An upbeat primer for running a creative business for artists at all levels of financial awareness.
Sherbanee presents a guide to business principles and operations for those who would rather be focusing on their art.
In this debut business book, the author, an entertainment technology executive, offers creatives advice on establishing a financially viable business while retaining an artistic vision and finding joy in creative work. The book opens with a comprehensive and high-level overview of economic concepts like profit, margins, business plans, and modes of financing. (The book covers everything from an explanation of supply and demand to the details of financial statements in its opening pages, so readers with some familiarity with the subject will be able to skip around as needed.) Sherbanee then discusses the importance of establishing a unique value proposition and how this can be applied to different marketing concepts and business structures before turning to the particular importance of community for creatives (“Encourage your community to celebrate each other’s successes, offer help when needed, and collaborate around shared interests”). The book’s final section provides short takes on the ways in which artificial intelligence, the gig economy, and risk management affect those working in the arts and related fields. A particularly interesting subsection reminds readers of the many opportunities for work in noncreative (and occasionally more stable) roles that support the arts and are a crucial part of the creative community. The book is thorough and addresses the most basic aspects of running a business without talking down to its readers, offering plenty of details from Sherbanee’s own career and those of other creatives to establish his credentials as a teacher and demonstrate the validity of his advice. The book is at its strongest when providing concrete and actionable recommendations for easy-to-implement techniques, as when the author addresses the importance of establishing systems for smooth and consistent business operations (noting that this is a pain point for many creatives). Sherbanee makes it clear that his thoughtful and informative guidance can be adapted to a wide range of creative fields and economic conditions, giving the book a broad potential audience.
An upbeat primer for running a creative business for artists at all levels of financial awareness.Pub Date: April 27, 2025
ISBN: 9798992205411
Page Count: 346
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Smart, engaging sportswriting—good reading for organization builders as well as Pats fans.
Prolific writer Benedict has long blended two interests—sports and business—and the Patriots are emblematic of both. Founded in 1959 as the Boston Patriots, the team built a strategic home field between that city and Providence. When original owner Billy Sullivan sold the flailing team in 1988, it was $126 million in the hole, a condition so dire that “Sullivan had to beg the NFL to release emergency funds so he could pay his players.” Victor Kiam, the razor magnate, bought the long since renamed New England Patriots, but rival Robert Kraft bought first the parking lots and then the stadium—and “it rankled Kiam that he bore all the risk as the owner of the team but virtually all of the revenue that the team generated went to Kraft.” Check and mate. Kraft finally took over the team in 1994. Kraft inherited coach Bill Parcells, who in turn brought in star quarterback Drew Bledsoe, “the Patriots’ most prized player.” However, as the book’s nimbly constructed opening recounts, in 2001, Bledsoe got smeared in a hit “so violent that players along the Patriots sideline compared the sound of the collision to a car crash.” After that, it was backup Tom Brady’s team. Gridiron nerds will debate whether Brady is the greatest QB and Bill Belichick the greatest coach the game has ever known, but certainly they’ve had their share of controversy. The infamous “Deflategate” incident of 2015 takes up plenty of space in the late pages of the narrative, and depending on how you read between the lines, Brady was either an accomplice or an unwitting beneficiary. Still, as the author writes, by that point Brady “had started in 223 straight regular-season games,” an enviable record on a team that itself has racked up impressive stats.
Smart, engaging sportswriting—good reading for organization builders as well as Pats fans.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982134-10-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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