Tips for applying to a craft market or fair

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I posted this blog post today on the Handmade Market Blog but thought I would share it in my own space too!

What makes an appealing stall-holder application:

• Supply quality photos of your products

• If you are relying on your blog, make sure these are quality photos & big enough to enlarge – don’t just use thumbnails

• Dark photos of your products detract

• Name your photos and other documents with your business name

• Sometimes less is more – stick to your genre and do it well, instead of trying to cover all bases or categories

• Use an email address that reflects your business name

• Be polite

• Make sure you read terms and conditions and the application CAREFULLY, you might find this answers a lot of your questions and saves contacting market organizers over and over again!!

• When you send a link to showcase your work make sure it is a direct link so it doesn’t have to be searched for! This is time consuming and when there are hundreds of applications to go through - yours may get overlooked.

• Be prepared for rejection

• There is a difference between persistence and stalking :-)

If perhaps you were unsuccessful:

• Be polite in your response

• Shooting yourself in the foot is unprofessional and unwise - burning bridges never helps future applications :-)

• Try not to take it personally

• Different markets target certain demographics

• There may be limits to how many stalls the market accepts, or how many stalls in the one category, get accepted

• The market may just not be looking for the type of product you offer