While on vacation last week, I read a book I wanted to share with you, Craft Inc.: Turn Your Creative Hobby Into a Business by Meg Mateo Ilasco. It’s fabulous!

Meg covers everything you need to know to get your craft business off the ground: financing, legal structure, trademarks, business licenses, packaging, pricing, production, marketing, publicity, trade shows, sales, order fulfillment, and more in a fun, accessible way.

Plus, she profiles inspiring entrepreneurs and enterprises like Denyse Schmidt, KleinReid, Sunshine Scarves, Wool & Hoop, and Jill Bliss throughout the book.

After reading Craft Inc. (the Thanksgiving break would be a perfect time!), you can pick yourself up a  Craft Inc. Business Planner: The Ultimate Organizer for Turning Your Crafts Into Cash to start planning for 2010.  The Planner is rich with useful tools.

She has everything from an “open-for-business checklist,” to a pricing worksheet, to templates for designing your tradeshow booth, to marketing campaign worksheets. There is also a to-do list notepad in the front, folders in the back, and an address book separated into sections for business contacts, vendor/supplier contacts, and industry contacts.  Pretty awesome.

You can see more images of what the Planner looks like on the inside in these blog posts:

• What I’m Reading: Craft Inc. Business Planner on megan auman’s blog
• craft inc. business planner . . . on oh joy!
• craft inc. business planner on poppytalk
• meg mateo ilasco – craft inc. business planner on sub-studio design blog

What other resources would you recommend for craft entrepreneurs?

Full disclosure: I received a review copy of the Craft Inc. Business Planner.