research the profit potential of a hobby wood carving business

I am a software developer and i wish to start a side business as a hobby wood carver.
What is the best way to go about researching the profit potential of those idea? i was thinking:

1. go on amazon.com and see the products in woodcarving for sale and at what price they are selling

2. gather stats from amazon as to how many have actually sold in the past year within a given price range.

3.estimate how many pieces it is possible to make and sell given my time constraints.

4. arrive at some rough figure based on the above 3.

This is very rough, and i just wanted to ask how i can improve on this.

You want to arrive at a profit forecast, which is revenue minus expenses. your approach to gauge revenue is a start, but you're missing all the expenses.

Not being 100% versed in the wood carving industry, I will assume that the hand-carved pieces you are focused on are more one-of-a-kind and perhaps amazon isn't the best place to look for comps. If it's not one-of-a-kind you're going to be competing with firms that perhaps have already achieved the economies of scale needed to produce at a low enough cost to offer goods to a larger market at a fair price (probably not hand-carved). so #1 might give you more mass-market type information. #2 might tell you the customer's willingness to pay for similar products. But I'd argue you're looking perhaps in the wrong place.

Your business sounds more like an art business to me, in which case prices are all over the place depending on what you're creating and how awesome a potential buyer finds it to be. Are your pieces functional or display art? Having a few friends who call themselves artists, I can tell you that it's a lot of work to sell pieces and make a real living at it... But if it's side hobby that you enjoy, and you can make a little scratch here and there - go for it! Don't waste your time figuring out the profit potential :)