🤝 Business & freelancing · Guide
Working With Other People
Collaborations, bundles and stockists, agreed in writing.
Your name
WORKING WITH OTHER PEOPLE
Collaborations, bundles and stockists, agreed in writing.
A4 · this is a layout preview in the “Signal” design. When you generate, the studio writes every chapter in full, paints the cover and chapter art, and composes a downloadable A4 PDF with your name, bio and store link on it.
Collaborations fail for dull reasons: nobody said who was paying for postage, or when the thing was launching, or what happened to the stock afterwards. The creative part is rarely the problem. This guide covers choosing a partner whose customers overlap with yours, and writing down enough that neither of you has to guess.
What's inside
- 1Who Is Worth AskingChoosing partners by shared customer and similar price rather than follower count. After it you have a shortlist of ten realistic names instead of one unrealistic one.
- 2The First MessageA short opening note that proposes something specific and gives the other person an easy way to decline. After it you can send five approaches in an afternoon without cringing.
- 3Deciding Who Does WhatSplitting making, photography, listing, postage and promotion, and naming a date for each. After it both of you know what lands in your week and when.
- 4Money, Splits And StockWholesale versus revenue share versus sale or return, plus who holds the unsold stock. After it you can propose terms with numbers in them rather than good intentions.
- 5Running The ThingKeeping one shared note, checking in twice, and handling a partner who goes quiet. After it a collaboration can survive an unanswered week without collapsing.
- 6Ending WellSplitting the money, returning stock, thanking each other publicly and writing the short note about whether to do it again. After it the ending is planned rather than trailing off.
A sample from chapter one
Who is worth asking
The useful collaborator is not the largest account you follow. It is someone whose customers would plausibly buy your work, who sells at a similar price, and who is at roughly the same stage as you are. A small audience that already buys handmade things is worth more to you than a much larger one that never has, and it is also far more likely to say yes.
Make a list of ten names before you contact anybody: five makers whose work sits beside yours without competing, and five shops or cafés where your things would look at home. Buy from two of them first. Knowing the product you are about to discuss changes the tone of a first message more than any amount of background reading.
- Look for complementary rather than identical: a candle maker and a ceramicist, not two potters.
- Check whether they have run a collaboration before and how they spoke about it afterwards.
- Agree dates, split and who holds the stock before anything is announced anywhere.
- Put it in an email even between friends, so both of you can reread it in six weeks.
Key takeaways
- The right partner shares your customer, not your product.
- A collaboration is a small business arrangement and deserves a written one.
- Say how it ends at the start and it will usually end well.
The studio writes every chapter from this outline, paints the art and hands you a PDF you can sell the same afternoon.
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