Value of a Picture

Yesterday I released my new shawl pattern, the Astolat Shawl. When I first released it, I used a close up of the stitch pattern as the main cover photo:

I really like this picture and was extremely happy when I saw it come out of my camera, so that's why I used it. But I'm wondering if it's not quite as "clickable" as I wanted it to be. When I first released the pattern, I did get a few favorites (and sold a copy right away), but for the first few hours, movement was slow, even though I had posted around Ravelry about it. I checked the Patterns page in the "Hot Right Now" order and even after going through 6-7 pages, I didn't see my pattern. I thought perhaps the release was a bit of a bust.

On almost a whim, I decided to change out the cover photo for one of my sister (my model) running with the shawl. I was really happy when I saw this picture because of the movement that her hair shows while still having the shawl mostly in focus.

I thought that it couldn't hurt to try out the new photo. And then it happened. More favorites. I checked Hot Right Now and found Astolat at the top of page 3. The HRN pages update every hour, so I spent the last few hours before bed refreshing. I was thrilled to see it move to page 2. Could it go all the way to page 1? I wondered. Even though I was tired, I stayed up until just past 11:00 so I could check the page once more (worried that it would lose momentum overnight and I might miss it if it did move to the first page). And what did I see? There was Astolat on page 1 in the bottom row. I'll take it! I went to sleep with a smile on my face.

This morning I woke up to find that it had moved up a bit on page 1 and my latest refresh had it moving up two more spots. Wait, it's just past the hour. Refresh time. Woot!! It moved up five more spots. It's now #30 for Hot Right Now patterns. Thank you so much to everyone who has viewed the shawl, favorited it, and bought it. I'm excited to see more versions of the shawl pop up on Ravelry (the test knitters have some lovely ones already!).

I don't know if the picture change truly made a difference. Perhaps it would have still taken off with the original cover photo, but I can't really determine that. I just know that it seemed to have stalled with the original picture and picked up momentum when I changed it. I know that photography is one of the main selling points for patterns, but this experience really highlights how important it just might be to pick the right cover shot!

P.S. The name comes from the story of the Fair Maid of Astolat (aka Lady of Shalott) as told by Sir Thomas Malory. I've summarized the story on the project page and on my website.