A helpful, engaging and well formed book perfect for budding entrepreneurs and also those who have had a prior venture. The book is encouraging and practical. I quite enjoyed it.

If you are looking to start something new, branch out and make some money building a small business this book is for you! Though it was a bit slow going at first the main portion of this book was filled with great insights on building a creative business.

Your Creative Career, written by designer and career coach Anna Sabino, has everything you need to know if you’re thinking or have already started your own business. It focuses on the creative industry, but the principles and guidance can be easily applied to other industries as well, so don’t let this stop you if your business idea falls under other category!

The book is a great guide and motivational source that will not only clear out any confusion and doubts you might have in the early phase, but also help you grow your business once it’s launched. It is full of valuable insight ranging from how to overcome the first setbacks, how to bring your idea to life and turn it into a successful business, to fresh and genuine perspective on generating more revenue, PR and marketing that works. Offering comprehensive research along with her own experience as a jewelry brand owner, Anna Sabino will show you that you can be more than a great artist, writer or a designer, you can also be one with a thriving business.

The years of experience and expertise she has gained in the creative industry are undoubtedly helpful and this book is a must if you’re contemplating starting your own business.

I have kindly received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and Career Press in exchange of a fair review.

Your Creative Career, by Anna Sabino, is an inspiring read for anyone who has a passion for working (and living) outside the 9-to-5 box. Sabino is a designer for a jewelry brand called Lucid New York, which I've read is sold in more than 100 stores all over the world, and it's been featured in high-profile magazines like Vogue and Cosmopolitan. Her book brims over with real-life stories and advice; you'll learn valuable information from this author, who has built a success and creative business she runs remotely, from Hawaii.

Very well researched and told in the easily understood voice of someone who has lived the process.
Valuable no matter at which stage of business you find yourself.
It is inspiring, reassuring, and offers creative advice, especially for anyone dealing with a product based business. A wonderful resource of additional written materials to look into.
I found myself taking numerous notes!

I did accept this book to review via Netgalley. I want to thank the author and publisher.

Full of excellent prompts to spur you on and to help you harness your creative ideas to really make some money!

Your Creative Career took me a bit by surprise at first, as the opening seemed to be more pep talk than anything else. However, as the chapters progressed, the author did provide practical advice, looking at the issue of creative entrepreneurship from a variety of angles. I didn't get a huge amount out of it personal, as it wasn't really geared towards someone doing what I am doing. Nevertheless, I can see that it would be a useful resource for someone looking to set up an Etsy store as a second income stream and/or attempting to build a business around a creative pursuit. It was well laid out and easy to follow, and overall I would give it 3.5 stars.

Anna Sabino is an entrepreneur and she wrote her debut work, Your Creative Career for budding entrepreneurs in mind who want to pursue a creative path.

I picked her book in during an important phase of my life. When I needed it. Her suggestions in this book are on how to build a business with a creative mindset that reflects one's skills and by putting one's effort, one can have earnings. The book starts with some amount of pep talk that I find essential in the genre the book falls under and motivating personally. A reader who wants to pursue long-term success by being creative and escape can benefit from. Her own story she covers along with some anecdotes from modern day and internet age businesses. It prompts a reader to consider their current situation and position in life and how from at that point, no matter where they are, can move forward with a set of clear goals.

She has put enough emphasis in her book creating a lifestyle or designing one as she likes to call, as creative enough to suit you. This does not mean one has to be comfortable and procrastinate all their work for the day or quit the job that is there a major source or only source of income. Her words do not convey this message. She urges you as a reader to find your passion or a niche where you can start putting your effort and time. She urges the reader to work hard on their dreams.

This one of the first book I have read that classifies dreamers into three categories: doers, squeezers, and postponers. On reading the book you will be willing to pick one for yourself. Apart from her analogy, she offers pragmatic suggestions and almost lays a blueprint on how to induce one's creative mindset in a field where one earn and thrive. Her own story of leaving Wall Street and starting a jewelry brand in New York is a great example she provides as an entrepreneur and as a writer in this book.

With a direct and straight-forward writing style, one should read this book to be productive. On reading it, I observed that there must have been a huge amount of research she has to go to pick as if the reality references she provides seem right at the moment she introduces in her book for her readers to be aspired by them.

5 out of 5!

The title grabbed my attention as I dabble in the creative field and I am looking to pursue a creative goal in 2018. I have all the excuses (time, money, resources) so I hoped this book would help give me some direction and idea and I am pleased to say it did! I found if anything this book is very inspiring. Its a great pep talk throughout which helps defeat those voices in your head that come up with all the reasons you can't do something. I think this book is perfect for those just starting out- like myself -rather than someone with a thriving business. The author is an excellent motivator and I would recommend it to those looking to pursue a creative venture. Thank you to Netgalley for an e-copy of this book.

The title is great, and so is the cover, but the excitement ends there. It feels like a smattering of blog posts, featuring feel-good quotes from other bloggers and "thought leaders," and admonishments to be your best self. There's nothing new here.

I loved this book. As a creative with the stereotypical self doubt this was what I needed in my life. Advice, confidence building and honest, a must for any creative graduate. Well written and structured you can read chapters as you need to or devour it all, like I did. Brilliant book - thank you!

Synopsis:

Anna Sabino is an artist, but certainly not a starving one. She wasn’t born into a wealthy family, didn’t inherit money from a distant relative, and doesn’t have a rich husband. But she made it as an entrepreneur, as a single woman, and most importantly, as an artist.

In Your Creative Career, she shows her fellow artists and creatives how to build a business that reflects their talent and true calling while generating serious cash. Whether the goal is to build an empire and be financially free, create a lifestyle business, or just to have more time, Your Creative Career guides you through every aspect of creative entrepreneurship.

If you want to start your creative career, transition into it, or give it a boost, this book is a must read that features:

Proven systems and strategies to create ideally priced products that keep selling.

The importance of going through all the steps of making it from idea inception and execution to branding and distribution.

The importance of transitioning from artistic solitude to collaborative, creative entrepreneurship.

The most effective marketing and PR methods adjusted to the new reality of short attention spans and information overload.





My Thoughts:

I initially picked this book up because I was very interested in the context. I am an artist and would love to make art as a profession. However, I’ve been letting a lot of things hold me back, which are probably the same things that are holding you back too!

To embrace a confident attitude, we need to stop using excuses. Economic conditions are always going to be challenging, yet there are millions who thrive no matter what. It’s widely proven that grit and consistency is far more important than talent.

Even if you aren’t an artist, this book is for you! It was such a huge encouragement to me to get the ball rolling on ALL my dreams, even the ones that don’t deal with my profession, like losing weight. I want to dream again!

Don’t be afraid to wear your too large wings. Your courage will make them fit in no time.

You can pick up your copy here.



Happy Reading!



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I was given this book in exchange for my honest review from Netgalley. All opinions stated above are my own. Affiliate links used.

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Background information for why I wanted to read this book so badly first! As those who know me will be aware I have an Etsy store which I started midway through last year, and since I’ve only had 10 sales I’ve felt a little demotivated lately with it. I wanted to read this book partly to get my motivation working again for the store and to flame up my creativity a little – and it definitely helped with regards to that! After my first reading session, only about 20% in, I felt motivated enough to spend the whole of the next day working on my crafts.

The book is an excellent resource for those wanting a creative career, it is full of prompts to really consider your current position and what the next steps could be for you. On a personal level, having read this I feel like I’ve been taking the wrong direction with my Etsy store. I started off with a product I knew people liked and then started putting the emphasis on things which, in all honesty, aren’t selling as great as my original products.

I guess I needed to read something that gave me a way to fix and spot my errors. Not only that but there’s a lot of advice for how to market your brand included – something which I’ll be following 100% when I feel ready to restart that element of my creative career. As well as this, there are so many motivational quotes throughout that it really helps you to feel positive whilst reading.

The amount of research which has clearly gone into this book is spectacular, the whole book is backed up consistently by either real life case studies or references to other texts. What makes it such an interesting read also is who has written it – it definitely makes a difference to see the journey of a creative entrepreneur and I can’t emphasise how much this book will help you if you aspire to start your own creative career, or if you need a little advice after starting!

Anna – thank you for writing this. It’s exactly what I needed to read right now.

Anna Sabino’s book is a must-read if you are seeking to harness your creativity and become a successful entrepreneur. She transformed her own dreams into a reality, making the transition from being a market analyst on Wall Street to setting up and successfully running her own jewelry business for well over a decade at the time of printing.
Sabino writes in an engaging and interesting way about how she achieved this, using anecdotes from her own business experiences and life. Her aim in writing the book is to save her readers some time and help them to avoid making the mistakes that she did. It’s not often that you find an entrepreneur with this generosity of spirit, coupled with her flowing writing ability and clarity of vision..
Your Creative Career is also amazingly well-researched – Sabino has obviously read widely and thoroughly, and the bibliography at the end is impressive. Helpful quotes from successful business people such as Steve Jobs and James Altucher appear throughout the book and inform her writing, as well as motivating lines from Proust, Thoreau and others. Sabino gives frequent prompts and tasks to help you determine your own creative path, so that reading becomes a pro-active experience that helps you to learn. There is even an accompanying web page with checklists and worksheets to make sure you get the most out of the book.
Here is a coach who not only talks the talk, but walks the walk, and is offering her advice and encouragement to you. Any serious new entrepreneur would be doing themselves a great disservice if they didn’t buy this book and read it from cover to cover. It will save you from years of going down blind alleys and making costly mistakes. Most of all, it will give you the confidence you need to take your first steps and make a success of your chosen creative career.

Anna Sabino is writing from her experience, which I appreciate a lot. If you are going to follow in her footsteps, this is one book that you should not miss. But having said that, Elon Musk did say: if you need words of inspiration, don't do it.
Although, if you are doing it, this will be a great addition to your collection

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I am very skeptical of self-help books which is why I do not read them. I have read one or two in the past, and this one seemed like it might offer something different, but in the end what it offered was no different form a hundred other such books: at best it was simple common sense and at worst, misleading distractions. You cannot be creative if you're spending your time reading books like this when you should be creating things yourself instead of frittering time away on things others have created.

There's an apocryphal story about a writer who was giving a lecture, and many would be writers were present. The story may have happened or it may not. The author in question may have been Sinclair Lewis or they may not. The lecturer may have been drunk or not, but the story I heard is that he came out onto the stage and the first thing he asked was for a show of hands from anyone present who wanted to be a writer. Everyone raised their hand of course. The guy responded with, "Then why the hell aren't you writing?" And he wandered off the stage.

Like I said, this may be a true event or it may not, but there is a truth here, and it's in the message: you can't be writing that best-seller if you're off attending lectures on how to write best sellers, or if you're reading self-help books all the time when you could be working on your own project. For example, reading novels of the kind you might be interested in writing will be of much more help, but if all you're doing is reading and not writing your own, then you're wasting your valuable time.

The common theme of books of this nature is that the author is typically someone you've never heard of or read about. You don't get best-selling authors like David Baldacci, and John Grisham, or Dan Brown writing books about how to write best sellers, and the reason why they don't is because while they may well be able to write best sellers, they don't know how to teach others to write them. Plus they're too busy turning their ideas into finished novels!

It's not a magical power that can be passed on. You can take courses to learn how to write well, but you cannot be taught how to write a best-seller. You can only write one or fail to write one, and you can't even fail if you never write one. The same with musicians and artists, actors and movie-makers, and technology innovators and engineers. They know how to do it, but they cannot pass on their talent, or industry, or inspiration to others and have it magically work the same way for them. It doesn't work that way, sorry to say!

The only way to find out if you have it, is to do it! I know it's a big-business purveying self-help books, but you know what? I've never read a single one which has helped me, and more damningly, I've never read of any of these people who've had big success stories praising a self-help book for their success! They don't read these books because they're too busy pursuing their dream! What they do consistently emphasize is how hard they worked to achieve their aim and how diligently they kept chasing it.

Granted, this book does urge that, but it really doesn't offer a lot in the way of helping other than, as I mentioned, simply passing-on common sense. The problem is that if you're so lacking in common sense that you need to get tips on it from a book, then you're already in serious trouble. In the end, the only help you can count on is your own industry. It may be a cliché, but it's inspiration and perspiration that will get you there if it's going to happen for you, and there are no guarantees.

We always hear about the success stories: the ones where people have worked for their dream and got it, but we so rarely hear about those who worked just as hard pursing their dream, but who failed for whatever reason. If this books motivates people to motivate themselves, then that's a good thing, but I think it's wise to ask who really benefits most from books like these? Is it the people who write them or the people who read them?

One piece of advice offered for writers was: "Keeping score of the amount of words written or the time you spend writing will create an internal contest with yourself." This may work for some, but not for all. It doesn't work for me because it impedes my work and makes it seem like work. I don't want that! I'd rather just enjoy writing than become bogged down in, or worse, become disheartened or disillusioned by a scoring system. Scoring is boring! Worse, demanding 'x' amount of words or pages per day is not only soul-destroying, it's actually counter-productive to the very creativity this author is supposedly promoting!

There are some odd observations in the book. The first of these I noticed was when I read, "...usually we have to wait for months if not years before seeing our work published" but this completely overlooks this era of self-publishing through outlets such as Barnes and Noble's Nook press, Kobo, Lulu, Google Play, iBooks and others which has been going on for years. How the author could overlook such a roaring industry is a mystery and speaks of poor preparation.

I read in this book a lot of observations by and on people I've never heard of, including assorted quotes from these people. I am not one to take hints and tips from people I have no reason to trust when it comes to advice, especially when it's in the form of bon mots and pithy phrases which are more designed to show-off their originator than to offer concrete help. One of these asides was: "Peter Shankman flies more than 250,000 miles a year and does most of his writing in transit." I've never heard of this author, but whoever he is, that travel rate is getting on for 700 miles per day, so he really has no choice but to write in transit! Duhh!

This was in a section devoted to choosing the location for your creativity. It seemed focused on whether your desk was cluttered or clear, but you know what? Who cares? If you're working as a writer, then your focus needs to be on your writing, most typically on a computer screen, not on whether your desk is cluttered or clear! This seemed to me to be adding a distraction rather than helping to remove it. Ignore your environment focus on your work. If your environment intrudes, then include it in your work! I'm all for getting out and doing and seeing new things and meeting new people. You never know where your next idea will come from, but in the end a writer is someone who writes, an artist someone who paints, and so on, and it really shouldn't matter where you are or what surrounds you! Get focused on your art because in the end, it's all that matters when it comes to creativity.

There were some really oddball references too. One which particularly struck me was: "Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald who worked from cafes at the turn of the 20th century." I have to wonder why these two are mentioned in this context, but not Jo Rowling. I have no idea where those two antique authors wrote, but it's legendary that Rowling, impoverished, wrote in a café in Edinburgh because it was warmer than her apartment. She did not let a cluttered table or a noisy street get in her way. Did this author not know that much about an author who is more successful and arguably better-known these days than either of the two she mentioned?

That wasn't the only such item. I read, "The times when an artist worked in solitude on his creations," His creations? Seriously?! She continued: "revealing them for the first time during a launch, have passed. Now the audience wants to be co-creators, co-actively giving input throughout the process." This could not be more wrong or more misleading. Unless you really are looking to share your work - and the credit and rewards, this is appallingly bad advice. Yes, there are people who put materials out there and work collaboratively, but this isn't the norm. Perhaps it will be in some distant future, but we are not there yet and personally I doubt we ever will be. I can't see a bunch of stage actors welcoming advice and interruptions for the audience! Steve Jobs certainly did not want people telling him how to do what he did!

I also read: ""Experiencing the creative process live, while it’s happening, is now the norm." I'm sorry but this is bullshit. Maybe in the narrow, blinkered world in which this author operates it is, but seriously, I doubt even that. You don't find fashion designers posting their work online! They're more secretive than ever the Soviet Union was during the cold war!

Writers I know, are not given to doing this although some do this experimentally. For most, writing is a solitary profession and for good reason. You start posting your ideas online and someone is going to steal them and race you to publication, so they can accuse you of stealing their idea when you finally publish! Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective), ideas for stories are not copyright, only the finished work.

I'm not a fan of Stephen King, but he is one of the few really successful authors who have actually written a book about writing books (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft)! I never read that, but when he experimentally started publishing his novel The Plant online that same year, in installments downloaded on the honor system (you voluntarily paid a dollar per chapter downloaded), the story quickly folded. Sales fell-off and he lost interest in it. He never did ask for fan input!

There's a difference between seeking crowd-sourced funding for a project say, or in getting some feedback on some generalized ideas on the one hand, and on the other, in quite literally sharing your work before it's ever properly established as your own, and thereby risking losing ownership and a chance at copyright. I think talk like this is dangerously misleading and risky, and if misunderstood or misapplied, is going to lead only to loss and misery as your stock of creativity is frittered and dissipated without you getting any reward: not even so much as recognition for it.

It was at this point that I gave up reading this as a bad job The title is Your Creative Career, but it felt to me like there was precious little emphasis on the creative (a trilogy of chapters at the start), and far too much on avarice and maximizing profits. There's nothing wrong with making money and being financially rewarded for your creativity, but first you have to have that creative resource up and running. You have to be credited with it before you can look for credit from backers. You can't make money on vaporware, empty promises and unfulfilled dreams.

I cannot recommend this book, because for me it failed to accomplish what it promised in its title, replacing an offer of creativity advice with nothing more than simple common-sense observations that anyone worth their salt already knows, and worse: wrong-headed advice and flashy, but ultimately empty quotes and catch-phrases from obscure people who may have been successful in their sphere or not, but even if they were, this doesn't mean their advice is worth the paper it's printed on.

I found Your Creative Career to be full of information, ideas and useful tips for creative entrepreneurs. There was so much to absorb and as I was reading sections, certain ideas would pop into my head and I would have to stop and write them down. It is a great tool to help you plan, start and grow your business. There is so much that I learned in this book. I would definitely purchase a physical copy to read again.

Your Creative Career provides the motivating, passionate support that every creative entrepreneur can use to develop the business that supports the life that they want to create for themselves. Honest, forthright, powerful examples and straight talk make the book feel like a life-changing session with an intelligent, perceptive coach. Sabino has your back in every aspect of developing your career, encourages the reader to be smart, to be mindful, and to look forward into the future with excitement.

This book is an intense Business Administration course you can take in an hour or less!
I really enjoy it and to be honest made me analize why I had postponed the creation of my own business. Obviously I will take all the notes and start working!
This book got me really inspired! Thank you so much