artists and get their experiences?

5. When contacting in person, go armed with business cards, brochures and a sample or two of your work. Nothing sells like seeing the real thing.

If you’ve had experience selling your work in a resort setting, please share with our other readers.

The International Association of Professional Quilters offers resources and networking opportunities for you to create a success from your quilting business.  Learn about all the benefits of IAPQ membership and join here.

Have you ever gone to a terrific seminar and left wondering if you could take that experience and improve on it, running your own seminar? That’s what happened to Alice Kolb and partner Barbara Quinby when they decided to join forces to host the annual Texas-style quilter’s seminar, now known as Quilting Adventures. The annual seminar started in the early 2000s when Barbara built on her experience from her business career to invite four to six national quilting teachers per week to a classy, yet casual resort to offer students a week of learning from one teacher, good food and lodging. Today the seminar receives rave reviews for its attention to detail and the enriching experiences of its participants. If you, too, think putting on a seminar can be rewarding, here are some tips from Alice’s article in the Winter issue of The Professional Quilter.

1. Analyze yourself. Critique your strengths and energy – both financially and physically – and check your enthusiasm record for a long-term project.

2. Determine your level of commitment. Do you want to own a seminar company, either by yourself or with a partner? It’s a job with responsibilities that last all year from hiring teachers to handling student queries.

3.  Put together a business plan. You need to determine how much time and money are needed to bring your seminar idea to fruition. You will need to make payments well before you ever bring in any funds and you need to be sure you can handle this financial responsibility. You also need to clearly identify the market you want to reach.

4. Research potential site locations. Do they match the style of your event? Will they meet the needs of potential students identified in the business plan? Can the faculty and students easily get to the locations?

5. Personalize your event. Consider the student you identified in your business plan and how you can make the event unique for them.

6. Consider how you will attract students. This could include advertising, personal trips to shops or shows for promotion, printed material and a website. Most important, determine how much time and money you can invest to do this.

To read the article in its entirety, you can join the International Association of Professional Quilters. This issue will be the first one that you receive as one of your member benefits.

The International Association of Professional Quilters offers resources and networking opportunities for you to create a success from your quilting business.  Learn about all the benefits of IAPQ membership and join here.

Did you know that February is National Time Management Month? One way I like to get control of my time use is by time blocking on my calendar. What is time blocking? It’s a method of allocating or pre-assigning time for specific activities throughout your day. It helps me keep my day and life more balanced. I accomplish more because I have structure to my day, I can focus on a specific task with a high value, and I’m able to manage interruptions. I’m the one in charge of my day. Here’s how to do this:

1. Review your daily and weekly activities.

• Can you determine how much time you spend on specific tasks? It might be helpful to track your time for a few days so you can see how much time you do spend on those activities. For example, do you check your e-mail every couple of hours and find that you spend at least 15 minutes each time answering them?

• Do you have like tasks that are spread through out the week, e.g., teaching every day or taking in new quilts to longarm? Can these tasks be handled on one or two days, so your energy focuses on one activity?

• Do you have tasks that need attention that don’t seem to get any? For example, dedicated marketing time is key for any business. Artists want to spend their time creating and often have trouble reconciling the need to spend so much time marketing. This task is often relegated to the leftover time when it needs to move to the front burner.

• Do you have uninterrupted time for creative work? Even though we run creative-based businesses, the time should still be dedicated to the task.

2. Consider your short- and long-term goals.

• Do you have a big project that needs to be completed? Start with a list of the tasks involved to complete it and estimate how much time is involved for each.

3. Consider your own personal work habits. When are you most effective? I’m a morning person, and I know I am more productive in the morning. For me this translates into activities that require brain-power earlier in the day.

4. Armed with answers to those questions, get out your calendar and begin to block off time for your activities. What most of us do is set appointments with others and that’s what is on our calendar. We then fill our time with items on our goals or to-do list. This system lets you set an appointment with yourself for your work. Once you’ve shifted to an “appointment” mindset, it’s often easier to accomplish tasks on your list. With your goals in mind, put the important tasks first so you’ll accomplish them. If I don’t block time for the key tasks, I can easily spend lots of time on simple tasks, like folding fabric and putting it away or reading the latest quilt magazine or checking Facebook. These items don’t move my business forward in a significant way. Here are some things you might like to time-block:

• quilt intake time on one or two afternoons or evenings a week, rather than at odd times.
• time dedicated to longarm work
• creative time to design patterns
• marketing time
• bookkeeping, if you don’t have outside help
• order fulfillment, if you don’t have outside help
• learning time
• time to work on blog posts and your communications with clients
• writing time if you are working on a book
• time to complete samples
• time to read and respond to emails (I know you will have times when you need to check for something particular. When that happens, just handle that one item and save the rest for the blocked time.)
• time to develop new classes
• breaks in your day (This can be crucial if you are standing or sitting at a machine most of your day.)

To give you an idea of how I time block my week, I have our member calls and coaching calls on Tuesdays rather than spaced throughout the week. I allot one block of several hours during the week on one day to work on my blog and ezine articles. Because I’m working on a new program, I block time during each day to work on that. It’s a goal with many smaller tasks that need to be completed. I also block out time twice a day for e-mail, so I’m not checking constantly. I have an hour each day blocked out for reading or learning something new I can apply to the business. I block out Thursday afternoons for errands. Because I know that’s the day for errands, I try to schedule doctor appointments during that time, and I’ve already scheduled my hair appointments through October. I also block out time for family and self-care, so they don’t get lost.

I’m not rigid with the time blocking, and, of course, I have other appointments to put in. This week I have my local guild meeting and a professional quilt guild meeting.

In the end the reason I think this works is because when you pre-assign the time for a specific activity, you are more focused on getting it done. In a sense, you created a deadline for yourself. And by batching like tasks together in the same block (like the quilt intake sessions), you work more efficiently.

Let me know how time blocking works for you.

The International Association of Professional Quilters offers resources and networking opportunities for you to create a success from your quilting business. This article was excerpted from The Professional Quilter, the IAPQ membership journal. Learn about all the benefits of IAPQ membership and join here.

Fall seems to be ripe with opportunities for you to donate your work, whether that’s your original artwork or your product, such as a pattern or book. We all receive letters from charitable organizations, including guilds, asking for donations. While it’s wonderful to support so many worthwhile organizations, you cannot support them all. You may not have enough stock nor time to create more. And, if you respond to all the requests, your business could take a serious financial hit. On the plus side, you may get some media coverage and gain a collector of your work. When considering such requests, here are some suggestions/guidelines:

1. Choose a few charities that you care about and give to them. I’m partial to the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative. Many quilters have given to Fiberart for a Cause. Kathy Thompson with Quilters Dream Batting has started a project for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). The Quilts of Valor is another popular project. It will be easy to find a charity that touches your heart.

2. If you are an artist who is asked for a donation, consider asking the organization to share in the proceeds if your piece is auctioned. Ask that a reserve (or minimum) price be set for your work. This is particularly true if you are donating a one-of-a-kind piece of a great value. The organization still receives a fair return, and you should be able to recoup the costs of your materials. If you donate a great deal of artwork that sells for lower prices, this could “devalue” your artwork to your regular audience.

3. Remember that you are only permitted to write off on your taxes the costs of your materials. You are not permitted to write off the value of your art and your time. Perhaps you’ll find a better option is to make a monetary donation that you can deduct fully.

4. Consider offering prints or giclees of your work in lieu of the original artwork. Check our blog for the post on giclees or refer to Issue 112 of The Professional Quilter for the full article.

5. Consider who receives your donation. I regularly receive requests from guilds across the country to donate something for their annual show or shop hop. Since our audience is limited to professionals, I have no way of knowing if a professional will win the prize. If I choose to make a donation, I do it as a gift certificate and include information about IAPQ. Hopefully a professional will take me up on the gift.

6. Sending a gift certificate, as I do, is an option for many, particularly with the requests for guild shows. Pattern designers can send a pattern – either new or one that is no longer being produced – or a gift certificate with a catalog. Longarm quilters, already so generous with their time, can offer to quilt a top for someone who is making a charitable donation.

What are you guidelines or suggestions for donations?

The International Association of Professional Quilters offers resources and networking opportunities for you to create a success from your quilting business. Learn about all the benefits of IAPQ membership and join here.