WordPress.com to offer Theme Marketplace, and why I’ll be on it
In case you didn’t know, the folks over at Automattic are planning to add a Theme Marketplace to WordPress.com. It’ll allow the users to buy licenses to premium WordPress themes, for use on their hosted blogs. Given that there is more than 1.7m WP.com blogs, that should be a great deal for designers, right?
Well, yes and no. There are a few kinks.
- You’ll split the asked price for a theme license with Automattic, as in 50% goes into their pocket.
- You’ll have to GPL your theme and offer it free outside of WP.com, as in every WordPress user with their own install can get it for free.
Basically, this means that if I make a premium theme and sell it on the WordPress.com Theme Marketplace for $50, Automattic will take $25 for every sale I make, and I won’t be able to sell it for use on self-hosted WordPress blogs since they just can download and install it themselves.
Does that sound fair to you?
Tony Hung points out that this should be a great way for upcoming designers to reach a big audience, and I agree - it sure is. But for people like me, who’s used to charge quite a bit more, it isn’t exactly a no-brainer, right?
Wrong.
If I do a premium theme to be sold on WordPress.com Theme Marketplace, that means I’m reaching possible customers that I usually don’t otherwise (since I’m not the kind of guy who likes to mod the Sandbox theme). That means I get my name out there, and I’ll be able to sell the one theme I do several times. Sure, I’ll have to release it to the masses of WordPress users outside of WordPress.com, but I have no problem with that - at the very least it’s great PR (both kinds) for me.
Also, I don’t think I’ve gone this far by doing crappy work. Naturally, any theme I might release on the WordPress.com Theme Marketplace will be good and worth its price. That goes without saying.
So while it’s a natural choice for up and coming new designers, it’s also a pretty solid go for the established ones.
A small heads-up though. How many of these 1.7m+ blogs are run by people willing to spend a buck? Matt, are there any numbers on how many who are using premium services, for instance? What can designers expect, really? I mean, 1% of 1.7m is just 17 000, and they all won’t care for a premium theme, and certainly not just yours. What numbers do you base this venture on, throwing around 1.7m sounds good, but the number isn’t very interesting by itself. Cards on the table, please.
A sidenote. If this is hypocrisy or not on Matt’s behalf, given the whole sponsored themes debacle, I don’t know. It sure makes you think though.
Designers, would you offer your premium WordPress themes on a WordPress.com Theme Marketplace under these circumstances? Why, or why not?
Your point about just 17.000 blogs (maybe!) is good. I guess that only time will show the real number :)
By Alex Kay on November 3, 2007 7:30 am
I quite like the idea, but then I am not a theme designer. I haven’t designed a theme for anyone else before.
What puts me off is promoting it and selling it myself. I prefer just give things away, but this way I can still do that with the potential of a little benefit on the side.
I expect that many people like me will be prepared to do it for the experience and so you may find lots of people undercutting the experienced theme designers. That would further reduce the value of those 17,000
By Andrew on November 3, 2007 8:48 am
I don’t think I’d sell a theme on the Wordpress.com marketplace (especially not at $50). The work involved in creating the theme would the same if I was to do it on commission (maybe more as it needs to be more “portable”) and seeing as I’d probably charge a client upwards of $2500, I’d need to sell the template 1000 times to make it worthwhile!
The benefits of link backs etc are great, but if I wanted to truly maximise on this I’d release the theme for free to reach the biggest possible audience.
By garrett on November 3, 2007 10:09 am
Matt’s asking for the first round of themes to be CSS-based anyway. We’ll make a sandboxer out of you yet!
By adam on November 3, 2007 10:44 am
oh, and yes. last i’d heard the uptake on customCSS was 0.1%. that was back when wp.com had 300,000 users, though.
By adam on November 3, 2007 10:49 am
Garrett, so set the price at $500 and sell 10 of them. That’s the beauty of a free market. For some people higher prices is an indicator of quality.
By Matt on November 3, 2007 12:51 pm
50/50 is too much. Why have 1 centralized place for the best premium themes and lose half of your time? Independent designers can still work together to make sufficient wp themes. Anyway I think its bullcrap, wordpress is supposed to be one of the best open source tools out there. Now their tryin to steal half our money.
You just inspired me to buy a new domain: http://www.buywpthemes.com. I tell you what, ill split profit 25/75 :)
By sethuhdiah on November 3, 2007 5:32 pm
Per Matt, there will be no link backs. The author’s link will be within the metadata within the header as well as dashboard menu, not in the footer of the theme.
Gotta admit that I think that’s strange as as they’ve usually left in the author’s link within the footer on the themes already there previously.
By drmike on November 4, 2007 6:05 am
Agreed. I can understand the nofollow approach, but not having my name crediting a theme I’ve sold in the footer is out of the question. My clients won’t hunt for designers in metadata, they see something they like, and go from there. I don’t care about the PageRank aspect of things, I just want my credit.
Matt, I’d like to hear your reasoning on this.
By Thord Daniel Hedengren on November 5, 2007 12:56 am
[…] blogs, and you won’t get any credit in the theme’s footer, which sucks. I wrote an extensive post on this over at Wisdump, so pop over if you’re […]
By Devlounge | The WordPress.com Theme Marketplace on November 6, 2007 1:56 am
Obviously I can’t speak for Matt, but my guess is that this venture is primarily aimed at the developers who are/were selling sponsored links to cover their costs, and he doesn’t trust them not to sell their ‘allowed’ link to spammers.
If credit’s important to you, don’t touch this with a bargepole. There are plenty of other distribution channels out there.
By that girl again on November 6, 2007 7:02 am
Well, you might be right, but I’m giving him the benefit of a doubt here. I think he wants to create a vivid marketplace and is looking to attract big name blog designers, as well as upcoming ones. It would be interesting to hear his reply to these things.
By Thord Daniel Hedengren on November 6, 2007 7:38 am
[…] discussion on the WordPress.com theme marketplace and some interesting comments from theme designers […]
By Donncha’s Tuesday Links at Holy Shmoly! on November 6, 2007 10:01 pm
Not exclusively CSS only, “preferably CSS-only because we’re trying to keep it simple at first”.
Matt talks about credit at
http://photomatt.net/2007/11/01/wpcom-marketplace-idea/#comment-430158
http://photomatt.net/2007/11/01/wpcom-marketplace-idea/#comment-430256
The corrct proposal is for the the theme’s name and author’s name to be included in the footer, but not linked.
By Lloyd Budd on November 7, 2007 8:03 am
current* proposal
By Lloyd Budd on November 7, 2007 8:03 am
Thanks for those follow-up links, Lloyd!
By Thord Daniel Hedengren on November 7, 2007 8:41 am
I would prefer to sell my themes on my own site and keep the profits to myself, one thing wordpress.com has though is a huge huge bunch of traffic :P
By Moses Francis on November 7, 2007 12:06 pm
if Matt doesn’t trust developers enough in this regard, then why should developers trust to him in their turn, selling their work on such conditions?
while the reports of the unique backlinks to a theme designer’s page in the Google Webmaster (former Sitemaps) console is not exactly the most precise way to count a number of theme installs on the site:wordpress.com, because it’s getting done by the third party (Google), and, of course, it’s nowhere close as a direct query against the Automattic database.
however, for nothing (as it known to me) else, backlinks currently are pretty good way to give to a designer at least an idea of an adoption of their themes on .com, also backlinks may help to reckon their revenues as well.
otherwise it may going to be exactly as with the (not existing yet) ‘Adsense Manager‘ on .com
By options on November 7, 2007 6:44 pm
No reason at all. As soon as you licence your work as GPL, he can do what he likes with it. He doesn’t have to credit you, he doesn’t have to pay you, he can make major code changes without running them by you first, and anyone else who wishes can do the same.
Personally, I’m ok with that (I’m not talented enough to be too precious about my stuff, and as a hobbyist I’m not bothered whether I get paid or not) but I wouldn’t expect everyone else to be as laissez-faire about the prospect.
By that girl again on November 8, 2007 10:14 am
This is just my 3 cents. Themes are actually webpages of html codes that give user a no brainer thought of how to organise their website.
Think of it this way whether the theme is for free or for sale, on the bottom right/left hand corner will be stated ” Theme Powered by (name/website url)”.
If this theme was pick up by 10,000 users what would be the outcome? Visually this on internet marketing perspect and you will know what i mean.
By 299link on December 14, 2007 11:18 pm