If selling the crochet that you make isn’t working for you, what do you do instead to keep the dream of making a living from your crochet? What other ways of making money from your crochet without selling what you make do you have to choose from?
If you prefer to listen, you can find the podcast here
The vast majority of people who start a crochet business do so by selling what they make. It’s the de facto entry point. But it doesn’t mean it’s the best way to make money from your crochet, in fact it’s often the hardest and least profitable way to make money from your crochet. Which is why you’re finding it so hard to make your crochet business work.
It feels like everyone else that you see selling their crochet is making it work. And that makes you feel like a failure, like you’re missing something obvious that would make it work for you too. But it’s not a trick you’re missing, it’s a piece of information about what those sellers are aiming for. Often those people just want a side hustle to make a bit of extra cash. They’re not trying to make a full time living from their crochet, unlike you.
It’s just incredibly hard to make a profit from something that takes so long to make.
7 Ways To Profit From Your Crochet
So if you can’t make a living from selling the crochet that you make, what other options do you have? Plenty as it turns out. I have 7 ways to make money from your crochet that don’t involve selling what you make.
The 7 options you have available to you are:
- Crochet Patterns
- YouTube
- Blogs
- Memberships
- Affiliate marketing
- Courses
- E-books and Printables
Let’s go through each one of them so you can see how they work and if they could be the right option for you.
Crochet Patterns
The first option on our list is crochet patterns. Patterns are huge business with millions of crocheters around the world hungry for new designs, which means there’s no shortage of potential customers for new designers. What makes designing your own crochet patterns such a good option is that you write a pattern once, and then sell the pattern file over and over again. It’s automated recurring income so your patterns can sell on repeat even when you take a break from your business.
This is the option I chose to base my own crochet business around. Even when I was selling what I made I was creating my own patterns, they just weren’t properly written up. You see, I wanted to sell things that no one else had, so I was creating my own designs so that I would have something unique to sell. It wasn’t that big of a leap to turn those ideas into properly written patterns that I could sell instead. It was a natural next step for me.
YouTube
YouTube is the world’s biggest video sharing platform and the crochet niche is booming on there. From videos that provide free patterns, to stitch guides, to crochet tips to designers and makers sharing what they’re up to and more besides. Crochet videos get millions of views every day.
But if you’re worried about having to show your face — I have hundreds of videos on my channel where you only see my hands and hear my voice. It is very possible to create a successful faceless YouTube channel.
YouTube allows many ways to make money from your videos — ads, affiliate marketing, marketing your own products, YouTube memberships, and Supers which are basically a tip system. It’s up to you how many of these options you choose to use for your own channel, but as with everything else, one size does not fit all and you have the choice of what path you wish to go down.
If you enjoy sharing your crochet world and are prepared to make weekly videos, then YouTube is a great option. But it does need time and consistency to really bring in enough money to make it worth it. A YouTube channel will not start making money overnight, it could take several months before you start seeing any return on all that time you invest. But YouTube is also a massive search engine and the potential audience for your videos is huge.
Blogs
Blogging is an amazing way to get you and your crochet found through search results. You can use blogs not only to host ads for ad revenue but to grow your email list, affiliate marketing and sell other products of your own. You can blog solely with the aim of growing the number of visitors to your site so that you can maximise ad revenue or incorporate some of the other methods of making money from your crochet in this article to bump your profits even more. This makes blogging a very versatile option.
But of course there is a catch. Blogs are easily the most expensive option here. It not only costs money to host your blog, it’s going to cost you money to get it set up in the first place. Whether that’s through a course to learn how to do it yourself or paying a web developer to set it up for you. Getting your blog up and running can cost several hundred dollars and it will take time to recoup that cost. Blogs take time and consistency to grow the traffic, so you are putting faith in yourself up front that you will earn that money back.
Despite the cost involved, a blog is an incredible asset to any crochet business and has the highest earning potential. If you are willing to take the time to consistently post and you believe that you have plenty to write about then I would highly recommend the blogging route.
Memberships
Memberships are the most stable type of recurring income. You can grow the number of members without growing the time commitment you need to give. Once you have a few members you have financial stability in that you know roughly how much money your membership will make each month. That’s a financial stability that you don’t really have with the other crochet business ideas.
You can make a membership out of anything — a new crochet pattern every month, a paid crochet community, a crochet Q&A, or learn to crochet. The list goes on. If you can create an idea where there’s community or a piece of content you can create each month and share with the whole group, then you can make a membership out of it. Memberships can be low cost to create and run and the price for your members can be anything from a few dollars a month to tens of dollars a month. As long as people feel the cost is worth the value they receive, then how you price your membership is entirely up to you.
If you enjoy being part of communities and want the chance to really get to know your customers then memberships are a great option.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is where you recommend someone else’s product, and if someone clicks the link and buys, you get a small percentage of the sale value in return. Affiliate marketing has got a bad reputation thanks to influencer marketing. It’s not meant to feel like a random ad placement that has no relation to the content. It’s meant to feel natural and just part of the conversation.
You can use affiliate marketing through your social media, newsletters, blogs and videos. The links you choose are meant to be helpful and not salesy. For example, in my crochet patterns I have affiliate links to the yarn thread I used to make it. Many of my crocheters want to make the pattern exactly the way I show it in the pictures, including using the same yarn. The link makes it easy for them to buy the yarn. Instead of having to do a Google search, the link is a shortcut to finding what they want.
To earn significant money from affiliate marketing you need to either have a big audience who trusts you enough to know that the products you recommend are as good as you say, or you need to find products that have a high price tag and a high commission rate. The higher the cost of the product, the more commission you make and the fewer clicks you need to make the money you need. Affiliate marketing works best if you can naturally recommend products but you need a large audience to really make it pay. It’s best to use it alongside another crochet business idea such as blogging or pattern writing, but if you can grow your audience it can create a significant income for you.
Courses
Courses are like crochet patterns. You create them once and then you sell the files on repeat. You can create courses on all kinds of things from teaching people how to crochet from scratch to teaching different techniques like mosaic or Mochilla to creating courses on crocheting a market bag or crochet jewellery. There are plenty of options to choose from. You can even incorporate a membership option and create a community for your course buyers.
To teach others you don’t need to be an expert crocheter, you just need to know the skill you are showing and be able to explain it in easy to understand terms. Crocheters will buy courses from the people whose explanations they understand best. It doesn’t matter that the subject is being taught by someone else, it matters how you teach and they prefer your style.
Crochet courses work best when you make videos to show the techniques in action. You don’t have to show your face, you can just video your hands at work. If you enjoy teaching others new skills and techniques and don’t mind creating videos as a teaching method then this is a great option.
E-books and Printables
E-books and printables are the low tech, easy way into creating crochet digital products. Again these are like selling crochet patterns — you create them once and then sell the files on repeat. But these are low cost, simple and quick to create and can be for anything crochet related.
- Yarn stash trackers
- Crochet project planning sheets
- E-books on yarn and fibre types
- Reference guides to hook sizes, crochet slang or abbreviations
You can even create diary pages or to do lists that are just crochet themed. There is no limit here as long as the idea fits naturally into a crochet business. E-books and printables can be created in a Google doc or by using templates in Canva. If you love exploring your creative side and mixing it in with your crochet then this is a great option for you. The best thing about e-books and printables is that you can get started and get your very first product up for sale today. They are easily the quickest option for bringing in sales and can start selling immediately.
How To Choose The Right Option For You
So there you have all 7 options. Each one of them has its pros and cons and each is going to appeal to different people. There is no right or wrong choice here, it is all down to your personal preferences.
So how do you make that choice? If several of the options are appealing to you, pick just one to start with. Which one would suit you best? Think about the crochet business that you have right now and which tasks that you enjoy doing the most. Do you enjoy writing about your crochet? Do you enjoy sharing the process of crocheting? How about coming up with your own designs to make to sell?
If you haven’t downloaded the free Map Your Path workbook yet, you can download it here and section 4 is all about discovering what you genuinely enjoy doing. Make that list and that will guide you towards which of the 7 options are most likely to work for you the best.
There’s no reason to rush this decision, you want the next step of your crochet business journey to be the right one for you. The path that will take you to the crochet profits you need to live the life you want. So take your time, consider the options and weigh them up against what you enjoy doing. Every one of the options has the potential to earn you a living from your crochet so there’s no need to pick the one you think will be more profitable — they can all meet that expectation. So choose what you will enjoy doing as that will be the most sustainable choice for the years to come.
I’m Kelly Thomas, crochet business owner, pattern writer, blogger and coach. I started my crochet business selling what I make and made all the mistakes along the way. Let me show you what I learned so you don’t make the same errors.
You can listen to the podcast episode that goes with this article here. It is a bit different to what you’ve just read, but the message is the same.
You can check out the rest of my podcast here to discover more about how to turn your crochet into a successful business.
I also have this free workbook that you can download to Map Your Path and work out what your next step in your crochet business is
