Books by Nigel Forster
Ever thought of making a living at lutherie?
Are you already a luthier and having trouble making a decent living?
Need to know how to market yourself better?
There is a lot of information available about how to build an instrument but not much available about how to make a living doing it. Friend and fellow luthier, Nigel Forster, has written some ebooks on the subject Nigel addresses topics and gives advice that every craftsman can benefit from. I wish this information had been available when I took the plunge from amateur to full time luthier.
With Nigel's ebooks, I am sure you will learn a lot about turning your passion into a profession and how to be successful in doing so.
Here are some of the things you will learn from Nigel's books:
- Artist or businessman?
- What to do first
- Skills you need to develop
- Where are things now? Finances
- Where are things now? Time
- Weekly timekeeping diary
- Timekeeping diary results
- How to reclaim your time
- Why mornings are important to your business
- Breaks and errands
- How to cut down on distractions: The web
- How to manage web time: "The list"
- How to use email sensibly
- How to ruin your day: Forums
- Smartphones make you stupid
- How to waste your life: Social media
- How to use the internet and email for your business effectively
- The benefits of a web free day
- How to cut down distractions: Work environment...mess
- How to tidy the workshop (for those who've forgotten or never learned)
- How to work less hard and get more done
- Being realistic and setting achievable goals
- How to cut down on distractions: People
- How to deal with customers
- The #1 pitfall: "Guitar talk"
- How to deal with difficult situations
- The ideal repairer pickup/drop off routine
- Who gets "mates rates"?
- Sometimes it's wise to say "no"
- When it turns into a bigger job than you thought: six common scenarios
- How to learn from your mistakes
- Reality snapshot - money in, money out.
- Audit: Customer sales review.
- Inquires/sales past 12 months.
- Marketing audit.
- How to put a value on time spent on “free” marketing.
- List of marketing efforts in the last 12 months.
- Facing facts.
- Target for the next 12 months.
- The “marketing gap.”
- How to know if your work is too cheap.
- How to know if your work is too expensive
- How to work out if you’re marketing enough.
- Where are you now?
- How to understand your market.
- How to identify your customers.
- Replace guesswork with experiments.
- How to design marketing experiments.
- Marketing actions list.
- Case study - full time “new” maker doing pretty well.
- Case study - Full time maker just getting by.
- Case study - Part time maker selling expensive work.
- Case study - Part time maker/repairer leveraging lineage, doing fine.
- Case study - new maker, leveraging lineage - Tom Sands.
- How to use what you’ve read.
Making a living in lutherie: from amateur to professional
A practical guide to running your own shop, a guide to dealing with some of the common pitfalls that beset luthiers.
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Making a living in lutherie: money and marketing
This book follows on from "Making a living in lutherie: from amateur to professional". Once again, this is not a woodworking book, but rather an ebook about running your business.
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The Luthier Blog ebook
For just over a year I published a blog for instrument makers called The luthier blog. This ebook is most of the contents of that blog, rolled into one big ebook.
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