Welcome Busted Carpenter. Filling out your profile with location and some info will help us a lot with advice and offers of help. Right now, we don't know if you ever make a knife or are just a hobby maker with a HF 1X30. The info needed will help us advise you on your question.
The custom search engine in the stickys will find you dozens of threads on becoming a full time knifemaker, selling knives, etc.. Most will tell you full time knifemaking doesn't work out for 99% of those who try.
Knifemaking for a living is HARD! I am not trying to talk you out of it, but you need to know the hard facts and realities.
Ok, here is some advice and hard facts:
Economics - It is hard to make living in knifemaking. The old saying is, "If you want to make a $1,000,000 making knives, start with $2,000,000. The other line is, "Knifemaking is easy as a profession as long as you have a wife with a good paying job and benefits."
Look through the knives here in Shop Talk and in the galleries as well as The Exchange and ask yourself, "If it was easy, whey doesn't every one of those guys just quit his job and sell knives."
It may be exciting to sell a knife or three to friends or at a show, but to make a living you need to sell them repeatedly year-round. If you need $30,000 a year to survive, you will likely have to sell around $90,000 a year to make that. If your profit averages $75 a knife, to make $30,000 after expenses you need to make and sell 400 knives a year ... every year. There will be licenses, taxes, show table fees, transportation/meals/lodging. Your home insurance or local codes may prohibit you from running a business or doing things like knifemaking (fire codes, etc.). There are many more unseen costs I won't go into.
Equipment and supplies can be costly. - Many small-time makers never recoup the cost of their equipment. It would be lovely if it was only a grinder and a HT oven. Most full-time folks have $20K to $100K in equipment. A garage is fine for hobby knifemaking, but you will need a dedicated shop of sufficient size for production knifemaking.
Knifemaking may be easier that carpentry, but it is physically taxing. To do it day-in and day-out you need proper breathing gear and GOOD quality dust and spark extraction. A simple mask isn't going to keep you healthy for long. I recommend a good PAPR like Breath Easy by 3M.
Start by making knives on a regular schedule. Post photos and descriptions of the knives you make in Shop Talk and let folks help you improve them to selling quality.
Try to pick one or two basic and simple styles at first and perfect them before going to a larger inventory. Making a drop point hunter and a medium size kitchen knife is a good start. In the same manner, pick a few good handle materials and stick with them for a while. Having 20 styles of knives with 20 types of wood may look cool, but makes selling hard. I recommend canvas Micarta, walnut, and maple as good starter handle materials. It is best to use stabilized woods. Have a sheath (or blade cover for a kitchen knife) for every knife on the table. You can make them yourself or sub that out to a leather guy.
Avoid weird shapes, handles, odd angles, etc. Look at hundreds of photos of the knives made by those who sell a lot of knives, and you will see that simple sells the best.
Test your knives well to assure the blades are properly hardened, shaped, and sharpened. If you end up a full-time maker you will need equipment to do this, but in the beginning cutting tests and files will tell you enough. Listen to what people tell you about your knives. If someone says, "The blade is nice but the handle is too fat and the butt needs some drop", don't answer, "I made 'em that way on purpose because I have big hands." If you are making them for yourself, fine, but if you want to sell them, they need to fit everyone else's hands and tastes.
As suggested, in the beginning, give some of your better early knives to friends who will use them and give you honest feedback.
Keep working at it for a year or two and don't get discouraged. Once ready in quality and skills, try selling at a local knife show, a craft show, or even a good size flea market. In the beginning you may only sell one or two knives.
Pricing??? First, I want to tell you about one of the forum rules. People with less than a Knifemaker membership level can not directly discuss sales or prices. You can post about a knife you made and ask about it, but you can't ask about what it should sell for or what you plan on selling it for.
Start with knives in an affordable range. Don't expect to get what the big-name fellows get. Knives priced between $75 and $150 sell the fastest and easiest. It may take years to make a regular profit that is sustainable.
Again, not telling you you can't do it, just that it isn't a simple task.
