The Creative Business is a series of 12 modules of information about developing creative enterprises, written especially for people running businesses in the creative industries.

The information is particularly relevant to creative businesses and cultural enterprises in the fields of Advertising, Literature and Publishing, Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Music, Design, Cultural Heritage, and Crafts.

Written by David Parrish and originally published on the Creative Choices website, this series of 12 articles covers a range of business issues facing creative entrepreneurs:

• It’s Creative but is it a Business? Business Feasibility – deciding whether or not to make a business from your creativity.
• You’re Creative – but so are they! Dealing with competition – understanding your competitive advantage in relation to rivals in the marketplace.
• Not All Customers are Good Customers. Choosing Customers – finding the right customers to fit with your creativity, ambitions and values.
• Precision Marketing. Advertising and Publicity – communicating your key messages to customers.
• Structuring Your Enterprise. Setting up a Business – choosing the best structure: self-employed, not-for-profit company, or commercial enterprise?
• Make Money While You Sleep! Protecting your Ideas – using intellectual property rights to protect your creativity and make money while you sleep.
• Creative Collaborations and other essential C-words. Working in partnership with other individuals and businesses in the creative or other sectors.
• Raising and Managing Money. Financial Management – getting the right financial result by managing your income and expenditure.
• Customers as Partners. Keeping Customers – listening to customers and building closer relationships with your best customers.
• Reassuringly Expensive. Pricing – deciding how much to charge by looking at pricing and value from the customers’ point of view.
• Focusing your Enterprise – selecting priorities for development as new opportunities arise.
• Growing your Business – key issues ahead as your business grows.