I will need to be writing for my customers, not myself or other designers, when I get my design site set up. At least according to the Creative Blog in who are you writing for?
That’s tough. I don’t actually know what my customers are interested in. I don’t know who they are – well, I can go read the Ravelry profiles of the folks who bought the pattern, but I don’t know how much that will tell me. I don’t know if they are interested in the same things I am about my pattern.
I’m figuring out who my customers are; My acquaintances are figuring out what my product is: I’m not selling scarves and mittens, I’m selling downloadable pdfs of patterns for scarves and mittens, and eventually, lots of other things too. (Only I’m supposed to develop a niche?)
Whenever I’ve written about my design process, or knitting process (it’s hard for me to separate them) I have been writing for someone like me – someone who likes to design patterns. It’s kind of hard to see why someone like that would want to buy one of my patterns though, since they could figure it out from the photo. I think the value of a pattern is that someone has already done the math and graphing part for nights when you just want to knit. I often miss the first part of a movie because I don’t have the numbers yet for a project and the computer isn’t in the same room as the TV.
I asked my friend Terrie about it, and she suggested tutorials, and “what else I can do with this pattern,” articles.
I have a collection of web sites on my browser that seem clean, pretty and easy to navigate. I want to imitate them in my site. I plan to make a paper mock up with flaps to show what I want my site to look like this week, because I may as well get some paper crafting in while I’m at it!
What do you like to see in a knitting design site blog? What do you want to know about the pattern? What makes you want a pattern?
Isn’t that the truth! The same is for writing– I can easily get sucked into all the “platform building” and figuring out what’s going to sell… or I can just spend my time writing what thrills me.
When you figure it out, let me know!
Maybe, since they both need to get done, do the ones that fit life best at the moment? Or the ones you love most at the moment? Or the ones that are bothering you most? Or that need to get done first?
Funny how writing, pattern design, and digital scrapbook designing all seem the same on this topic.