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An Interview with Shannon Okey aka Knitgrrl

Posted on | July 23, 2010 | 25 Comments

Shannon Okey’s new book The Knitgrrl Guide to Professional Knitwear Design is a wonderful guide for any designer willing to take that extra step or needs a few new tricks. With topics such as using social networking, marketing, advertising, copyright, and distribution plus interviews with big names in the industry, I highly recommend this book to any established or newbie designers. Not a designer? That’s ok. I think you can find some information that will help you too. I will also be giving away a copy of Shannon’s book, see the end of the post for more details!

Now on to the interview!

Melissa Wehrle: As a designer flying by the seat of my pants, I wonder why it took so long for a book like this to hit the market. What was your inspiration for writing it and why do you think the subject hasn’t been tackled previously?

Shannon Okey: Honestly? Witnessing some really obnoxious behavior online gave me the initial spark. I list a few of those incidents in the book, but summed up, I was tired of seeing less-experienced designers behaving badly and expecting to be taken seriously. Their actions paints the rest of us in a negative light, too! Coupled with some conversations I’d had with yarn company owners about bad designer behavior (a tip: if a company is kind enough to offer or agree to give yarn support for a design, it is NOT ok to ask for 5x more than you need, or ask for a ball of every color…even asking for color cards is generally frowned upon since they cost a lot of money to produce), I had finally had enough. Why hasn’t it been tackled previously? Larger publishers tend to shy away from niche topics, and I’m not sure they know just how many designers and designers-in-waiting there are out there, so most would probably not be willing to bet the initial budget outlay on a book like this.

MW: Even though this book is written for designers, current or aspiring, I think a lot of the information might be of interest to regular old knitters too. What topics do you think regular knitters might be interested in?

SO: Not only is it suitable for “regular old knitters,” as you say, but I think there’s a lot to offer other creative people — if you have an Etsy shop, if you do craft shows, if you’re a musician or a stitcher — anyone who might want to sell their work for an additional income boost, or at the very least, get the word out about it. The chapters on social media and creative advertising don’t assume you have any experience in these topics, and unless you’re “digital native” like me (I used to work in the software industry and share a house with another computer geek), you might have no idea where to get started, how the software works or even what it’s supposed to accomplish. And if you really and truly have no interest whatsoever in the mechanics of making a living with your work, but you’re interested in reading how other people do, the interview section at the back is great all by itself. I deliberately asked a lot of the same questions to all 32 interviewees because I wanted to show the range of opinions — there is no one “right” way to do it, there’s no license to become a designer, and so people have taken very different paths.

MW: The book has a lot of current info and in the interviews the current economic climate (or lack of one) has been mentioned a lot. Where do you see the design and knitting industry going in these difficult times?

SO: I firmly believe that the old “up/down” knitting cycle has been, if not eliminated entirely, shortened into a series of specialist “bursts”! (See: the recent lace shawl trend, for one example, or more complex socks) Other designers who have been at this longer than I have tell me knitting used to go in 20 (or 10) year cycles in terms of popularity. The internet, and specifically Ravelry.com, has given people a lot more content to work with to sustain and even amp up interest in knitting. Look at the knitting book market — you literally could not turn around in 2005 without getting hit in the head with a knitting book contract. There was one year in which I completed something like four books. That is CRAZY. But the large publishers have had to come to terms with the overall economic downtown and this isn’t the case anymore — even authors who’ve done a book with one publisher aren’t getting picked up for a second, or in some cases, publishers are actually canceling projects outright.

Why? They’ve got a lot of overhead. Book and magazine publishers have a lot more bills to pay than individual designers or small publishers do. I think this is going to work to our advantage as both producers and consumers! I’ll give you an example: Liz Lovick, who’s interviewed in my book, lives on Orkney, so she’s relatively close to Shetland and Fair Isle. She knows that most knitters, even dedicated knitters who love Fair Isle work, are probably never going to get the chance to visit there. So she produces and sells these wonderful CDs with information and patterns from Fair Isle, Shetland, etc, as well as hundreds of photos of the island in question. They’re something you’re not going to find anywhere else — unless someone on Fair Isle starts doing the same thing! The equivalent major-publisher project would be a giant coffee table book, very expensive, and probably wouldn’t sell nearly as well as these CDs have for her. It’s great because she can earn a living doing what she loves, and the people who are fans of those topics can get something unique they’re not going to find anywhere else.

How does that relate to the current economic downturn? Think back to your Econ 101 class: comparative advantage. We designers (and small businesses of all kinds) have a more level playing field than ever before thanks to the internet and many other factors. If we are professional and do our jobs well (getting back to the original premise of the book), we’ve got an unlimited opportunity to succeed.

MW: Can you tell us a little more about Cooperative Press and why self-publishing is so important to you? Talk to me.

SO: See above. I’ve done 12 books with major publishers, but that doesn’t mean what a lot of people seem to think it does. I’m no Stephen King or Stephenie Meyer, royalties-wise! Of all the books I’ve done, I regularly get royalties on 2 of them, twice a year. About $600-800, if it’s a good period. Try living on $600 for 6 months! For the amount of work that goes into a book, it’s becoming less palatable for me to give up all rights. This book is for sale in print, digital and eBook editions. As new technologies come along, I’ll publish to them, too. Yet two years ago, I felt like I was shouting in the wilderness when I asked my other publishers to make sure my books were available digitally. Most of them still aren’t. Independent publishers can move faster and respond to trends more quickly than large publishers can. Instead of getting 10 or 12% of the book’s cover price (if you’re lucky), you earn a much higher percentage of the profits. The other authors who are working on books for Cooperative Press respect that, and that we’re willing to try new things, such as the royalty model we’re testing with our Fresh Designs pattern book series, where designers are getting paid on every copy sold instead of receiving a tiny one-time-only amount, etc. Not that it’s all about money, but let me tell you, it’s a lot easier to produce good work when you’re not struggling to pay your bills.

MW: Can you give my readers a little hint as to what is in store for Cooperative Press in the future?

SO: Oh yes! We’re trying out new compensation and revenue models, for one. I am firmly convinced if we put out good books, knitters will buy them. (Seems fairly simple, no?) And if you buy from us, you know that more of your money is going to the author — see also the post Sister Diane did on CP’s website the other day. YOU the reader are essentially our sales staff. You help us create more fair working conditions for designer-authors. You help ensure that we can put out quality books even if someone locked in a marketing department somewhere thinks the idea sounds crazy (I am not the only person this has happened to — often, the marketing department decides a book topic is too “weird” and so it never sees the light of day…or it comes out at the same time as three other books that are the exact same topic because one of the big chains like Barnes & Noble started asking for books on that topic).

As for subject matter, we’ve got some great stuff on the way — a book on technical editing, one on “extreme” double knitting, a sock book that will make you cry it is so amazing, a book on a type of sweater knitting that’s never been covered in depth (or in an entire book, so far as we can tell)…join the mailing list over at cooperativepress.com and we’ll let you know when the new stuff comes out!

MW: Thanks Shannon! I wish you much success in all your endeavors!

Now the fun part! Leave a comment below to win a copy of Shannon’s fabulous book. You have until July 28th 8:00pm EST to enter. Good luck!

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