Sarah Renae Clark is an Australian Youtuber, blogger, and creative who has built a massive coloring book empire. The creative started out only selling digital coloring sheets but eventually started allowing Amazon to print coloring books that would be available on the platform. Recently, Sarah launched a physical product, The Color Cube, that makes color selection easy and fun. With 250 color palettes as handy cards to help artists or anyone build confidence in choosing colors that complement one another. The Color Cube had a $50,000 launch and currently generates about $200,000 per month. This blog post will explore how Sarah got her start and how $200K a month is even possible.
Taking it serious
Sarah creates coloring books and printables to help people overcome anxiety and create something they’re proud of. After dabbling with creating random stuff, just trying to earn passive income, Sarah ended up stumbling across coloring books.
In 2015, there was a huge coloring book craze that hit online, and Sarah thought to herself that she could create one. She created 20 pages of digital patterns and threw it up on an old WordPress site she had and priced it at $3.
Sarah started joining Facebook groups catered to adults that loved to color. She posted a few times in the groups about her digital coloring book and sold 50 copies in her first month. That’s when Sarah knew she was on to something.
It’s all about connections
After joining over 200 Facebook groups, Sarah realized the key to selling was making connections and building a community. She got it right early on — figure out where your target audience is hanging out and meet them where they’re at. That’s what Sarah did, and that’s how she was able to sell so many copies of her first coloring book.
The coloring book designer noticed that people were getting hip to her tactics in the Facebook groups, and other creators would join, trying to market their creations. She said many creators didn’t do well, even if their designs were better, simply because they weren’t authentic. They were only trying to sell.
Sarah started answering questions and providing value in the Facebook groups, which made her an authority figure in the space. Sarah even started giving free coloring sheets to group members to earn their trust and build an e-mail list.
Building a business
After Sarah built enough trust in the Facebook groups, she started a blog and created a YouTube channel. At first, she was apprehensive about starting a channel because she assumed she needed to get dolled up daily to record videos. However, everyone kept telling Sarah that the future was video, so she decided to take the plunge.
Sarah started creating videos talking about her coloring books and just giving valuable information, and her audience really enjoyed it. She saw a shift in how they connected with her.
Next, Sarah launched The Color Catalog, a PDF document that can also be printed that helps anyone find the perfect color combination for their project. When she first launched it, she used affiliate marketing since she had the product and just needed affiliates to promote it on their YouTube channels.
Before these creators promoted her new product, she had just $1,000 in sales. After a huge coloring book enthusiast posted a video about The Color Catalog, payment notifications wouldn’t stop coming through on Sarah’s phone. After that campaign, Sarah made $12,000 that month and steadily earned about $2,000 per month afterward with just that product.
Her business skyrocketed
Sarah received advice from a friend who kindly told her it would be difficult to reach a million-dollar business if all of her products were under $5. From that moment on, Sarah focused all her attention on offering costlier products. She didn’t want to make her products more expensive. Instead, she wanted a way for her customers to purchase more. That’s when Sarah started bundling her products together.
Sarah started bundling things to add more value. Instead of a customer purchasing something for just $5, they started spending at least $20, and then eventually $100. The creative realized that her overall revenue would increase every time she found a new product to bundle.
Sarah’s business revenue started doubling every year after this.
Not putting all your eggs in one basket
Recently, Sarah was interviewed on a podcast discussing not putting all your eggs in one basket. Sarah said she’s lucky that so many people love her coloring books and printables. However, if anything happened to those products, she would still be okay. Sarah recently launched a physical product, The Color Cube, that’s grown super popular since its launch. Sarah receives ad revenue from her YouTube channel and blog. She’s also got sponsorships, affiliate income, and she has yet to dive into teaching all that she knows. Although she says that’s up next.
Sarah knows the importance of diversifying your income and has done a great job at it. She also said that creators should ensure they’re active on multiple social platforms. Of course, take your time and build your audience on one platform, but then move on to the next to ensure you do not solely depend on one platform to get by.
Final Thoughts
Sarah is proof that creators can look beyond selling the typical merch such as t-shirts, hats, and coffee mugs– to build an empire. It’s truly inspiring that you can create what you want, put it in front of the right people, and build an entire business around it. The sky is truly the limit.
