Knitting Patterns: The Best Ways to Post Your Own Knitting Patterns
If you design knitting patterns or teach knitting techniques and would like to publish your work, read on to discover the different ways you can publish, the pros and cons of each option, and essential tips on copyright and how to use it.
Being a published designer or author is great for your credibility, it will give you publicity and allow your work to be seen by a much wider audience. But before you rush out and write your book, you need to do some research first and find out more about your market and whether your product or ideas will actually sell.
First of all, you need to think about who your target market is. Will it be a wide range of knitters or crocheters? Or is it a small niche group? Are they beginners or advanced? Is your book content hot right now?
Highly appealing knitting books usually cover knitting basics, how to knit, problem solving, and common knitting or crochet patterns. Even though they are aimed at a broad market, the most popular of these books still have something unique about them, or some kind of twist that makes them interesting. Books aimed at niche markets are great because they have the potential to catch on and sell very well.
To research the market, look at the big book-selling sites like Amazon, where you can see what the most popular books in their category are. Some of the best-selling pattern books right now are books on sock patterns, knit or crochet embellishments, warm-weather knitting, and solutions to knitting problems. By reviewing these lists, you may also find gaps in the market that you can fill.
When you’ve decided on your topic and created your content, you have three main options for how to publish, advertise, and sell your work:
One option is to use a publisher to publish your book. There are obviously a huge number of publishers around the world, some very large with wide distribution networks, others smaller and perhaps more suited to niche publications. The advantage of using a publisher is that they will copyright, edit, print and distribute your book for you. Some publishers specialize in craft books, which means they will have more experience with your style of book. They will have experienced editors to give feedback and ideas for improvement.
If you use a large publisher, your knitting book will be distributed more widely, much faster than you could do it yourself. It will be advertised in catalogs and most publishers have representatives who will promote and sell your book in stores. The downside is that you will lose much of your control over the book as well as the winnings.
Another option is to self-publish your knitting or crochet book using an online publishing service like lulu.com. By publishing your book this way, you will have more control over how your knitting book is presented and printed, where it is sold and how it is promoted, as well as copyright.
There are new copyrights called “Creative Commons” that are not as restrictive and allow people to share their patterns more freely, use them to inspire other work or in knitting classes. This free use will encourage your designs to be more widely distributed and make your name as a designer better known.
When you self-publish your knitting book, you will earn more. Most desktop publishing services allow you to print on demand, which means lower start-up costs.
However, you won’t get the same distribution in the bookstore as you would with an offline publisher. And you yourself will be responsible for most of the promotion.
A third option is to publish your knitting book online as an e-book. This would be a good option if you have an existing website, or can find sites that would be willing to promote your book. If you don’t want to spend a lot on start-up, then this is a great way to test your market with very little investment.
You can also post your book or patterns with one of the many pattern sellers online. This way you can control the copyright and distribution of each of your designs individually.
In terms of knitting pattern copyrights, there are several options available. All unique patterns are automatically protected by copyright law in most countries, so all you need to do is type “Copyright” and the year of creation and your name. eg Copyright 2009 Liz Raad. You can add the phrase “all rights reserved” if you don’t want your patterns to be used for anything other than personal use. Or you can add specific exceptions like “not to be used for commercial purposes”.
However, you may have noticed that the world (especially the online world) is shifting to a much freer approach to sharing information and ideas. If you release your copyright and use a creative commons copyright as mentioned above, your designs will be shared and reach a much wider audience than if you severely restrict their use. Your income as a designer comes from pattern or book sales, and many sales are made from personal recommendations, so the more people who know you, the better!
Whichever option you choose, if you want make money knitting Then, by publishing your knitting book, you’ll get more exposure for your designs and your name will be better known. Becoming a published knitting designer or author will give you more credibility and might even open up new opportunities in your knitting design career.