Books, ideas and practical tools for creative entrepreneurs
I write about the business of creativity — helping creative entrepreneurs combine their creative talents with smart business thinking.
My work includes books, practical business frameworks, toolkits and international case studies, developed through my work with creative entrepreneurs and creative industries organisations in more than 60 countries.
A theme running through all my work is that there is no single correct way to build a successful creative business. Success means different things to different people. The challenge is to design a business that combines creativity and commercial reality in a way that works for you — your ambitions, circumstances and values.
Many of my publications and resources are available free of charge, to encourage creative entrepreneurs and the organisations that support them to use and share these ideas.
Looking for practical resources to use? You’ll also find free downloads, articles, videos, online courses and other useful material in Resources.
T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity
How can creative people combine their creativity with smart business thinking?
T-Shirts and Suits is my guide to creative entrepreneurship and the business of creativity.
The central idea is that creativity and business don’t have to be opposites. Successful creative enterprises can bring together the best of both worlds — the creative “T-Shirts” and the business “Suits”.
The book has been translated and published in 14 countries and is used by creative entrepreneurs, universities, creative hubs and business support organisations internationally.
It is available as a paperback, eBook and audiobook. The complete eBook is also available free of charge.
Chase One Rabbit: Strategic Marketing for Business Success
You can’t chase every opportunity — so which rabbit should you chase?
Chase One Rabbit is about strategic marketing: choosing the right customers and opportunities instead of trying to sell everything to everybody.
The book contains 63 practical tips, techniques and tales about customers, competitors, pricing, marketing, strategy and business development.
Its central message is simple: successful marketing is as much about deciding what not to do and which customers not to pursue as it is about finding new opportunities.
Chase One Rabbit has also been translated into Spanish and French, with both translations published in paperback and eBook editions.
Designing Your Creative Business
What does success mean to you — and what kind of business will help you achieve it?
Designing Your Creative Business is a practical toolkit for creative entrepreneurs.
It starts not with a conventional business plan, but with a more fundamental question: Where do you want to go?
That includes your creative ambitions, financial objectives, values, lifestyle, preferred customers, degree of independence and the kind of enterprise you actually want to build.
The toolkit then helps creative entrepreneurs examine their strengths, understand the changing world around them, identify competitive advantage and develop their own unique Business Formula.
It can be used independently or as part of a workshop, training programme or business development process.
Explore Designing Your Creative Business
Creative, Cultural and Digital Industries Guide
A practical guide to building and developing successful creative enterprises.
I wrote the Creative, Cultural and Digital Industries Guide for Business Link (West Midlands) in the UK as a practical business resource for entrepreneurs working in the creative industries.
The 48-page guide covers many of the central challenges facing creative enterprises, including business strategy, customers and markets, intellectual property, organisational structures, people, marketing, finance and legal issues.
It also includes case studies of creative businesses, showing how business principles can be applied in the particular circumstances of creative enterprises.
The Guide draws on many of the ideas developed in T-Shirts and Suits, but applies them in a practical economic-development context, combining my creative-business thinking with local examples and business support information.
It’s available as a free download.
Read or download the Creative, Cultural and Digital Industries Guide
Create Your Own Business Formula
Every successful creative enterprise has its own Business Formula.
The challenge is to combine the right creative products and services with the right customers — in a way that is both creatively satisfying and financially viable.
Create Your Own Business Formula explains my approach to strategic business planning for creative entrepreneurs, including the PRIMEFACT and ICEDRIPS frameworks.
The article was originally published as a chapter in an international book about the growth and development of creative enterprises.
Available for free download in several languages, including in English, Spanish, Romanian, German, Portuguese, French and Ukrainian.
Read Create Your Own Business Formula
The T-Shirts and Suits Business Growth Framework
The T-Shirts and Suits Business Growth Framework brings together many of the ideas I use when working with creative entrepreneurs.
It provides a structured way to think about where you want to go; where you are now; changes and opportunities in the world around you; your competitive advantage; the customers you choose to serve; your unique Business Formula; and the strategy and actions needed to move forward.
The starting point is important: success is yours to define.
For some creative entrepreneurs that means growth and greater profitability. For others it means independence, creative freedom, social impact, a particular lifestyle — or a combination of these.
Explore the Business Growth Framework
Ideas in Action
Creativity isn’t confined to the studio. We can be creative about the way we do business too.
Ideas in Action is my series of short international case studies showing creative entrepreneurs doing business differently.
The examples include creative approaches to intellectual property, marketing, collaboration, customer research, technology, internationalisation and business models.
Some first appeared in T-Shirts and Suits, and I have continued adding new examples from creative entrepreneurs around the world.
Each case study is available as an article on the website and as a downloadable, shareable PDF. I also use them as practical examples in keynote speeches and creative entrepreneurship workshops.
Articles
I have written many articles about creative entrepreneurship, creative industries, strategic marketing and the business of creativity, drawing on my work with creative entrepreneurs and organisations around the world.
They explore practical business ideas, challenge conventional assumptions about business success, and develop many of the themes found in my books, frameworks and workshops.
Ideas Around the World
My books, articles, business tools and creative entrepreneurship resources have travelled internationally through translations, international editions and collaborations with creative industries organisations.
Translations and international editions
T-Shirts and Suits has been translated and published in 14 countries. Most international editions include some local adaptation, such as a new foreword that introduces the ideas in the context of the country’s own creative industries and creative economy.
Chase One Rabbit has been translated into Spanish and French, with paperback and eBook editions in both languages.
Designing Your Creative Business, Create Your Own Business Formula and selected Ideas in Action case studies have also been translated.
These collaborations have involved publishers, government agencies, creative industries organisations and individual creative entrepreneurs who wanted to make the ideas available to new audiences.
I’m open to discussing new translations, international editions and publishing partnerships.
Publications adapted for your city, region or country
Translation is one way to take ideas into another country. A more extensive collaboration is to create or adapt a publication specifically for a particular creative economy.
The Creative, Cultural and Digital Industries Guide, commissioned by Business Link (West Midlands) in the UK, provides one model. It combined my creative-business ideas with local creative-enterprise case studies and information relevant to businesses in that region.
A similar approach could be developed with a creative industries agency, government organisation, university, creative hub or development programme elsewhere — creating a practical guide that combines established creative entrepreneurship principles with the businesses, opportunities and circumstances of a particular city, region or country.
This kind of publication could be a stand-alone project or part of a wider creative-enterprise development programme involving workshops, training, speaking or other activities.
Discuss an international collaboration
Use the Ideas
Many of the resources on this website are deliberately available free of charge.
They are used by creative entrepreneurs, trainers, educators, universities, creative hubs and business support organisations internationally.
You are welcome to explore them, use them and share them, subject to the copyright and Creative Commons terms applying to each resource.