(I apologize in advance for the long reply! I don’t sell any patterns, so my thoughts are consumer based only, but I hope they help!)
I think the fact that it was a Holiday pattern with that holiday coming up did play a part in sales, something important to note is that people both here and other sites have lots of different patterns already, so depending on similarities of patterns they might be less likely to buy something they already have or if it looks similar to a pattern they already own.
An example would be bee’s. There’s aways patterns coming in but I as well as others probably wouldn’t get them as I already found a bee pattern that works for me.
As for pricing, you definitely shouldn’t sell your hard work short! however you can always change the price or even have it go on sale, there’s the spring cleaning event happening right now where it’ll automatically go in if the percentage of sale is in (it’s ??% to 75% so as long as it’s in range it’ll be on sale, the post is here on Ribblr so feel free to look at it as I forgot the number lol there’s even something in the post you can download a photo I believe that you can use to promote here on ribblr) I think a good reason why others get sales despite the price being higher than yours has a lot of factors in play.
Promoting the product both here and other places will gather traction especially if you already have a following. (The SelFee link can be shared anywhere) as well as activity in the community.
Lots of people feel more comfortable buying a pattern from someone that’s active in the community as if a question comes they could ask and they would receive an answer. For example if you bought a pattern and got stuck and asked the creator for help but got no reply it definitely wouldn’t feel good to have bought it and not understand it. And being active would give more of a chance for people to look through your profile and find your shop
Another factor I believe could be it would actually be the photos, the more pretty or “aesthetic” the photo looks would gather more looks especially if done in the same area. For example if you look at other popular shops their photos might be more appealing. A great example would be Lemon Yarn! Their photos are very cute and have great lighting, my eyes will always gravitate to their photos especially with the bright colors! Now you don’t have to have bright colors to attract, just having a simple color palate that works well and is shared across photos in backgrounds could work,
I mentioned earlier that when patterns look similar to other patterns the chance that others buy it will be less, so something important to note when creating and selling patterns is uniqueness, what makes a pattern different and stand out? I think the stitches and using Yarn over and Yarn under change the look and will gather more attention. However not all changes could work an example would be the bee’s again, even if the colors are different than others but the base pattern is the same it would sell less as you can always change the colors of the bee you already have
Journals are definitely good to have as it adds credibility, however if used during testing make sure to have the testers relay any problems through chat or direct messaging as there’s problems happening where testers put parts of the pattern in the journal and say they have trouble on those and they’re public to see or if they mention troubles in the journal it won’t look good for potential buyers especially as these questions are during the testing phase and not the final product.
A lot of people here won’t feel the need to buy or test a pattern if it’s not something they like or will use, so having patterns that are popular/useful or could get popular are important just a simple search should show you the more popular items however like mentioned earlier making sure your pattern stands out is important
Another factor is being able to understand that sometimes patterns might not sale and it may take some time for you to finally get sales so please don’t give up! Using Lemon Yarn again as an example they mentioned in an interview in a previous event they won where when they began they didn’t have a lot of traction but they still continued and promoting and now they’re at a good place in sales I believe!
If I think of other things I’ll reply but I hope I provided some help or if not others might 