For those new to the blog, this year I decided to publicly document what a crochet designer makes to show the ups and downs of selling crochet. The goal has been to create discussions within the community and understand what it takes to sell in the current market. We are inundated with messages all over social media of, “passive income can make you thousands per month!”, but it’s not always as simple as, “If you build it (and put it on Etsy), they will come!” So, if you are curious about what it’s like for many of us independent designers, read on!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. This means if you click on a link and make a purchase from that website, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. For more information, see my Disclosures page.
April Overview
This month was an interesting one for me, and seemed to fly by! Life unfortunately got in the way, as it has a tendency to, and the crochet related tasks I had planned mostly didn’t happen as I was sick for almost two weeks (and sadly, being a crochet blogger and designer is not my full time job). The stats this month are definitely reflective of that.
I spent a little bit of time early in the month trying to work on SEO (search engine optimization) for both my shops and blog. SEO is what helps you be seen by giving the algorithms key words to match with people’s searches with your items. My blog stats suddenly spiked, meaning the SEO changes were good, but I’m still waiting to see how things change in my shop. I updated some titles and tags, however, I’ve been told that when you do that, it can take 30-90 days for the algorithm to understand who it should show your products to. My Etsy stats are definitely down, so I’ll give it another month to settle before making a decision on whether to change them again or not.
I did, however, work on 2 patterns this month. One is a bag pattern I’ve been teasing over on my Instagram page. I’m hoping to finish writing that one up this week, get it into testing soon, and release the pattern sometime in June.
The other is an update to the Rustic Summer Asymmetrical Shawl pattern. This shawl was one of the first patterns I designed and while the paid PDFs are getting a glow up, the pattern will also be available free to view here on the blog as well! So keep an eye out, as that will be coming in the next couple of weeks (if you purchase the premium pattern between now and then, you will automatically get the updated pattern when it releases!).
While I wanted to have both of those patterns out in April, I will look on the bright side and celebrate the fact I still made forward progress on them.
Now, onto the platform breakdowns.
1. Etsy
This month was slow. Like, crazy super slow. In fact, I only sold ONE pattern on Etsy the entire month – the Coffeehouse Santa Hat. While I assumed this hat would be seasonal (and the sales have slowed down since the new year), it’s actually my best selling pattern of the year so far! However, I also had several listings expire, so I was charged for all of their relisting fees, bring down my already meager profit this month.
Total sales: 1 pattern
Gross income: $4.95
Minus Etsy processing, listing, and transaction fees: $2.54
Net profit: $2.41
2. Ravelry
This month, only 3 pattern sold on Ravelry, all from the Rustic Summer Collection. I sold one of each – The Rustic Summer Market Bag, Cowl, and Tee! This is one of my favorite stitch patterns, and I have a few more ideas planned for it, so I’m glad you all like it too.
FREE on Blog
Etsy
Ravelry
Gross income: $14.25
Minus PayPal processing fees: $2.04
Minus Ravelry fee: $0
Net profit: $12.21
3. In Person Sales
$0
4. Affiliate Marketing/Blogging
I am an affiliate for WeCrochet/Knit Picks and Lion Brand. I did have someone purchase through one of my links this month, tipping me over the minimum threshold to get a payout (yay!). But, I won’t get that payout until either May or June, so it will get listed in the month I actually receive it.
Ad Revenue: $0.14. Yep, 14 cents. This is the ad revenue from whatever generic company WordPress uses (that’s who hosts my blog). I signed up for Google AdSense in February and only just got approval the other day. However, after all that hassle, I decided to jump ship and sign up for Ezoic instead, which I’ve heard better things about. So hopefully soon I will actually get some revenue from advertisers to help pay for the free to view patterns I put here on the blog.
Affiliate + Blog Profit: $0.14.
Total Income for April: $14.76
Total income for 2024: $205.19
Obviously, not the best month. In fact, it is the worst month I’ve had since I started designing. But all I can do is keep trying to learn about what works and what doesn’t, and keep showing up. So, that is what I am going to do.
Be on the lookout for those new patterns releasing, and happy stitching!
