What are Knitting Pattern Designers Actually Earning?
It’s been a minute.
Efforts to save my little business have necessitated focusing on other priorities.
So I haven’t blogged in nearly a year, but in preparation for some upcoming changes around MediaPeruana Designs, I’m dusting off the ol’ blog and putting it back into action.
And the first thing I’m going to address is something that’s probably going to make some people angry.
Oh well.
Discussions of financial accessibility within the fiber arts community have recently come to the forefront again, and ooooooh boy.
I have thoughts.
Let me start by recognizing the importance of making our community inclusive of people from all economic backgrounds and circumstances. This is absolutely something we should be working toward, and nothing I am about to say is intended to discount or undermine the validity of that goal.
My issue, however, is with how we go about doing that. Namely, with:
The solutions that we keep proposing to make that—and other forms of inclusion and accessibility—happen.
The underlying assumption within that discussion that “low income” and “pattern designer” or “indie dyer” are mutually exclusive.
Because the solutions we keep circling back to, whether we’re talking about size inclusivity or economic access, or web accessibility, are “free labor.” That is, the people working in this industry—and in this case, pattern designers in particular—need to do more work, but their compensation will not increase. We need to add more to our patterns, but we can’t charge more. And this is particularly troubling when we consider that the vast majority of pattern designers are, in fact, low income.
So, today we’re going to talk about how much money I made last year.
But first—data!
So, maybe you’re thinking “Really? Pattern designers are low income?” And possibly you’re rolling your eyes as you picture Andrea Mowry or Caitlin Hunter or one of the other big names in pattern design.
But, for the vast majority, it’s true.
The most recent data we have available on Ravelry pattern sales is from January 2019, so not ideal, but reasonably recent.
This spreadsheet totals the sales of every independent designer (ie, not a yarn or publishing company) who sold at least 1 pattern on Ravelry that month—10,059 designers—and then begins breaking them down into increments. So to start, 7,277 sold no more than $50 that month—72.3% of the total. Sales do fluctuate monthly, but January is Ravelry’s best sales month, according to Cassidy. But for argument’s sake, let’s say January is the average rather than the best—then nearly 3/4 of designers earn no more than $600 a year—before Ravelry and PayPal fees.
Alright, maybe they’re just the hobbiest.
So, who counts as a “real” designer? No good answer for that, of course. But let’s consider some hypotheticals.
Is it the top 10%—the 10% of Ravelry designers that earn more than all the other designers?
Well, that brings our number down to 964 designers.
And how much did they earn? As little as $201 that month.
At $201+ in pattern sales in January 2019, you’re in the top ~10% of earners on Ravelry. That’s as little as $2,500 a year (again, assuming an average, rather than best, month).
Is a “real” designer someone who sells, say, around $1,000/month? Only 287 designers sold $1001+ that month—3%.
$2001+? 157 designers, 1.6%.
Is this an oversimplification? Yes. Most designers sell on at least one other platform or their personal websites, many have other supplementary income streams that form a part of their business, like teaching or dyeing, some publish with 3rd parties and receive a commission for those designs.
But none of that changes the fact that on the primary knitting pattern publishing platform, a mainstay of the pattern design business, even someone in the top 10% of earners may have as little as $201 in pattern sales in the month with the highest sales. (And in fact, we can see from the table that more than 1 out of every 10 designers in that top 10% earned just $201-$250 that month.)
Of course, this is only a snapshot. We can draw some conclusions from it—and some pretty damning ones, I think—but it also leaves a lot out.
So, how do we know what designers are actually earning?
Well, we don’t. Unless they tell us.
And so for the sake of transparency and context, I’m going to tell you how much money I made in 2019.
As a jumping off point, I’ll tell you that in January 2019, I sold $212.75 worth of patterns on Ravelry, ie, my sales in January 2019 place me in the top 10% of Ravelry earners.
Me.
I have 3,400 Instagram followers. 762 newsletter subscribers. I sold 921 patterns TOTAL, on all platforms, in 2019. I am NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, a big time designer. Yet I am in that top 10%.
And how much did I earn in 2019?
$7,910.30.
That includes Ravelry sales, sales on LoveKnitting and Knit Picks, a couple of commissions, 2 e-courses, Patreon sponsors, and a handful of wholesale orders.
And after subtracting expenses (sample yarn, tech editing, advertising, software subscriptions, PayPal fees, Ravelry fees, and so on), I profited $4,647.13.
Now, to be fair, I worked half-time in 2019 because Ollie was still in half-day school. So let’s assume my profit would double working full time.
That’s a whopping $9,294.26 a year.
Do you know how much you make a year earning the federal minimum wage full time? $14,500.
So perhaps you can see why I am frustrated that when it comes to addressing issues like size inclusivity and financial accessibility, the proposed solution always seems to be that designers (who are inevitably lumped together, regardless of income) need to do more—grade to more sizes, provide charts and written instructions, offer tutorials, give multiple yarn options—but the market not only won’t support designers charging what patterns are actually worth with all of that content ($12-$15, easily), we’re actively encouraged (read: pressured) not to increase prices at all so that everyone can retain access to patterns.
I believe there is work to do to make this community inclusive, diverse and accessible. I don’t believe the solution is demanding additional free* labor from women who by and large don’t earn a living wage (or in many, many cases (hi!), even minimum wage).
And it honestly doesn’t matter if they have “day” jobs, or a working spouse, or don’t really “need” the money or any of those excuses—because they still deserve to earn a fair wage for their time and effort doing this work.
Fiber artists are creative people by nature—so let’s get creative.
How do you think we can best address issues of inclusion and accessibility while not placing an undue burden on already underpaid designers, dyers and other independent businesses in the fiber arts community? Leave a comment!
*But, if you add all that stuff, won’t you sell more patterns? Yeah—no. We’ll talk about that next time. Which could be next week or next year . . . who knows, honestly. But we will talk about it!