Hello, everyone! I decided to join Blacksburg Belle (aka April Bowles-Olin) on a blog tour to spread the word about her upcoming class with Creative Live. I wouldn’t have heard of April if I hadn’t taken a course of Creative Live last summer and you can tell I’m glad I did. In fact, after watching part of it for free, I went ahead and bought the course and I still find myself referring to it all the time.
I plan to watch her upcoming course on selling digital products, too, although I have been doing that rather successfully for the last two-and-a-half years. I’m sure there’s still plenty of things to learn on the field and things change so quickly these days, one has to be alert and keep up with what’s going on.
As you may know, I sell my crochet and knitting patterns on Ravelry and Craftsy and I have established a constant contact with knitters and crocheters from around the world, willing to test the patterns for me and thus, promote my work. I’m also proud that the leading Greek site, ftiaxto.gr , features a series of knitting and crochet patterns I designed exclusively for them, in Greek.
I’m glad this post isn’t about my favourite product, as I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one is that. It’s about my most successful product and why I think it’s so popular. Well, that’s easy: Olivar Shawl is definitely my most successful product and I believe I know why:
1) It’s a shawl pattern and I think shawls are very popular among knitters these days. It’s the kind of project one can carry along, not too heavy (like a blanket) and not too boring (like a scarf).
2) It’s a knitter-friendly pattern, if there is such a thing: by knitter-friendly, I mean that it’s easy to knit, a 6-stitches-every-6th-row pattern repeat is not too much for a novice, yet interesting enough for someone who’s more experienced. It’s also easy to remember, if you happen to leave the house without your written instructions.
3) It’s a .pdf file containing both written isntructions AND a chart (all my patterns are written like that). I’m aware of the fact that there are knitters who work only from chart and vice versa.
4) I took the time to translate it into Greek (that’s my mother tongue, but I always write my patterns in English first) and Spanish, so my audience is definitely larger.
5) I organized a KAL(Knit-Along) offering the pattern for free for those participating in the KAL. In exchange, they had to open a Ravelry project page linked to my pattern and rate the pattern. I’m proud of my 4,7 out of 5 stars rating, as you may imagine. People know they buy a well-written pattern.
6) Last, but not least, it’s a beautiful shawl, even if I’m the one who says so. It deserves to be liked and favourited and queued and knitted, because it was conceived, designed and knitted with love and then got thoroughly edited and updated a few times so that it contains no typos. I want my customers to respect me, so I do my best to respect them.
Have I answered your questions? Well, time will tell. In the meanwhile, let me “spread the word” about April’s upcoming course, I believe it will be even more successful than her previous one. Please read the announcement below and reserve your course on time. Thanks for the opportunity to participate in this tour, April!!! I’ll be there watching you online!!!
“Are you ready to make your creative work more lucrative, stable, and sustainable in the long-term? Join April Bowles-Olin for an introduction to digital products and how they can enhance your creative business. This course will show you how to produce and position viable products for generating multiple revenue streams and passive income. RSVP right here to watch it live and get access to the workbook for FREE. This post is part of the Create Digital Products blog tour.”
lacengarterknits.com 
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I agree, lovely shawl! See you in class.
Hi Vivayne! Thank you!!! I’m so looking forward to this!
Hi Maria! Your insights are really valuable, thank you for sharing. And right now I am missing crochet so much : ) Love to have found you via April’s tour. Hugs from Barcelona!
Hi Veronica!!! Thank YOU for saying so!!!I’m missing Spain, as a matter of fact 🙂 A hug from Piraeus!!!
Maria, this is so beautiful! And thankyou for sharing your wonderful insights. It is such a great help for those of us who are at the beginning of this journey 🙂
I’m sure you will enjoy every minute of it, Ann-Marie!!! Now, go ahead and get’em!!!
Your work is gorgeous! I am excited to learn from April, alongside such inspiring creatives. The blog tour has introduced me to some fabulous people and Im excited to see where we all go from here.
Thank you!!! Isn’t it wonderful how we get to know each other through this net that April created for us? I’m pretty excited about it myself!
I love how delicate that scarf is! So lovely.
Thank you, Sarah!!! I’m gla d you like it and althoug I hadn;t thought of it before, I agree with you, it is delicate in a way!!!
What a gorgeous shawl! I can totally understand why it’s your best seller. It’s great to see examples of creatives already having success with digital products. Thanks for inspiring me!
Thank YOU, Cathy, for your lovely comment! I’m happy thta you feel inspired by humble, little me, I believe that it’s only a matter of time and dedication before creatives like us can do the difference! Stick to your dream and let’s follow Amy’s instructions, too!!! 😉
What a beautiful shawl, Maria. It’s so nice that you’ve created this. I love how convenient and practical and lovely shawls are. I’m an artist, with a mother who knitted and crocheted, so I appreciate the process. It’s an art! And your website is really nice too!
Thank you, Ani!!! I really appreciate your saying so!!! Thanks for your connecting, now I’ll get to know you better, that’s part of the wonderful process that April has been talking about!!!
Oh my goodness, it’s beautiful!! I’m super super slow at trying to pick up knitting…I crochet well, but when it comes to knitting, I do it so tightly that I have a hard time getting last the first row. Lol
Thank you so much, Amanda Sue! Perhpas your knitting is tight because you don’t feel as confident as when crocheting? It comes with practice, you know that, I’m sure you’ll knit just fine when you decide it’s not that hard 🙂
That is is entirely possible! lol….I probably have myself convinced that it’ll be WAY harder…I just need to remind myself, in the pioneer days 6 year olds were doing this, hahahaha. Plus I saw a picture of Shirley Temple (in her actual little-girl movie days) knitting…puts me to shame! ha! 😀
I love the shawl! What a great idea to sell your patterns. I’m even more excited by the fact that you thought to create the directions in different languages to broaden your audience! I wouldn’t have thought of that! Thank you for sharing your success, and some of your steps — very generous of you to help inspire the rest of us! Good luck and “see” you at the class in November! 🙂
Thank you, Michael for your comment!!! I have to say that being a foreign languages teacher helped me a lot in this! Altough it takes some time to translate etc it is really worth it in the long run. Now some of my test-knitters offer to translate my patterns in languages I don’t speak, like German for example. And it works!!! I’ll be in class in November, see you, too! 🙂
Beautiful shawl!! I too can see why it is popular. Very thoughtful strategy to make it accessible. 🙂
Thank you!!! I really appreciate your saying so!!! I really want my work to be acccessible and that is why I really like April’s approach towards this!
Thanks for joining the blog tour! I loved this post–and how you broke down why you think your best-selling product is the best seller. Makes a lot of sense but also would help a lot of others consider things they might tweak about their own stuff to make it more successful. I really appreciate this!
Thank YOU, April for your lovely comment!!! I ‘m glad you liked my reasoning, I gave a lot of thought to why this pattern was more successful than other more elaborate ones and I came to the conclusions mentioned above! I really hope this helps others find their way and I’m having so much fun in this blog tour already!!!
Great shawl, Maria! I have also joined april’s blog tour so I came by to see what you were up to. Seeing your post gives me confidence to start making my own digital patterns, too! (I sew so I wouldn’t be competition 🙂 )
I’m so glad you like it!!! This IS a great blog tour isn’t it? You certainly MUST go ahead and start making your own digital patterns! I’m coming by your blog in a second 🙂