The Creative’s Guide to Starting a Business by Harriet Kelsall

Title:  The Creative’s Guide to Starting a Business

Author: Harriet Kelsall

 

 

My Thoughts:  I should disclose here and now that Harriet is a dear friend and I am so happy to have met her in person on my trip to England in June 2018.  That is not going to stop me giving you my honest opinion of this book.  Our friendship only makes one of the stories in the book even more precious to me as I was told it while at her shop in Primrose Hill.

I was looking forward to getting to read this book so much that I was nearly in tears when I learned that the US release date is scheduled for a full two months AFTER the UK release.  It hits shelves in the US on 20 November!  I thought about having Harriet mail one from her shop but then remembered how fond my bank is of my international purchasing habit and that the mailman likes to hold my international goodies at the actual post office.  What a headache and a half!  Enter Kindle to the rescue, or more accurately the Kindle App for iPhone.  I was able to get the Kindle Edition on the UK Release date and spent the last few days all snuggled up with this book.

Harriet Kelsall has written a book that almost any creative will find useful. If you work through ALL of the exercises you’ll have a working and presentable business plan after a few short hours. Maybe you just need encouragement to keep going, you’ll find it. Maybe you need a mentor…Harriet has advice about finding one for you. Maybe you need a laugh at the crazy things we do to get that dream contract…there might just be one of those in here too. Read this book, use this book, learn from this book.

There were a few moments in this book where I wanted to slam it shut and hide under the covers because my friend’s words were holding up a mirror and forcing me to recognize some serious mistakes that I had made in the past that have no doubt cost me some amazing opportunities, but I stopped…I took a deep breath, grabbed another shortbread biscuit and kept reading. I was deliberate in choosing not to take her book as an indictment or a lecture, but, instead as a serious conversation with a friend about the possibility of starting over and getting it right this time.  A chance to truly define what realistic success looks like to me and a chance to really think about what I need to do, what I need to pour 100% of me into, to make that success happen.

As I said above, almost any creative will find this book useful.  For me it was the first step in a new, focused adventure.  An adventure that I can’t wait to go on with friends and mentors at my side.

 

Pre-Order Your Copy @ Amazon.com today (or grab the Kindle Version NOW)

If You want to order from Amazon.co.uk, you can do that HERE