Its a huge question you’ve asked.
There is never going to be much money in it. At least not for you. There will be for the fly shop if you sell through them, and something in it for the tax man. When I was tying full time one of the companies, I discovered, was importing flies with a unit cost on arrival here of less than I could buy a hook for! There is no way you can compete on price against that. What you can do is compete on quality and service. I used to tie more flies for customers who tied themselves than didn’t tie. As one said, “Yes I tie myself but, I know I couldn’t tie that.” Unless the customer knows what goes in to a fly, they will not pay more than they have to for cheap imports.
There are two approaches. Tie what the customer wants or tie a range of flies. The range of flies is probably the best way to go. That way you get away with a much smaller inventory of materials. That reason alone would be a good reason to start with a range of patterns.
Cost??? Well this is scary. Total selling price = Cost of materials + Cost of overheads + Your Wage + Tax & Duty. For each of these you will have to be very realistic.
Materials is simple enough, but there are the costs you don’t think of. Lets say you buy a pack of 25 hooks for an order of flies. The hooks cost $2.50 (Just to keep the math simple) So what is your unit cost per hook? It sure as hell ain’t 10c. Did you buy it from the fly shop? How did you get to the fly shop? How long did it take you to go to the fly shop? That was work so you should be paid for it. If you had to drive then there is fuel and use of the vehicle with its associated costs. Does your vehicle insurance know you use your vehicle for business? I don’t know about where you are, but here that can double your insurance. Or maybe you bought them mail order. How much was the postage? When you really look at it you’ll find that that hook you spent 10c on in the shop really cost 40 or 50c.
You will need to look at all the costs and overheads in this way.
Then you need to know realistically how many flies you can produce. I know from experience that I can not, realistically, tie more than 10 dozen a day. (I can tie more than this, but I wont. I end up growling at myself if I do.) Of course this will vary with pattern. I used to have a regular order of 100 Double Badgers a week for a fly shop. I could get these done in about 4 hours. If I didn’t have a lot of work on I would take them to the shop and hang out there for a while. It made a nice easy day and I often picked up more work. Remember it isn’t just how fast you can tie one fly. Start with a clear bench, set up, and tie, say, three or four dozen of a fly, then clean down. How long did that take? That’s a more realistic time. Tying a fly in 5 minutes isn’t the same as tying a dozen in an hour.
Your next step, I think, is to get hold of a copy of Production Fly Tying by AK Best. It is very, very good, and sets these things out for you.
Something I have learned is that being self employed you work 4 times for 1 lot of money. First you have to get the work. Then do the work. Then get paid for the work. Then account for the work. Any one of these can take as much time as any of the others. The customer only sees the work they want done, so that is what they think you should be paid for. If you are not very careful you will end up “working for nowt, and taking your own lunch”, as my folks used to say.
Cheers,
A.
