Making a Living off WP Theme Development

[dancole]

I was thinking about open source and close source, because of Jeff's post on sharing premium themes. Anyway, do Ian and Justin make a living off of theme development? I know both are selling child themes and or support. I guess I'd just like to see more examples of developers making a living while having their themes under the GPL.

Close source shouldn't be working in this case. The code is not compiled, meaning the source code is open for everyone to see, take, borrow, and share. Plus the licenses are limiting (suffocating) the people who are on the honour system.

[Ryan]

I'm too busy right now, but a while back I was making a living from offering support for themes. Admittedly the support was mainly for other developers themes, but it was support none the less.

[Jeffro]

I'm pretty sure Ian registered on the forum and I know Justin is a member so I won't speak for them but I've been told that it's pretty darn hard to make a living doing GPL theme development considering the openness of the license. That's why Matt stresses providing value AROUND the product rather than the product containing the value.

I'd like to know what you guys think of premium theme authors who place restrictive license/guidelines on their products in terms of taking full advantage of not only the platform which has provided a business opportunity for them, but is also updated freely. So, you have a theme developer who gets updates to the platform for free and it's maintained by a passionate community but you build a product on top of that platform and place restrictions to hoard the benefits completely contradicting to the platform.

[andrew]

I'd like to know what you guys think of premium theme authors who place restrictive license/guidelines on their products...

I think it is pretty interesting that I have double standards on this. When we sit and discuss it, and when I read your question, I think that those people are taking from the community and are wrong to do so. However, when I buy a theme I really don't care.

As you know I am a fan of WPUnlimited but I actually have no idea what license it is under. It makes no difference to me. If someone has worked on something and made it available then I have no desire to pass it on against their wishes. I will promote it, but I won't give it away myself. Placing restrictive licenses on things is really just a way to try and stop people doing things which their conscience should already prevent them from doing, but doesn't.

When we get into these GPL matters I kind of think that the point of GPL is to give you the freedom to modify something. I don't feel it gives me an automatic moral right to redistribute it because someone has worked hard to produce it. At the very least they should get credit.

[Ryan]

I can never understand why some consider it immoral to redistribute GPL code. If someone redistributes my GPL code then that is my own stupid fault for releasing it as GPL in the first place. If I wasn't happy to accept that, I wouldn't be releasing GPL software.

Expecting others not to redistribute your code just doesn't seem in the spirit of the GPL IMO.

At the very least they should get credit.

That isn't just a moral argument, it is a legal one. GPL requires credit to be given to the original author.

[Jeffro]

Well, I think I know what Andrew voted for in the recent Tavern poll :P

[ianstewart]

The hard thing isn't selling the theme. Or trying to make a living doing web development. Or anything directly related to the immediate thing we're discussing. It's building a propelling authority in the marketplace.

That sounds like lame business-speak. But check this info from Copyblogger out.

"In the short time the Thesis affiliate program has been around, we’ve paid out close to $100,000 in commissions to our affiliates."

What's DIYThemes paying out to affiliates? 20%? That's a lot of money they're making then.

Am I making that kind of money? No. Is it because Thematic sucks? Or it's Child Themes stink? No. Is it because Thesis is better than other themes? Absolutely not. It's better than most, sure. But it's not better than the 5-10% of the free themes that are really awesome.

Really.

So what separates DIYthemes and ThemeShaper. Or ThemeHybrid? Or WPUnlimited? Or whatever? 3 things:

1. Pearson's 9000 subscribers when he launched Thesis.
2. CopyBlogger promoting Thesis to his 60-120,000 readers.
3. ProBlogger doing the same.

It has nothing to do with Thesis not being GPL (because, trust me, it's being redistributed). It has everything to do with the authority that ProBlogger, CopyBlogger and Chris Pearson have. Everything.

If WPDesigner had started selling GPL Themes at it's height they'd be just as successful as Thesis. Probably more so.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is this: the GPL isn't restrictive, building authority is.

[greenshady]

I'll have to completely agree with Ian. If I had 10,000 feed subscribers at the launch of ThemeHybrid.com, I'd be making a lot more money. And, I could be doing it with much crappier themes.

Anyway, do Ian and Justin make a living off of theme development?

I do other work outside of ThemeHybrid, but what ThemeHybrid brings in is enough to keep me financially stable. I won't say how little or how much I make, but it's enough for me. I even plan on getting another job offline in the near future, but that's just because I want to be out and about in the world rather than cooped up all the time. ;)

Having the theme under the GPL actually helps the project. People can redistribute it, share pieces of code, and create things based off of it. Plus, I get the support and the respect of a lot more people in the WordPress community by releasing themes under the GPL. All of this brings more people to the site, which is good for business.

[dstrojny]

I was thinking about open source and close source, because of Jeff's post on sharing premium themes. Anyway, do Ian and Justin make a living off of theme development? I know both are selling child themes and or support. I guess I'd just like to see more examples of developers making a living while having their themes under the GPL.

We have decided to take the "value add" approach with our GPL themes and it is turning into a fantastic addition to our core business (web development/design). We provide all of our themes GPL and include the option to upgrade to a "PRO Membership" which includes unlimited theme support along with some extra features, page templates, etc. We have had over 250 new members in less than 50 days of opening the doors which is much more than we ever anticipated when we decided to take this approach. The decision to go this route really came down to being tired of supporting our free themes for free :) It just made sense. We have no problem giving an awesome theme to the community, we just don't want to feel like we are on the hook to support it for nothing.

So to answer the question, I think you most certainly could "make a living" at this is you are able to provide high quality GPL themes and have some marketing savvy. You would obviously be best served by "builiding an authority" first, rather than trying to do everything at once. Which leads into Ian's point:

The hard thing isn't selling the theme. Or trying to make a living doing web development. Or anything directly related to the immediate thing we're discussing. It's building a propelling authority in the marketplace.

I can't agree more with Ian here. The interesting part is Chris Pearson earned his "authority" by releasing one of the most popular and well designed free themes of it's era, Cutline. I feel like this was the jumping off point for his 9,000 subscribers before launching Thesis. Along with him being an excellent marketer. As Ian points out, partnering with CopyBlogger/ProBlogger was a marketing match made in heaven. With that said I take no credit away from Chris, and I know Ian doesn't either. As far as I am concerned, he "earned" his authority and deserves all of the success he is enjoying.

[dancole]

Thanks for all the great responses, it was truly more than what I was expecting.

The hard thing isn't selling the theme. It's building a propelling authority in the marketplace.

That's something worth noting.