C&T Publishing is a group of quilters and crafters dedicated to publishing products tailored to our audience. This blog is where we break away from book schedules and marketing campaigns to focus on what drives us to be creative and how this creativity manifests itself in our every day lives.
Sewing Snack Bags and Sandwich Wraps
Like most of us, I am trying my best to reduce, reuse and recycle. I felt guilty every time I pulled yet another paper towel off the roll to wrap my toasted breakfast in to transport off to work. So this weekend, I felt enough was enough and during nap time I sewed up a bunch of these cinch top snack bags and some sandwich bags!
My husband recommended a design for the sandwich/morning toasty bag and I faithfully (Continue Reading...)
Garage Sale Find: Wool Thread
Hurrah! A big box of wool thread all for $1.
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Garage Sale Find: Framed Needlepoint
Could not resist this lovely needlepoint. I think I like the old frame just as much as the needlepoint inside.
Garage sale price-$2!
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Quilted Alphabet Fun
I saw a wonderfully fun Rag Quilt Letters project on the Happy Together blog and had to give it a try. My 22 month old is learning all of his letters so I thought this was a great example of someone thinking: what if these were made out of fabric?
The surprise was that my eldest son quickly picked out all of the letters of his name and asked me to put them above his bed, so I think I’ll (Continue Reading...)
Advice from Acquisitions: Part 8
This is the last in a series of eight blog posts where I hope I have offered some sensible advice for those who may be thinking of writing a book. Below, is my top ten tips:
Top 10 Do’s and Don’ts
#1 Don’t let concern about your writing skills prevent you from submitting. We have Developmental Editors to help with that.
#2 Don’t wait to complete the book before submitting your idea. At C&T, we just request a sample chapter, an outline and (Continue Reading...)
Advice from Acquisitions: Part 7
As part of an ongoing series on the acquisitions process, I am going to talk about what you can start doing today if you do want to submit but just aren’t ready yet. You can be working on some things to help you prepare.
First of all: Have a plan! Take the time in the beginning to really do a proper business plan. This doesn’t have to be a big formal 30 page document with 5 year projections of profit and (Continue Reading...)
Garage Sale Find: Knitting Yarn
Well, this week I found two massive bags of knitting yarn for my friend, Sue, here at work. I know that a lot of us are cross-crafters, but as I am not a knitter, I couldn’t tell if the yarn was good or not so I didn’t take a photo. Sue says thumbs up for this find with 6 lovely Kaffe silk skeins from Rowan (still with the tags of $8.95 each) as the highlight and I did throw (Continue Reading...)
Breaking the Rules
Do you think that rules were made to be broken? In this case I certainly do! C&T is trying something a bit new. We are introducing three of our upcoming authors and spilling the beans early.
As there are so many of our readers who are interested in the process of writing a book, we have invited Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle of Fun Quilts, Bari Ackerman of Bari J Designs and Samantha Cotterill of mummysam to use their blogs to (Continue Reading...)
Advice from Acquisitions: Part 6
As part of an ongoing series on the acquisitions process, I am going to talk a little bit about self publishing.
A lot of people are attracted to this, but self-publishing is a lot of work and very (very) few do this well with either patterns or with booklets. Lots of errors, long hours of fulfillment, and a lot of money up front. Much better to have a team to help you along the way, that have a reputation for quality (Continue Reading...)
Advice from Acquisitions: Part 5
As part of an ongoing series on the acquisitions process, I am going to talk a little bit about how to use a book as part of a business plan to start making a career from your craft.
One of the questions I received from the Etsy Virtual Lab was whether it was possible to make a living from writing craft books. While I comically responded that it totally depended on where you live, the reality is that the answer is (Continue Reading...)
