I have been a member for a while but not active.  Sorry...   I am starting to make more cakes and hoping to work my way out of my current job when I combine it with another home business.  I am trying to decide if I should join YummyArts and Craftsy in addition to being on this site.  Would love to hear how other feel about these sites.  The fees that are paid can be written off on the business as well.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Take care!

Karen

CakeCentral.com (CC) is an inexhaustible, free source of invaluable information.  If you can't find a topic using keywords while actually on the CC site, just type in the exact, same words in a google search and it will bring up relevant CC links you can explore.

Youtube is another fabulous, free, resource.

Although YummyArts and Craftsy are both good sites, my top recommendation is to pay $30 for a year's subscription to http://www.mycakeschool.com/   (if this link is deleted, type in without the spaces:  w w w . m y c a k e s c h o o l . c o m)   This is a great value and will allow you to learn from super-basic techniques to advanced techniques.

However, while you are working on cakes and recipes and decorating, you should also be spending a LOT of time researching the 'business' end of selling baked goods.  For many, many bakers, this is the most difficult part.    Pricing in particular is a huge problem for most newbies. 

Again, use CC's business forum and key word searches to find the information.  I strongly suggest you spend a minimum of 8 hours reading about the business side of caking, and take notes!  Also, if you are in the USA, do a google search for the closest SCORE office and find a mentor.  Talk to your Chamber of Commerce and ask where you obtain information about business licenses in your town/county/state. 

What she said :)

Also, Craftsy has a very extensive affiliate program, so when you see multiple people talking about how great this or that class is and linking to it, they're probably getting paid to send you there. I was doing reviews of Craftsy classes on my blog, and some of them are real stinkers, but I'd see people on other pages saying how great they are. So be careful and read reviews of the class on Craftsy before you pay for it. They also have sales constantly, so never buy anything full price!

Thank you so much for the input.  I have only purchased classes from Craftsy that are on sale.  Otherwise yes, they are too expensive.  It's good to know about the affiliate aspect of Craftsy.  Yes, they will make me leery of any comments I hear about the site now.  I am definitely going to check out mycakeschool and do more with YouTube.  A mentor would also be great so I plan to locate my nearest SCORE office and go from there. 

Great input and I truly appreciate it!

Karen

kayembee -- best wishes on finding info and learning more.

I'm a beginner decorator and I recently join Creativiu which has classes by Beth Townsend the lady that won Cake Wars. They are pretty new but the classes I have taken are amazing.