Customer Reviews

The Basic Guide to Selling Crafts on the Internet

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is choc full of great information and resources aimed at getting your craft business online and making it work once it's there. Also, all the links in this book go where they are supposed to, so I wasn't frustrated by a load of error 404s. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in selling crafts or artwork online.

This book is a gold mine of information, from design tips to marketing strategies. And Dillehay refers to tons of free software that you can use, so it doesn't have to cost you a fortune to get your business going. I will consult this book again and again as I'm building my business.

"This book has an astonishing amount of usable information, crammed into so few pages! James Dillehay has an amazing talent for getting right to the point, with a minimum of "geekese." . . . The book seems to cover all the basics in a systematic way. It makes the intimidating prospect of even thinking about setting up a Web site a lot easier to approach. Of the entire list of computer instructional manuals I have read, this one would top the list. I would not hesitate to recommend it . . . even to my mom." ~ Lapidary Journal

This book provides a wealth of well-written information, particularly on how to utilize free press releases, freelance writing, usenet newsgroups, link sharing, and online bulletin boards to promote your crafts business online.

HOWEVER -- the details presented in the chapters devoted to website design and optimization are terribly out of date. Much of this material looks like it was compiled around 1999-2000. The book barely mentions Google (which was brand new in 2000 but now accounts for 80% of search engine traffic) while focusing almost exclusively on tricks for getting a listing on Yahoo -- a pointless endeavor today. The book also devotes a great deal of time to META tags and other search engine optimization tools (like the process of manually submitting web pages to search engines) that are either way out of date or no longer relevant.

The author breathlessly recommends Web Position Gold software as an aid to fine-tuning your website. Seven years ago it was the best software you could buy, but as of August 2008 WPG has been blocked by Google.

The book also makes no mention whatsoever of blogging or popular blogging platforms (like TypePad or Blogger) or blog indexing/search sites like Technorati, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. These important tools for online content generation and management seem to have been developed entirely after Mr. Dillehay finalized his manuscript.

If the author would take the time to extensively update his book to reflect current website development, blogging, and web search tools, then this book would be a real winner.

The basic concepts in this book are good, but all the details are quite out of date. (For example, the statistics on how 61% of internet users are browsing with Netscape Communicator.)

If you buy this book for the root concepts, you will be in good shape. But if you use the information as your guide to the current state of internet selling and choose technology based on it, please keep in mind that you will need more current references.

This book was published in 2002. Therefore the content in this book is drastically out of date. I would not encourage anyone to purchase the book until the content is updated.

Useful book if you have online home business. This was recommended to me by a friend who has a successful online business. Easy to read.