What if you could start your day out with an excited shout instead of a frustrated sigh? Unfortunately, selling handmade goods online is no longer as simple as throwing together a product listing and waiting for sales to roll in. There are now millions of people with handmade products and they are all eager to build a sustainable income. The Handmade Entrepreneur uses precise methods based on proven marketing techniques to set you above the competition. It teaches you how to create a genuine business you can count on rather than a bundle of shop pages and social media accounts built on a foundation of guesswork. What You Can Expect to Learn from This Book: • How to take DIY pictures that get clicks and sales • How to set up a shop that turns visitors into buyers in under two seconds • How to price your items • How to write titles and descriptions • How to brand your business with DIY techniques • How to rank your pages • How to find targeted audiences • How to build up your list of followers • Where to promote your listings • How to sell without selling • How to form relationships with people who can send you extra sales • How to start a "buzz" about your products • Which tools to incorporate into your business The goal of this book is to free you from having to rely on any third-party website for your sales. Yes, you can take advantage of platforms like Etsy, and you should, but websites come and go, and if all your sales come only from that website, you run into trouble every time there are algorithm changes, a saturation of sellers, or cheaper products to compete with. You are trying to generate sales, which means that you are trying to run a business, which in-turn means that you need a real business plan. Brick and motor stores don't just buy a bunch of goods, throw them in a building, and hope people will come. They plan, study their target market, pick a perfect store location, and prepare to market themselves. Just because you sell online does not mean that you can skip all of these steps. You have billions of products to compete with online and a crowd of shoppers who have an overwhelming number of options before them. You must prepare your storefront, get your products ready, know your audience, and then know how to market to them. Optimizing Your Shop for Sales Dani starts out showing you how to prepare your products with photos that attract clicks and sales. It doesn't just tell you how to do it, though. It SHOWS you. Thanks to the help of many carefully selected Etsy sellers, there are many example photos for each point. In addition to this, the author only shows you DIY photos to prove that you can do it all on your own. Next, Dani discusses how to optimize your shop. She goes through every aspect such as banners, profiles, descriptions, tags, and titles. You will learn how to optimize your pages so that people stay there instead of leaving instantly. This can be done by creating an inviting environment with images and content that buyers can skim through in under two seconds. If buyers can determine that your page is worth staying on in less than two seconds, you have won the battle. Finding Targeted Audiences and Marketing The issue with selling online is finding people who would be interested in your products.

    Over 80 per cent of adults in the UK use caffeine every day, but when does this habit become a reliance? Caffeine is a bitter addictive drug which attacks the central nervous system and makes you jittery. Fooling you into thinking you are more alert, caffeine will often disrupt your sleep and actually increase overall fatigue. Quite simply, it's bad for you with no real benefits.In The Easy Way to Quit Caffeine, Allen Carr addresses the difficulties that coffee-drinkers and soda consumers face in trying to quit caffeine. By explaining what caffeine does to your body, and providing simple step-by-step instructions to free you from your addiction, Carr shows you how to lead a happier, healthier and more chilled life.

    Along with more of MaryJane’s engaging essays and endearing farmgirl wisdom, you’ll find projects that have an irresistible appeal for the contemporary crafter who is intrigued with the delicate handcrafts of yesteryear. MaryJane includes nostalgic patterns with simple step-by-step instructions for projects to wear, for gifts, or to bring down-home charm to any room of the home, all with her unmistakable farmgirl flair.MaryJane’s Stitching Room is a wonderful companion to MaryJane’s Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook, but it also stands alone as a useful guide to the handiwork of days gone by.

    simplify your life and make it more beautiful with a little help from fabric and quilt designer camille roskelley and her quilts for the modern home she shows you eight quilt projects plus four pillow patterns to make using pre cut jelly rolls charm packs fat quarters and more each project features step by step directions and colored illustrations so even new quilters can learn camilles simple yet modern techniques. author camille roskelley. softcover 110 pages. imported.

    Crocheting is fun. Crocheting is fast. Okay, got it? Great! Now forget everything else you ever knew about crocheting, because Cool Crochet takes the easy, fast fun of crochet and dumps the frumpy afghans, lumpy hats, and bumpy scarves of the past. With this book, top—selling author Melissa Leapman moves crochet light years ahead, into exciting designs, dazzling patterns, and sleek shapes that are sure to earn the approval of fashion police everywhere. Tanks, pullovers, cardigans, halters, a skirt, a dress, even a bikini—they're all just a hook and a dream away! And how about coordinating those new outfits with trendy purses, hats, and jewelry? Practical as well as good—looking, Cool Crochet includes valuable tips on assembling garments, plus an appendix of stitches and guidance on yarn and materials. Every fashionista will want to get her hooks into this book!

    . . but it doesn’t love you? After fifteen years of farming, Catherine Friend is tired. After all, while shepherding is one of the oldest professions, it’s not getting any easier. The number of sheep in America has fallen by 90 percent in the last ninety years. But just as Catherine thinks it’s time to hang up her shepherd’s crook, she discovers that sheep might be too valuable to give up. What ensues is a funny, thoughtful romp through the history of our woolly friends, why small farms are important, and how each one of us—and the planet—would benefit from being very sheepish, indeed.

    Sara was a writer, and drinking seemed to be an element of the identity. As a writer, she searched for the story that would define who she was, and her drinking was a part of her. She drank socially at first, with friends or family, at parties, or festivals. She drank at home sometimes, a glass of wine or two. It was when the two glasses of wine turned into two bottles of wine, when her blacked-out drunken behavior began destroying her marriage, when she began combining her drinking with pills - prescribed or otherwise - this is when Sara began to realize she had a problem. It wasn't until she hit her last rock bottom that she understood her story. If she were to continue drinking, her marriage would be over. She knew she had to quit. So she did. Sara quickly learned that sobriety wasn't easy. She had never realized before what a focal point alcohol had been in her life. This new world she was in felt strange and unnatural. Sometimes the daily battle felt impossible. But inside the struggle she found words. One day, she threw on her husband's oversized Nike sweatshirt, drove her daughter to school, and came home to write. The words just poured out of her. Now she had a story. Despite the struggles she faced and still faces, Sara has remained sober. This is her story.

    This essential guide details every aspect of sweater knitting, starting with instructions for four basic sweater types: yoke, raglan, drop shoulder, and set-in sleeve. Patterns are offered in multiple sizes and yarn gauges for broad appeal. Following the basics for each of the four sweater types are a diverse range of customizing options, including how to add a hood, cowl neck, turtleneck, pockets, and zip or cardigan front, just to name a few. Amy's clear instruction and expert tips expand the many knitting possibilities, creating the essential knitting resource for knitters everywhere"--

    Intended for developers who are already familiar with the Apex language, and experienced Java and C# developers who are moving to Apex, this book starts where the Force.com documentation leaves off. Instead of trying to cover all of the features of the platform, Advanced Apex programming focuses entirely on the Apex language and core design patterns. You’ll learn how to truly think in Apex – to embrace limits and bulk patterns. You’ll see how to develop architectures for efficient and reliable trigger handling, and for asynchronous operations. You’ll discover that best practices differ radically depending on whether you are building software for a specific organization or for a managed package. And you’ll find approaches for incorporating testing and diagnostic code that can dramatically improve the reliability and deployment of Apex software, and reduce your lifecycle and support costs. Based on his experience both as a consultant and as architect of a major AppExchange package, Dan Appleman focuses on the real-world problems and issues that are faced by Apex developers every day, along with the obscure problems and surprises that can sneak up on you if you are unprepared.

    This is for the mothers out there that want to run the home and raise the children in a stress-free and affordable way. This is for the wife that would like to be the hostess with the mostess, but not toil and fret all day and has no talents in making radishes into roses. This is for the real housewive's that are a little funky, want to be frugal, want the adorable home, maybe a little farm in their Urban backyard, purposely don't match their sheets, like fun accent walls in each room, want to homeschool their children, need to do a major household budget, and downsize, but won't compromise on a good life. This is for the families that want to cut the grocery bill big time and still have their organics and non-GMO popcorn. This is also for the families happy to ditch the car and walk to save money and the environment but won't give up their entertaining and gatherings. This book is loaded with great advice and tips on everything from a household budget, making your own cleaners, going a little country in the city, throwing parties with a few dollars, and having a good life on very little.

    And who better to compile one than Lily Chin—the author of four hugely popular knitting and crocheting manuals, a veteran teacher, and one of the fastest crocheters in the world?Lily Chin's Crochet Tips & Tricks compiles more than 75 of her best techniques—some collected from her regularly sold-out classes, many more never seen before—into one comprehensive, pocket-size guide. This book is filled with simple solutions to every crocheter's pet peeves, as well as nonstandard approaches to some of the biggest crocheting bugaboos. At the end of it, you'll be left with one satisfying question: "Why didn't I think of that?!"

    He spent 18 months - between May of 2010 and October of 2011 - working as an embedded reporter with law enforcement agencies, partnering with officers on night patrols, accompanying detectives on warrant searches and probation sweeps, observing SWAT operations and spending hundreds of hours with attorneys and victims' advocates in small-town courtrooms. The result is "Shadow People," a stark and sometimes brutal exploration of America's modern methamphetamine crisis.

    This thorough, imaginative collection of sock shapes and patterns gives you the tools to construct an astounding variety of custom socks.All heels and toes are carefully explained and clearly photographed, and you can plug in your own numbers to work at the exact size and gauge you want. If you'd rather just pick up the needles and start knitting, Sock Architecture also includes 17 fully designed patterns. Most span five sizes, from women's extra small through men's large. And most of the patterns offer guidelines for an adjustable size so you can choose your own gauge, size, or both. Make socks that are as unique as you are!Lara demystifies popular sock-knitting techniques and gives you tips and tricks that could only have come from the mind behind the Math4Knitters blog and podcast. Terrified of grafting? Love afterthought heels but hate retrieving those tiny left-on-hold stitches? Adore the look and fit of your usual top down heel, but hate picking up gusset stitches and dealing with that weird little hole at the top of the heel flap? Lara gives you all the tools and methods you need to address these issues and build your own great socks.

    

    More than 20 truly stunning projects, all using peyote stitch, come in a variety of flat and dimensional shapes, from triangles, teardrops, and pentagons to tetrahedrons, cubes, and diamonds. Sleek, contemporary, and breathtaking, these beadwoven pieces are perfect for the intermediate crafter—but with such clear and detailed instructions, even beginners will give them a try! Diane Fitzgerald is a featured artist in the book Masters: Beadweaving. Other books in Lark Jewelry & Beading's Beadweaving Master Class series have been authored by Marcia DeCoster, Laura McCabe, Sherry Serafini, Maggie Meister, and Rachel Nelson-Smith.