Good solid business advice for someone wanting to marketing their crafting. #GoodreadsGiveaway ( )

First, I want to thank NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of 'Your Creative Career' in exchange for an honest review. Now on to the good stuff!

'Your Creative Career' is not for every gig worker. It’s for creative entrepreneurs as Sabino calls us. Creative entrepreneurs include web designers, handmade product designers, writers, painters, bloggers, vloggers, etc. 'Your Creative Career' by Anna Sabino is part memoir, part self-help book, and part how-to guide written in a stream-of-consciousness style.

If you’ve read other books about using your creativity to make money and have a solid grasp of basic business principles like cash flow, you can skip this one, not a whole lot of new information here. But if you’re new to creative entrepreneurship, you'll want to read 'Your Creative Career' because Sabino covers everything you’ll need to know to get started. Although there might not be a whole lot of new how-to information for the rest of us in 'Your Creative Career,' Sabino does share some wisdom worth contemplating:

Grow deeper instead of broader.

At one point in her journey, Sabino recalls being inundated with emails and pitches about how to grow her business. Her response: “I didn’t want to hear any of that. I look at growth mindfully. To me, it’s more about growing deeper than broader.” She goes on the say, “instead of focusing on how to make it even more profitable, I recognized the sweet spot of ‘enough’ and refocused my energy on growing in other areas of my life.”

Wow! How refreshing! That’s one of the great things about a creative career, no pressure from investors, shareholders, and board members to continually make more money. With so many hands in the honeypot, it’s no wonder that many large businesses push their employees to work harder and longer and sacrifice quality, safety, and privacy in the name of the almighty dollar. As a creative entrepreneur, you get to choose how much you want to grow your business.

Get rid of the stigma behind money.

Sabino takes a practical stance on money. She points out that competition in creative fields is fierce and that “only those talented creatives who focus on profit will stop starving. Making [money] a priority is the only way to make our business sustainable.”

She is absolutely right. We shouldn't call our fellow artists sellouts simply because they make a living with their art. I’ve read a lot of “internet advice” for creatives along the lines of “If you wouldn’t do it for free you’re in the wrong industry.” Yes, if you want to be a successful artist, you do have to love what you do, but that shouldn’t preclude you from making money or aspiring to make money. By holding onto the stigma that we are somehow sellouts when we make money, we artists are allowing the people and businesses who hire us to take advantage of us.

In Sabino’s words, “It’s time to let go of the stigma and embrace money as a reason to start a business. It’s OK to strive to have a profitable business and make it a priority. This will lead to creating a healthy and sustainable company in line with our values.”

Keep “sending ships.”

Sabino’s term sending ships means “reaching out to the unknown without having any expectation about what comes back to you.” It’s a more karmic way of networking. Sabino sends ships by complimenting journalists on their work. She’ll request interviews, inquire about submission guidelines, and pose questions. Yes, most of this falls under the umbrella of networking and marketing. Sabino’s attitude, however, makes all the difference. When I started “sending ships,” letting go of the expectation of getting anything in return also freed me from my fear of bothering people.

Set boundaries.

In 'Your Creative Career', Sabino never specifically says to set boundaries, but she explains the ways she limits her social media use and leverages email. With regard to social media, Sabino warns against checking statistics, getting involved in controversial discussions, reacting to criticism, and being reactive.

Sabino also communicates almost exclusively through email. She dislikes phone calls because they are distracting and inefficient. Instead, she makes it clear that the best way to reach her is via email. She even says so in her voicemail message. Although this may not be possible for some creative entrepreneurs. There is something to be learned from her steadfast boundary setting.

Where Sabino Deviates From Her Thesis in 'Your Creative Career'

The only point Sabino makes that I’m skeptical of is her point about college. She insists that education is the only path to success. Sabino says that kids drop out of high school or college because they don’t see the point and parents let them because, “after giving it some thought, parents realize that during their careers, they didn’t need to use any math other than multiplication tables or percentage calculation.” She goes on to say, “Unfortunately, often this child becomes a burden to their parents.” She later implies that successful dropouts could have been even more successful had they not dropped out of high school or college.

I find Sabino’s take on education too narrow to be useful. College is cost-prohibitive for many people and reasons for dropping out of high school are usually more complicated than “I won’t need this information as an adult.” If that were true, everyone would drop out of high school. Of course, I would never discourage anyone from getting an education, but dropping out of high school or college does not guarantee failure and graduating from college does not guarantee success.

Finally, this section of the book didn’t belong. Sabino titled it “Implicit Learning” but its only purpose is to convince those of us who didn’t finish high school or college to go back and do it. In her eyes, you are only capable of implicit learning if you graduated from college. It was also strange to read this after she spent pages discussing the courage it takes to live an unconventional life.

Why You Should Read 'Your Creative Career'

Despite Sabino’s foray into her opinions about education, she has a lot to offer in 'Your Creative Career.' In addition to discussing creativity and efficiency, Sabino explains some basic business principles in a conversational way.

I also appreciate that 'Your Creative Career' isn’t focused on writing. As I previously mentioned, 'Your Creative Career' is memoir-esque and Sabino is a jewelry designer, so the book focuses on that. I am a writer; consequently, some parts of this book didn’t apply to me. But I’m tired of reading books about writing and reading about bootstrapping a product based-business was interesting to me. It also helped me think about how I could apply similar principles to my writing business.

Finally, Sabino’s “cheerleading” is inspiring instead of cheesy. She provides loads of encouragement while acknowledging and even emphasizing that becoming a creative entrepreneur requires lots of hard work and planning. Anyone else out there pursuing a creative career? Let me know in the comments on https://pickingbooks.com/blog/yourcreativecareer ( )

This is a very technical and yet motivating book.
It is not the kind of book that you would read from cover to cover in a few days because you are going to want to work through some of the suggestions and really think about them and how you can apply them.
I will say however this reads like a technical book. Once the book was in my hands I enjoyed reading it. However when I put the book down for the day I had a hard time picking it back up for a few days. That's a problem if you want to make it through the book in order to implement then things she is suggesting that worked for her. It is a lot of text and it reads like it is a lot of text.
I would likely rate it more of a 3.5 or 3.75 because I have every intention of using the book as reference as I continue to work through it.
I do suggest the book for those interested in a creative career but only if you are personally serious about it because otherwise if you weren't sure of the kind of work that could go into a creative career this book could scare you - it is not for the person who is passive about their creative career! ( )

I received this book as a member giveaway and thoroughly enjoyed it! I love the cover design, which initially drew me to the book. The author shared a lot of great information about her business and is very encouraging to others wanting a creative business of their own. This is a very interesting and informative read. I highly recommend it! ( )

Excellent insight into how to focus on setting up a creative business. Full of tips and help to focus the mind on the current task. ( )