Myows is a new free online copyright protection and management solution.

The service works on a basic premise, that being a way to prove your ownership of a design or product by uploading information about a product, such as photos and text, to your account and specifying the license applied. This is roughly the digital equivalent of posting proof of your ownership of a specific intellectual property by some form of registered delivery, though it's much more convenient.

It becomes even more attractive as the site offers tools for helping to enforce copyright in the event that an infringement has been discovered, including the automatic drafting of cease and desist letters or notifications of DMCA infringements.

You can sign up for free at Myows.com or view their informative video describing their service - it's 12 minutes long and well worth viewing.

If you make and sell handmade craft items, whether you sell via craft shows and markets or online through your own website, an Etsy store or through another handmade marketplace, knowing the trends for the coming year is an important part of your planning.

Knowing what potential customers will be looking for and how buying habits might change can keep you at the head of the game. While this is crucial for craftspeople who make and sell handmade fashion items and accessories, it is also a necessary part of business for all arts and crafts business. Even if you are anti fashion and anti trends, you still need to be aware of what trends to avoid!


Fashion Trends

This is a useful website for checking out future fashion trends. This is a link to the CIFF 2010 trends - Cosmo worlds. The fashions are broken down into styles, click on a heading to take you to a page where you can see a range of clothes within a given style. Fashion forecasts from previous years are also available.


Color Trends


The Noyon summer 2010 collection features three key color ways - Noyon 2010 Summer Collection.

Download a pdf file with color trends for 2010 & 2011. The main theme appears to be urban meets nature - Lenzing 2010 / 2011 Color Trends.


Three bold color trends from Darquer for autumn and winter 2010/2011  - Darquer Color Trends.


Swarovski Trends
Handmade jewelers who make jewelry using Swarovski Elements  will be interested in this page at Fashion Trendsetter looking at the Swarovski Elements that form part of the  Spring/Summer 2010 range - Swarovski Elements 2010.

Knitwear Trends

....and last but by no means least, this is a trend forecast from Fashion Magazine. This is interesting for knitwear designers as well as knitters - Knitwear Trends Autumn 2010.

How do you keep up with the latest trends? Do trends and fashions matter? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts with others!

EsellerAds is a new Etsy tool that could be hugely powerful for marketing and promoting any Etsy seller's shop and products.

The service is simplicity personified to use - you just enter your Etsy username or Seller Id on the EsellerAds site and they automatically produce your advert. There are a selection of standard sizes to choose from.

Harnessing the power of the Etsy API, your adverts are subsequently updated on a daily basis to ensure they're always fresh.

These adverts can be placed on any website, including Facebook pages and can also be shared with friends and family so that they can put them on their sites. New customers can then browse through your products anywhere or read more information by clicking through your advert. If they want to buy, the advert will quickly take them to your Etsy store making the whole process straightforward.

You can sign up for your own EsellerAds account by visiting the EsellerAds website and there's also an interesting feature about it on The Storque, Etsy's handmade blog.

In the last day or so, we've added a selection of ebooks from wowio.com to our directory of small craft business links.

Wowio is a site that offers a range of ebooks that cover a range of subjects and allows you to view the complete books for free online using their own book viewer. Many of the books are also available for purchase as downloadable PDFs.

The books we've picked up on are mainly, though not exclusively, targeting sales professionals, but those very same skills are an essential requirement for anyone setting up or running a small craft business. Very few products sell themselves.

We've also tried to highlight the more concise and succinct business ebooks and they range from about a dozen pages to 68, making them easily digested online.

The business ebooks from wowio have been added to several different sections but you can find them easily by searching for wowio or by clicking the following link to view the wowio business ebooks.

The process of selling our work is something that many sales people find hard. By this, I don't mean the physical action of taking money in return for our products - that's something that I for one find very easy - instead I am talking about how to convert those browsers at craft shows or people making small buying signals into sales, WITHOUT sounding like a double-glazing salesperson!

Open Ended Questions

One easy way to get into a sales conversation with people is by asking open ended questions. This is questions that cannot be answered with a yes or no answer. Therefore instead of asking 'do you like the red one', ask 'which do you like best' or 'what are your favorite color' etc. This is a good way to start a dialog with a potential customer. When you ask open ended questions it feels less like an interrogation and you can learn more about the customer's likes and dislikes. This also allows you to start to show other items to the potential customer which you have already identified fit in with their taste.

Example - How Not to Do It

Me: Do you like those red earrings?

Potential Customer: No

Me: ...er

Example - How to Do It

Me: What color gemstones do you like?

Potential Customer: I like blue tones.

Me: I have a wide range of blue jewelry over here...

OK, so it's not going to work every time. You'll always get potential customers who won't open up to you, however if you use open ended questions you're at least giving yourself a fighting chance!

Selling Wholesale

This technique is particularly important for occasions when you are selling to gift stores or other retail outlets as you need to establish what the needs of the store owner are.

Do you have a top sales tip? Why not leave a comment below!

The term self representing artist applies to any artist who makes and sells their own work. Self representing artist or SRA is a useful term to use in your online marketing as some savvy buyers may well use this as part of a search. Using self representing artist or SRA is one more way to make your work stand out.

Tip: Don't assume that everyone will be familiar with self representing artist or SRA. If you use it on your website, blog or store, take the opportunity to explain it somewhere, maybe in the FAQ or About Us pages. This is a great way to raise awareness of self representing artists and what they stand for.

Any artist who makes and sells their own work can describe themselves as a self representing artist, however a couple of groups have been formed to collectively promote the work of self representing artists who specialize in glass art and jewelry design.

Self Representing Artists - Specializing in Glass Arts

While the term can be used to describe an artist from any field, a group called Self Representing Artists (SRA) has been formed that specializes in glass arts of any kind.

The aim of this group is to clearly differentiate their own handmade glass arts from mass produced items. This is of particular importance on online auction sites, such as eBay, where the lines between handmade and mass produced can unfortunately be blurred. While this may be less of the case on handmade market places such as Etsy, Artfire and others, any handmade market place that sells supplies will, of course, be accepting the sale of mass-produced glass beads. Hence the need to help shoppers identify handmade work from a self representing glass artist.

The group, Self Representing Artists, is free to join via the Self Representing Artist website. When an artist has joined, they are able to use the logo. There is more information on the website.

Self Representing Artists Jewelry Designers

Jewelry designers may be interesting in the Self Representing Artists Jewelry Designers group, SRAJD. More information can be found on the Self Representing Artists Jewelry Designers website.

Welcome to our new weekly slot - What Not to Do Monday!

Everyone is always saying what we should be doing to run a successful arts and craft business, we're going to take a look at things from the other way and see what not to do! Sometimes funny, sometimes deadly serious, we'll be looking each week at what not to do. So, without further ado, here's our inaugural WNTD post:

What Not to Do Monday #1

Don't rely just on the feedback of family and friends when you are considering new product ideas or whether now is the time to set up a handmade business. They love you - they are unlikely to tell you that your lovingly created products suck.

Tip: If you can only get feedback from family and friends then ask them to tell you three good things and three things that can be improved. This approach is useful and will avoid any hurt feelings. Knowing what could be done better is a great way to get new ideas.

Here are some notable dates for January and other useful information about the month. This can be useful for marketing campaigns or for ideas for new seasonal product lines.

• 5th Dia de los Rayes
• 18th Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (third Monday of January)
• 25th Burns Night - the time to celebrate all things Scottish!
• 26th Australia Day
  

 January Symbols

• Birthstone - Garnet
• Flower (UK) - Carnation (which symbolizes love, pride, beauty, distinction, and fascination)
• Flower (US) - Snowdrop
• The Chinese floral emblem of January is the prunus mume
• The Japanese floral emblem of January is the camellia 

January is named after the ancient god of the doorway, Janus. The name was given to the month as January is the doorway to the year.