Ten years ago today, I resigned as editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine, which was the best job I ever had. When I handed my resignation letter to Publisher Steve Shanesy that morning, I wasn’t angry or even disgruntled. The truth was that I had simply lost hope in the company I loved and fought for daily. And I was curious to find out if I could do any better.
There are lots of ways to measure a business. My metrics include: Am I eating? Am I happy? Am I sleeping at night? My old bosses at F+W Media preferred to use top-line revenue and EBITDA.
So this post is for them. It took us almost 14 years, but thanks to hard work, a good dose of luck, some close friends and a lot of good customers, Lost Art Press is now as big (actually, a little bigger) than Popular Woodworking Magazine was at its peak in the early 2000s in terms of both revenue and EBITDA.
I’m a Southerner, so I must immediately apologize for that small boast, and I swear on a stack of fried chicken legs that it will never happen again. My hope is that, if you are thinking of starting your own business or trying to leave the corporate world, you will find encouragement in that statement.
You can do it. Without a business degree. And with your ethics intact.
After Popular Woodworking and its parent company were taken over by the second or third (I forget) venture capital firm, they hired some online marketing geniuses. This group of simpletons had one plan in their playbook: Have a special blowout sale for every holiday and national observance.
And so we got great marketing emails with headlines such as:
“You’ll Fall MADLY IN LOVE with our Valentine’s Day Sale!”
“Our St. Patrick’s Day Prices will Make you GREEN with Envy!”
“You’ll SAVE the DAYLIGHTS out of Woodworking Books During Our Daylights Savings Sale!”
The holiday that broke me, the one that made me call them and yell (I never yell) was:
“Don’t Let These Savings PASS you OVER – Our Big PASSOVER SALE!”
So as we enter the season for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Pan American Aviation Day, I’d like to run a fun little contest to create the absolute worst holiday sales pitch. Pick a holiday – any holiday. Here’s a good list. Then write a terrible, horrible, awful, funny sales pitch that takes advantage of that holiday.
Keep it clean. Children and Megan’s mom read this blog.
Post your sales pitch in the comments before noon Eastern on Friday, Nov. 20. The worst/best sales pitch (determined by me and my stupid sense of humor) will win a $100 Lost Art Press Gift Card. Don’t forget to enter your email in the commenting form so we can contact you if you win (your email will not appear in the message).
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. The 2020 Anarchist’s Gift Guide starts on Wednesday.
The worst woodworking mistakes I’ve made have to do with shop time.
When it comes to estimating how long it will take me to perform a series of operations, I always guess too low. When I first started estimating how much time a new commission would take me, I learned to double my number. A cabinet I thought would take 40 hours would take 80.
That first mistake will kill a furniture business right quick. You have to get your estimates right, or lower your standard of living, or go back to work for the corporate bully boy. For amateurs, that mistake is not a big deal, except when it comes to cribs.
Many of my friends who made cribs for their first child never saw the projects in use until the second child arrived.
Second mistake: When I botch a single operation, I always grossly overestimate how much time it will take to start the operation again from scratch. Example: I recently messed up an entire set of sticks for a chair. I moaned and stomped around the shop, wondering how I could save the poopy sticks with some patching, wedging or witchcraft.
“Argh,” I whined. “I’m going to lose an entire day making new sticks.”
I moped a bit and grabbed a new set of rough sticks and started shaving. In 60 minutes I was done, and the new sticks looked much better than the first set.
Idiot.
This sort of mistake is more insidious. Trying to repair or navigate around a complex mistake – instead of starting the operation over – usually takes me far more time. And the result is less than stellar.
As soon as I start scheming to repair something with some crazy technique that involves the warp core, reversing the polarity or separating the saucer section, I stop.
I put the crappy parts aside. I get some more wood. I start again.
A pile of my early designs from the 1990s that were vetted by my fellow editors.
If you want a good critique to help you grow as a designer (or a writer) here’s something to consider: Ask for the criticism before you touch the tools (or crank up the printing press).
Because of my odd path through life, almost all of my early furniture designs were vetted, savaged and usually improved by a group of experienced woodworkers before I started the construction process. For 15 years, all of the editors at Popular Woodworking would gather occasionally around a table to plan out future issues of the magazine. We would review proposals from outside authors and we would present our own designs for review.
The short critiques sounded like this: “That rail is too heavy. You don’t have enough meat in that joint. That overhang looks clunky. You might consider adding a sympathetic curve here. It needs a cup holder. If you tapered the legs it would look a lot lighter.”
Everyone had to go through the process, even the boss who went to a fancy furniture school.
This sort of pre-construction critique is so helpful, that I seek it out even now. Before I build a new chair or cabinet design I like to show my drawings to someone who knows their stuff and isn’t afraid to speak up.
I don’t act on every piece of criticism, but it always makes me think. And sometimes it pushes me down a new path.
On the other hand, criticism that comes after a piece is built is a different animal. With pointy fangs.
I’ve spoken to woodworking clubs all over the country. Many times they invite me to critique pieces made by their members. The first time I was asked to do this, I thought: “What a brave bunch of woodworkers.”
Then the club’s president took me aside and said: “Please be nice about it. One speaker was so mean that a couple of the guys ended up in tears.”
I empathize with this approach. Most of the members of a club are there to have a good time, learn about woodworking and help their community. They aren’t looking for a withering critique that will thicken their skin and question their choices as a designer. And so when I critique a finished piece I focus on what they did right and (I hope) encourage them to keep building.
One of the pieces from a recent “Chair Chat.” I loved this chair so much I made this drawing of it.
Another Way to Do It
What if you don’t have any friends who are experienced designers? One thing you might try is to get a few friends together and have something like our “Chair Chats” (we have two more publishing real soon). During each chat, Rudy Everts, Klaus Skrudland and I dissect the design of a few chairs. Because these are historical pieces, we are free to be as honest as possible.
What has been amazing to me is to see these pieces through the eyes of someone else I respect. We all pick up on different aspects of a piece. And by the time we completely take apart a chair verbally, I find that I understand the piece much better than I did before.
We do it via a texting program (Whatsapp) so that everyone’s opinions are heard. No one can talk over the others and dominate the discussion. It doesn’t take a lot of time, either. We spend about 30 to 40 minutes on a chair. And at the end of each critique I feel oddly refreshed, energized and full of ideas.
While at Popular Woodworking Magazine, we were often called upon to offer praise or criticism for projects submitted by readers.
On occasion, it would be difficult to find anything nice to say about the project. The form, the joinery and the finish were all rubbish. When this happened, here’s what I told my fellow editors.
“You can either tell them the truth (‘Have you ever considered golf as a hobby?’) and come off as a pious jerk and discourage them from continuing in the craft,” I said, “or you can say, ‘Wow, that is a crazy nice piece of oak.’”
Many beginners gravitate toward using woods with crazy figure or coloring. (I admit I had a very short lacewood phase.) And the sh*t show of chatoyance can obscure awkward forms, gappy joinery, lumpy finishes and poor surface preparation.
This bird’s-eye blindness or curly maple madness usually passes as woodworkers gain skill and confidence. But with some woodworkers it becomes a chronic condition. Wild figure tends to dazzle a viewer. When a customer sees a figured piece, they immediately say, “Wow!” So every piece the woodworker subsequently makes uses fiddleback-tiger-beeswing something-or-other to elicit that response.
When I encounter a highly figured piece, I step back and squint my eyes, which turns down the volume on the figure so I can see the form. Then I get really close to the piece to see the care taken in the joinery and surfaces. Only then can I appreciate the piece as a beautiful form that was carefully made and happens to use dazzling wood.
Personally, I am far more impressed by people who take homely woods and compose them beautifully to enhance the piece’s form. Straight grain on rails and stiles. Centered cathedrals on panels. Gently curved grain on a curved toe kick. Colors that reveal the form, instead of hiding it behind a dizzying fun house of ripples and swirls.
I know, I know. I’m no fun. If you think this blog entry sounds curmudgeonly, ask me about combining different species with contrasting colors sometime.
