Having taught crochet to children and adults, in additional to having a background in instructional design, I thought I knew everything  there was to know about teaching crochet. And while I do know a lot, I don’t know everything, especially when it comes to the business side of teaching crochet.

That’s why I was delighted to take a look at and review Marie Segares’ book, Make Money Teaching Crochet: Launch Your Business, Increase Your Side Income, Reach More Students.

The book comes in several versions: a paperback workbook,  two eBook editions, and a PDF version in MS Word. I own the Kindle edition and while it’s excellent, I recommend the paperback edition because it has some added features that my eBook version doesn’t have.

Marie has written a book that is a practical, hands-on guide, taking you step-by-step through the process of establishing a crochet-teaching business and teaching your first classes.  It is divided into five sections.

• Section 1, Getting Started, walks you through the questions you need to ask yourself about why you want to teach crochet, who your students are going to be, what you want to teach, and where. You also get to assess your skills and establish short- and long-term teaching goals.
• Section 2, The Business Side of Things, prepares you to start and run an actual business.  You’ll learn about the different business structures and which one is best for you, payment options, the difference between “price” and “cost,” and the different kinds of pricing models you can use.
• Section 3, Marketing (It’s Not a Dirty Word), introduces you to the four “P’s” of marketing, shows you where to find customers and the best way to market to them, and how to make your business stand out in the crowd of other instructors in your area.
• In Section 4, Prepping for Class, you’ll learn about the importance of instructional objectives and what to include in your lesson plans.  The information on what you should pack in advance of your class is particularly helpful.  There are also some tips for teaching online and information that will help you evaluate your teaching efforts once you have a few classes under your belt.
• Section 5, Resources, contains a wide range of valuable information to supplement each of the five sections and to help your teaching business grow and thrive.

The paperback version includes space for answering all of the questions – the what, when, where, why, and how – you need to consider when setting up and implementing your business.  There are exercises to complete in each section and 15 worksheets and forms in the Appendices that you can print out and use in developing and implementing your classes.

If you’re serious about establishing a business teaching crochet, Making Money Teaching Crochet is an excellent resource  to have in your crochet reference library whether you’re just beginning to teach or have been teaching for a while.

Marie Segares is a crochet and knitting teacher, designer, blogger, and podcaster. She hosts the Creative Yarn Entrepreneur Show, the podcast where you can find great ideas for launching, managing, and evolving your yarn-related business, and shares her patterns, tips, and projects on the Underground Crafter blog. Since she began teaching crochet part time in 2008, she has taught hundreds of beginners to crochet and helped even more improve their skills. Marie is a professional member of, and volunteer blogger for, the Crochet Guild of America, a designer/teacher member of The Knitting Guild Association, and an affiliate member of The National NeedleArts Association. Marie is a graduate of Barnard College and earned master’s degrees from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and New York University Stern School of Business. She lives in New York City.

 A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher. Although I accepted this product for review, I did not receive any additional compensation and all opinions are my own.

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