Craft a Creative Business

Well this month has pretty much been all about the book.  Whilst I was moving house I was editing the book,  I was also building the website to accompany the book too. Which is what I'm going to blame for me not having finished unpacking yet!  No pics of the house yet as it's still in chaos but we've sorted the garden and started growing our own veg already.  There's a couple pics of the garden below.

We now have corn and broccolli growing down that side

Over this end we have lettuce, strawberries, herbs, spinach & spring onions growing

Craft a Creative Business Book

The book goes to print next week and will hopefully be out in September instead of November as originally planned.  It's available to pre-order now on the Search Press website and Amazon.  Search Press are the cheapest at the moment, just so you know. ;-)

CHA One Big Show

Last week I went to the CHA (Craft & Hobby Association) UK's One Big Show which was a brilliant networking and training event in Coventry.  There were lots of small craft businesses there as well as some of the big boys like Coats Crafts, Deramores, Create & Craft TV etc.   I was teaching SEO and social media but I got lots of time to mix as well.

The networking was the best bit of the event, I met so many new people and caught up with people I haven't seen since the trade show in February.  I also got a new website sponsor....that will be announced next month.   Plus I met the lovely Jenni from The Great British Sewing Bee.  We've chatted online but it was the first time we met in person.  Everyone there said they loved the networking and all got a lot from it, I'm really looking forward to next year's show.

Jenni & Helen from Coats Crafts were very excited by my book!

As you'll see from the pic I have info booklets about my book which I was handing out at the show.  Hopefully it'll lead to a few pre-orders.

Craft A Creative Business website

Also book wise I just launched the new website which accompanies the book - http://www.craftacreativebusiness.co.uk/  This site has lots of free business guides on it, and plenty more to come.  Plus I'll be adding free downloads from the book on there too.

I also decided to use this site as a SEO case study.  Since learning huge amounts about SEO over the last few years I've only had chance to test it on sites which are already up and running.  So the Craft a Creative Business website is ideal for seeing how it works on a brand new site.  I thought I would blog about what I've done SEO wise on the new site, and what results it's had.  So if you want to learn more about SEO do pop over and take a look.

http://www.craftacreativebusiness.co.uk/

Whilst building the new site and editing the book I've also written a load of magazine features.  I've got a 6 part series on SEO running in Craft Business Magazine which is a free trade publication, I've also got 2 features appearing on Craft Focus, another free trade publication.  There's also 5 interviews/articles coming up in the next couple issues of Love Sewing, as well as an 'ask the experts' feature in Craft Seller!  I'm starting to see why the unpacking isn't going as fast as I would have liked....

I also had a lovely sewing meet up in Exeter a couple of weeks ago.  It was so great to catch up with everyone, and this time I didn't have to travel all the way from Cardiff!  In the next session (September) we're making charity quilts for siblings together.

All in all June has proved to be a manic month.  I'm not quite sure how I fitted so much in.  I've got a feeling the summer will be just as busy.  What have you got planned for the summer?