Book review: The creative entrepreneur

A couple of weeks ago, I ordered The Creative Entrepreneur book by Lisa Sonora Beam. I never had heard of her, but from all the good reviews she had from her book, I decided to give it a go and try it. I’m a book-lover, so money spent on book is never a bad thing for me. 😉

From the start, I really liked the visual of the book. I was afraid that, perhaps, there would be too much text, but no, there’s plenty of pictures and the guidelines are easy to understand. The images in the book are mostly made of other creative journals pages, of course. Which I found to be very inspiring. I love to read, but I like my craft books to lean on the visual side. 😉

An interesting page with two self-portraits

The author takes you step-by-step in the making of your creative entrepreneur journal. From the materials you will need, the reasons why you should make a creative journal for your business and she even explains each step of the process very clearly.

I’ve been very interested in art journals lately and their creative ventures. As I’ve been thinking about starting my own business for years now (Yes, years! *sigh*), I thought that this approach on the creative side would certainly help me get some things done and understand some of the “reasons” that stopped me from doing so.

A beautiful positive & negative page. I ♥ the butterfuly idea!

This book is defenetely for you if, like me, you’re trying to start a creative business but may be “stuck” somewhere. You may have other reasons as well as you are not sure if “busines and art” can go together. (A sensitive subject for many artists, from my experience.)
You also need to want to start a creative journal with a business goal, in mind. You need to be open-minded and patient as I don’t think such a journal can be filled in an afternoon. The author asks you deep and thought-provoking questions, which are not always easy to answer, but all of your answers may be very rich.

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To help you getting started, here’s my own creative entrepreur journal that I recently started:

I went to my local arts & craft store, and bought a 8″X10″ small drawing journal with medium to thick paper as I want to paint in it. Oh, and it’s got 30% of recycled fibers, as well. So it’s all good with mother-nature. 😉

One thing I wish to do in the next year, is to finally focus on the things I really wish to do. So I did an entire page on this subject!
It says: “Focus on the things that’s important to your hearth.” Do you think my subconscious mind will finally get the message? 😉 I sure hope so!

That’s the interesting thing with The creative entrepreneur book, it’s that it opens doors to many thoughts that I’m keeping shut. While doing an exercice, I will often drift away and think about some other important issues I’ve been having. If I feel this is something that needs to be cared of, I will make a page about it to help me out.

Here are some links that you may find interesting to get more information about this book or to start your own creative journal:

Have you ever started a journal with this entrepreneur theme as a goal?
Is this something that interests or repulse you?
Let me know as I’d like to know if this is something that interests you or not.

Art vs craft