Sell What You Make

A workbook for people who make things by hand and want to start selling them: worked out to the cent, for the US and the UK.

Most advice on selling crafts starts with your brand and your dreams. This book starts with the sums, because the commonest way a handmade shop fails is a price that quietly loses money on every sale. It assumes you have never sold anything, and walks you through four jobs in order: set a price, choose where to sell, list it well, and get your first ten sales.

Three makers, every number shown

You follow three invented makers through every decision, with realistic costs and every sum checked:

• Maya knits chunky beanies in Ohio. Her friends said charge $25; on Etsy that would pay her $2.82 an hour. Her first full price is above anything buyers pay, so she learns the levers that fix that without working for less.
• Dev throws stoneware mugs in Sheffield, England, and sells in pounds. His price fits the market; his question is Etsy, his own website or the Christmas fair.
• Ana makes sterling silver hoops in Arizona. Her costs say she could sell for $26.61; buyers pay $40 to $55. She learns to price to the market, not to her costs.

What you will be able to do

• Cost materials to the unit, count the pieces that fail, time your work honestly and share out overheads
• Turn costs into the lowest price that pays you in each place you sell, by dividing for fees rather than adding them
• Check that price against what buyers already pay (the "shelf walk") and decide what to do when it is too high or far too low
• Answer a discount request or a shop that wants to buy at half price, with the number in front of you
• Compare Etsy, Amazon Handmade, Folksy, your own website (Square Online, Shopify, Big Cartel) and craft fairs by what you keep from a sale and whether they bring you buyers
• Work out how many sales a craft fair needs to pay for the stall, and for your day
• Take six photos that work, using a window, a sheet of white card and a phone; write a title in buyers' words, 13 tags and a description that answers questions
• Price postage from a real parcel, pack fragile things to survive, and write shop policies that follow the rules where you live
• Plan your first month, read views, favourites and sales to find what to fix, and keep records from day one

Fees, dated and sourced

Every fee and rule was read on the company's or government's own pages on 16 October 2026, and each page is listed at the back with its address. The book shows what each place takes from a real sale as an itemised receipt, including the parts that catch people out: Etsy's payment fee on sales tax, Offsite Ads, Etsy's UK regulatory operating fee and VAT on marketplace fees. Because fees change, it also teaches a ten-minute way to re-check every fee and redo your price.

It covers the basics of tax for a new seller in both countries (the IRS on Form 1099-K and self-employment tax; HMRC on the £1,000 trading allowance and platform reports) and points to the official rules for products with extra safety requirements, such as toys and cosmetics. It is a starting point, not tax or legal advice for your situation.

What you download

• Sell What You Make (58 pages, PDF, US Letter, in colour, with bookmarks and a contents page)
• Worksheets W1 to W10 (13 pages, PDF), in US Letter and in A4: materials, time log, overheads, price builder, shelf walk, where to sell, fair plan, photo shot list, listing builder, first ten sales and the ten-sale review. For printing and filling in by hand; they are not fillable forms.
• A ZIP holding both worksheet PDFs and the price calculator, a spreadsheet for Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers. Type your costs into the yellow cells and it shows your lowest price on Etsy (US and UK), Amazon Handmade, your own website and at a fair. It comes filled in with the book's examples, and its answers match the book.

Good to know

• No promise of sales: the book shows you how to stop losing money, put your work where buyers are, and tell what is not working.
• The makers, their costs, shelf walks and sales are invented teaching examples. The fees are real and dated.
• It does not cover hiring help, paid advertising at scale or running a full-time business.
• This is a digital download. No physical book is shipped.