Doing crafts and hobbies used to be exceptionally popular, which made writing crafts and hobbies books a solid publishing idea.
Oh, how times, they change.
A hundred years ago, what we know now as crafts and hobbies weren’t crafts and hobbies at all. They were professions and flat-out necessities.
Women didn’t sew or knit or crochet for fun. They did it to make clothing and home goods. And men didn’t do woodworking as a way of leaving reality behind for a bit. For them, that was reality.
Now, in 2018 going into 2019, that’s just not the case anymore in both good and bad ways. For most of us, we can simply go to a store or shop online for our necessities – and non-necessities. We don’t have to make everything ourselves.
This makes the crafts and hobbies category a whole lot bigger than it used to be – if it even existed a hundred years ago.
Yet with all that free time on our hands, we’ve somehow lost the ability to truly enjoy it. We’re too busy stressing out over all the time we don’t have because we're wasting it on social media and other technological traps.
At the risk of reminiscing yet again, think back to the ‘80s and early ‘90s if you can - before smartphones or even the internet was really a thing. Tie-dying was huge at the time. As was decorating horribly gaudy apparel like hats and sweatshirts.
Ornament creation. Painting random figurines. Gem-making. Bead mosaics…
Admittedly, some of that might still be around and I’m just out of the scene now. But it does seem like a lot of that really fun stuff is rather dead and gone.
The question is, does it have to be?
Certainly, there’s still the love of crafts to be cultivated, as evidenced by stores and nationwide chains such as Michaels and Hobby Lobby.
In Michaels’ case, its gross profit keeps creeping up year by year. And Hobby Lobby seems to just keep expanding as well.
So clearly, there’s the shopper’s will. Now you just have to find the way to make them love your craft of choice so much that they simply must buy your crafts and hobbies book.
Crafts and Hobbies Book:
What kind of person doesn’t like a good crafts and hobbies how-to book? I mean, other than the kind of people who don’t like crafts and hobbies, of course. But are those people really even people?
They’re certainly not people the crafting, sewing, knitting, crocheting, painting, drawing-focused kind of writers need to worry about while they provide step-by-step guidance on the best way to create beautiful, fun (and even occasionally useful) items to brighten up crafts and hobby people’s days, and keep us off the internet.
Such crafts and hobbies books can be geared for kids, teens or adults; and novices, intermediates and experts. That’s what we’ll be fully focusing on Friday.
First though, Thursday’s piece will cover crafts and hobbies guides even the biggest klutzes can learn from.