Digital Downloads

[UpSalvageShop]

Hello Art Team, have any of you had any luck selling digital downloads? What has been your experience? What’s worked and what hasn’t… 

Please share your experiences with us. We would love to read about them. 

Happy Holidays

[AshtonPublications]

I have been selling books and patterns for quilters on Etsy since 2008 and have experimented with digital downloads for several years.

I have three types. There are entire books:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/847043780/pdf-book-my-gardens-journal-part-1-block?click_key=454f4b0659...

Full quilt patterns: https://www.etsy.com/listing/185267860/pdf-flamingo-quilt-applique-pattern?click_key=531a8769a97721c...

And single low cost blocks: https://www.etsy.com/listing/731175895/pdf-ducks-single-block-pdf-instant?click_key=281d954dab0cc7ea...

I've had mixed results. My physical mail it to you patterns have always outsold any .pdf versions, however, they are selling better recently than they ever had before. The digital books were something I was worried about because they are a higher price but also because they have 52 pages to print. But surprisingly, they have done well.

Then the little $5 singles which I thought would be a hit, do not sell all that great. They do sell, but it's slow.

I do get quite a few messages like "I don't have a printer", and "I can't figure it out", so there do seen to be many customers out there that just are not that computer literate.

Hope that helps!

-- Darcy

[AshtonPublications]

One more story about comparisons.

On my mail out patterns - I have nice pattern covers printed up by an outside printer, then I print the "guts" on demand myself. Occasionally I run out of covers. So instead of having the listing sitting there as sold out, I repost the exact same listing as a .pdf download while waiting on new covers. This way I've been able to compare sales on a particular pattern where the only difference is mail it to you versus download. I still sell more physical patterns by a factor of about 2:1.