A Successful Knitting Pattern Launch--Finally!

This week I had, for the very first time, what I consider a truly successful pattern launch.

That says a lot, given that I’ve been doing this for 4 year and have published 90+ patterns.

This week I released Diego, a dreamy cabled cardigan that is about the most autumn-y sweater my brain could come up with.

You can never be sure how a pattern will fare—I thought Soundside would take off and the reception has been lukewarm; Calentito was so popular I thought Caluroso would be a sure hit, and it fell flat. But I had a good feeling about Diego. The timing was just right for knitters dreaming of fall sweaters, the cables are eye-catching but not overly complex, and the saddle shoulder construction stands out from the current crop of popular drop shoulder and circular yoke designs.

It launched on Tuesday and the response has been . . . well, the response I wish I got for every pattern launch! Diego (briefly) appeared on Ravelry’s Hot Right Now, it currently has 550 “hearts,” and I’ve sold 76 copies of the pattern in <5 days. While I know that sales will steadily decline as the month goes on, the initial burst of interest may ensure that I actually earn a decent salary for the month of August.

What’s interesting, perhaps, is that for someone like, say, Andrea Mowry or Joji Locatelli, that would probably be a pretty disappointing launch; for me, it’s the best launch I’ve ever had. By comparison, my previous best launch was Calentito, and I sold 109 copies in the entire first month.

After the “knit design in time” experiment of Soundside, this launch is encouraging—but I know it’s also setting me up for disappointment when my next pattern flops. Still, I’m trying overcome my worst instincts and to instead focus on capitalizing on this brief taste of success!

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