The Everything Guide to Living Off the Grid (7 page)

When you bring your produce to the farmers’ market, be sure it is presented in an appealing manner. You are competing with all of the other farmers, so be sure your produce is fresh, properly cleaned, and displayed to the best advantage. Little things, like placing your produce in baskets with gingham cloth on a clean table, can pull a potential buyer from another booth to your booth. Pay attention to the prices of the produce around you. You don’t necessarily have to underprice your produce, but if your prices for the same produce are much higher, you won’t get the sale. Look into the requirements in your area to be able to call your produce “organic.” Some states require a several-year process showing that no chemicals had been used on your land. Other states’ rules are not as rigid. Having organic produce will bring a premium price for you.

Rich Pirog of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture reports that the average fresh food item on your dinner table travels 1,500 miles to get there. Buying locally produced food eliminates the need for all that fuel-guzzling transportation.

Craft Sales

Whether you are handy with a camera, a quilter’s thimble, or a paintbrush, there is a demand for high-quality artisanal work. Some communities actually have stores that promote their local crafters and sell their work on consignment.

If you are an accomplished crafter, you can take samples of your work to local specialty and gift stores and see if they are willing to sell your products. You can also think of other places, like small cafés and beauty parlors that have the right demographic for your product, and ask if they would be willing to sell products for you. Remember, any of these places of business will expect a portion of the sales, so price your crafts accordingly.

Craft shows are another way to sell your work. Except for the dates of the show, there are no obligations regarding your time. You will find that one of the nice things about participating in arts and crafts fairs is the direct
contact you will have with your marketplace. You can use a fair as a market research area to test new products, designs, price changes, and booth displays. If your work doesn’t sell, you will have immediate marketplace data to help you hone your products.

You can do one or two events and walk away with a minimum of expense of time and money, or you can do shows every month and take up the craft-fair lifestyle, making it the mainstay of your business.

As opposed to selling through an Internet site, when you sell to the public you keep the entire amount of the sales, minus expenses. Most of the craft shows are held on weekends, so selling in this way would not interfere with any other job you might have or your time for creating new products.

You can find out about shows through several resources. One source, an online resource called Art & Craft Show Yellow Pages is at
www.artscraftsshowbusiness.com
. It lists show listings, articles, and links. Other resources can be found by searching for “craft show locations” on the Internet. And finally, another source of art and craft shows will be your state arts council.

When you apply to a show, there is generally a booth fee associated with the application. To ensure you are not wasting your money, before you apply, you should visit a show, read reviews in the show guides, and talk to other crafters who have participated at the show. Some important information to gather is the size of the show (the larger the show, the larger the crowds), the facility provided (whether it is an indoor or outdoor show), the amount of promotion and how the show is advertised, the security arrangements, and the kinds of craft exhibited. The last point is very important, because if your crafts are high-end sculptures and the other crafts are crocheted toilet-roll covers, you are not going to find buyers interested in spending the kind of money that will make your time at the show worthwhile.

When selecting shows, be sure to choose the kind of event that will attract your kind of buyers. Shows vary greatly, from fine arts shows that might accept jewelry, but may not allow craft items, to juried art and crafts fairs.

A juried show is often the type that reaps the most benefit for you, because all entrants’ work is submitted to be judged by a jury committee, which then selects the best products from the hundreds of entries. Because items are judged, the crafts displayed tend to be better quality and higher priced. Buyers realize they will be paying for premium quality work and therefore will pay top dollar.

Country craft fairs are on the other end of the spectrum. The crafts exhibited at these fair are moderately priced—from $2 to $50. These shows encompass things like local Christmas bazaars; they feature small, inexpensive gift items. You should try to find a local craft guild in your area to learn more about the local shows and to network with other crafters.

Online Store

When trying to sell products or services, you are no longer limited by geographic locale. The Internet provides a myriad of opportunities for you to showcase and sell your products. Creating your own website is a great idea if you have experience in web design and search engine optimization, or if you have the ability to pay someone who has those talents. Because the Internet is vast and many hosting services are providing websites either free or nearly free, new sites are popping up all over the place. Unfortunately, if you have a poorly designed website or a site that looks like an amateur created it, it will reflect badly on the products you are offering.

Use social networking to help you sell! In a study conducted by social networking site
myYearbook.com
, 81 percent of respondents said they’d received advice from friends and followers relating to a product purchase through a social site; 74 percent of those who received such advice found it to be influential in their decision.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the science of placing keywords throughout your site in order to have your site show up as one of the first responses to a search. For example, with SEO, if you sell homemade soap and someone searched for “homemade soap,” you would be competing with about 470,000 entries. If your site appears even halfway up the list, chances are no one is going to find you. Search engine optimization enhances your ability to move up the list.

There are programs available that can help you set up a shopping cart on your site. The price of the software is often tied to the functionality of
the product, but a simple shopping cart program can start as low as $20 a month.

Another thing you need to consider is how will you ensure a secure transaction once someone has placed an item in the shopping cart. There are only a small number of secure payment services that allow you to accept credit card and electronic check payments quickly and affordably. Because it is so easy to steal credit card and banking information, if you want to have an online store, you must have a secure payment area. You can also consider vendors like PayPal, but you should consider the cost of the service and how much that will take from your bottom line.

If you don’t want to go to the expense of creating your own website, you can sell your products through a number of other sites. Although you may be familiar with eBay, you may not know about Etsy .
www.etsy.com
). Etsy specializes in offering handmade and vintage products from people all around the world. Founded in 2005, it now boasts thousands of sellers. One of the remarkable features of this website is the ability for buyers to find sellers in their own communities. So, not only can you reach out to the world, your local buyers can find you too.
Etsy.com
is also a good place to browse to get ideas for handmade items you could create and get a measurement of how you can price them.

There are a number of websites that offer services similar to
Etsy.com
. Just do a search on “buy and sell online craft stores” and decide which site, or which number of sites, works best for you.

CHAPTER 4
There’s No Place Like Home

One of the biggest decisions you will make when choosing to move off grid is where, exactly, you are going to move. Many details should factor into this decision: price, climate, location, geographical issues, and population. This is not a decision to be made lightly because this, hopefully, will be a place where you will stay for the rest of your life. This chapter will explore the particulars of choosing the right piece of property for you and your family.

The Perfect Piece of Land

When you are looking for a piece of property, make a list of the features you will need. Are you planning on growing crops or raising livestock? Do you need some acreage in trees to feed your wood-burning stove? Do you need level fields for planting, or hilly pastures for grazing? Do you want a water source, like a pond or creek, on your property? Does the property have outbuildings like a barn or stables on it already, or are you willing to build your own?

Determine the acreage needed for tillable land and pasture. Make sure you understand the soil composition in your prospective property—is it sandy, clay, silty, or loamy? This will make a difference in the kinds of crops you decide to grow. Look to the future. As you consider your property, ask yourself if there is room for eventual expansion, should you choose to add to your property.

Understand your water rights. In many states, even though the water runs through your property, you don’t own the rights to it. You may also find you don’t own the rights to drill for water on your property. Obviously, these are good things to know before you buy. Last, but not least, consider your alternative energy needs. Is this property in an area that has enough sunlight for solar, enough wind for turbines, or is it located in an area where geothermal heating is an option?

Some other areas you should consider as you look for your ideal piece of property are:

• Geographical perks
  
• Geographical warning signs
  
• Paying for your property
  
• Temporary housing
  
• Building your own shelter
  

Once you’ve read through these topics and developed a realistic budget, you should be able to start your search.

Geographical Perks

As you look for your property, you can also look for extra geographical perks that give you more for your money. Many of these perks will make life for you and your family much easier.

• Natural gas wells:
  Did you know there is land all across the United States that has private natural gas wells that have been in use for decades? These wells have been used to not only supply heat and cooking fuel, but they also can be leased to natural gas companies and earn an income for the property owner.
  
• Microclimates:
  A microclimate is the climate of a section different from the surrounding sections. It may be warmer or colder, wetter or drier, or more or less susceptible to frosts. The USDA Hardiness Zone Map will often show you if your potential property is located within a microclimate. But you also need to be aware that you can have even smaller patches of microclimates in different parts of your property. For example, a protected spot on the south side of your house may actually be a zone warmer than an exposed spot on the north side. Talk to your Extension agent to learn more about the microclimates in your area.