Part 2: Breaking Down Sarah Renae Clark’s World

Through skillful world-building, Sarah has created a place for people to unleash creativity in their daily lives. A place where they don’t have to be a professional artist to enjoy the benefits of art.

Happy Tuesday Friends,

In our last piece, we explored Sarah Renae Clark’s journey as a colorist and content creator. She has built a niche business generating over $2 million in annual sales that supports a team of eight. This week, we’ll dive deeper into her growing community and the vibrant world she's building. Sarah's content goes very deep on all things coloring, making it easy to see why her audience is so engaged.

To start it off, let’s revisit a quote from Alex Danco on world-building, previously featured in our piece on the Art and Importance of World Building. It sets the stage for our analysis.

Now let’s break down Sarah’s world.

Breaking Down Sarah’s World ⚒️ 🌎️ 

Sarah has created an entire world around coloring. Everything she does comes from this core belief (in Sarah’s own words):

Her world welcomes people from all walks of life to unleash their creativity through coloring. We took a deep dive into Sarah’s content and have broken it down by the following topics and target audience.

The visual demonstrates that Sarah’s content caters to artists of all levels, allowing them to "walk around and discover her world" no matter where they are on their personal journey. While many creators cover a range of topics within their niche similar to Sarah, few manage to build a true community and turn it into a sustainable business like she has. The ability for a creator to create a sustainable business usually comes down to one critical thing. They must be able to:

This is where Sarah shines as a world-builder. She hosts live coloring sessions with Q&As, interviews and features other artists regularly in her videos, provides exclusive content for paid subscribers, and sells a range of digital and physical products she has created herself including adult coloring books, the popular Color Cube, stickers, notebooks, and more.

So, Sarah’s world looks more like this:

It’s an all encompassing world where that has led to community members coming in to participate without active involvement from Sarah. How do we know? Here is a telling sign:

There is a playlist on Sarah’s YouTube channel titled, “How to Use the Color Cube.” This playlist has 115 videos on it showing different ways to use her color cube for matching colors. What caught our eye is this playlist has nearly 4x the amount of videos than all her other playlists.

Why? The playlist includes videos from other people using Sarah’s color cube in their own drawings or art-related videos. We also found Instagram full of people using #colorcube and showcasing the product. Sarah finds many of these videos and posts because her own followers reach out to her via email or in comments to share their excitement at seeing her Color Cube “in the wild”.

Seeing this is a clear sign that Sarah is building an ecosystem far more valuable than just likes or comments. It may seem minor, but it's a big deal and essential for creating a strong, lasting community—and it's not easy to achieve.

Now, on to the most important part, purpose.

Importance of Clarity and Purpose 👓️ 🧘 

Humans love stories because we’re drawn to clear direction and compelling arcs. If someone can craft a world that feels clearer and more engaging than the complex, ambiguous real world, people will naturally be drawn to it. When people are invited into such a world with a purpose that they accept, they’ll stay. Having a clear sense of purpose is the most important element to being an effective world builder. Many creators and their content lack a clear purpose, which makes it difficult to motivate their audiences for meaningful participation. A true community cannot form without audience engagement.

Sarah is not one of those creators. She taps into the innate human drive to create through coloring and art and has crafted a world for people to enter that’s centered around a powerful purpose: using creative expression to stay positive and get through life’s difficult times.

Whenever she’s asked why she does what she does, or what her favorite thing about her business is, Sarah’s answer is always the same – people. Her favorite comments from her community are the ones where people share their own stories, or say that they’re taking a new creative leap after being inspired by one of her videos.

As Sarah explicitly states:

A great example of this is the second coloring book Sarah designed, Coloring Through Cancer. She originally created it for her mother, who was undergoing treatment for breast cancer at the time. The goal was not only to help her relax, but also encourage her to stay positive. Sarah offered a free digital version of the book to cancer centers and hospitals who could print pages for their patients. It was also included in cancer gift boxes by Survivor Chest. After a few years, Sarah made the printable book free for everyone and donated the past revenue to an Australian cancer charity.

Let’s Wrap It Up 🎁 

There are many reasons why Sarah has been an effective world-builder, but two things really stand out to us that any creator can learn from:

1. Simplicity: Her initial product–a coloring book—was simple and easy to understand.

2. Clarity: Her world has a clear purpose—to help people unlock their creativity in their daily lives.

Through this simplicity and clarity, Sarah has created something people need in their lives, not just something they want. While it may look like Sarah is selling adult coloring books, they serve a much greater purpose. She is inspiring people to be creative and creating a place where they don’t have to be a professional artist to enjoy the benefits of art. The books are a great outlet because they take away the pressure of a “blank canvas” and give people the right boundaries (the lines) to create more freely. In just a few years, Sarah has created a deep, meaningful world for her audience and we have a feeling she is just getting started.

Have good week and remember to Go Direct!

Jordan & Scott