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Jason Schuller And The ThemeGarden Marketplace

Jason Schuller And The ThemeGarden Marketplace

By Jeffro on June 14, 2010

Leland of ThemeLab.com has a great interview with Jason Schuller of ThemeGarden.com which talks about his upcoming theme marketplace. Of course, the licensing question cropped up again but I was happy to see Jason’s response as the following:

Leland: Part of the seller requirements state that themes must be licensed under the GPL. Will child themes (or skins) of notable non-GPL theme frameworks like Thesis and Headway be allowed to be sold on the ThemeGarden marketplace?

JS: This is a hard call for me, and I am on the fence with this requirement because my own themes on Press75.com are split-GPL licensed. That is my choice, and Press75.com will never be supported by WordPress.org because of that decision.

However, in order to provide the most exposure for a community of sellers, I believe that ThemeGarden.com needs to be 100% GPL. This will ensure that ThemeGarden.com and the community surrounding it is in line with and supported by WordPress. I would love to hear some feedback on this by potential sellers as well.

But to answer the question, as long as the child theme is GPL licensed, I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t be allowed on ThemeGarden.com even if the parent framework isn’t 100% GPL licensed.

With a marketplace already in action for StudioPress, Mojo Themes, Themeforest and now ThemeGarden.com, it’s beginning to look like the people are creating smaller commercial theme repositories versus hoping that one day, WordPress.org will allow commercial themes to be hosted their. The beauty of these marketplace ideas is not only a larger selection to choose from, but the people running them are awesome WordPress community members that have earned the trust of many due to their great reputation. Another side benefit towards these marketplaces beginning to spring up is how much easier it will be for up and coming theme developers to get their work to the masses. Instead of doing it all on their own, commercial theme authors can utilize the resources that Jason or Brian provides leaving more time for quality support. It’s also nice to see more choices instead of less which will generate healthy competition. It will be interesting a year from now to see how each marketplace has developed in terms of quality, support, and number of themes.

Good luck Jason. We’ll be keeping an eye on you!

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Jason Schuller Did It – I Can Do It To

Jason Schuller Did It – I Can Do It To

By Jeffro on May 6, 2010

Jason Schuller has published a great post that takes us on a journey on how he went from point A to point B. Two years ago, Jason was sitting in a cubicle. Today, he is one of the top guns when it comes to commercial WordPress themes. His story is not only inspirational but it really hits home for me. Right now, I’m in the same situation. I think about quitting my job all the time. I sometimes get pretty depressed that I have no career in front of me. I don’t have a salary where I get paid at least 30-40 thousand dollars a year. I’m 28 years old and the only thing going for me is WPTavern.com. Within the next three months, I’ll be moving out of my parents house into one of my own with my wife to be. I’m starting to feel the pressure of the need to make more money to at least keep the bills paid.

Part of my reason for not quitting my job just yet is that I’m afraid. I’ve given that grocery store 10 years of my life and right now, I make about $13.75 an hour with anywhere between 16 and 35 hours a week. I’m also trying to figure out a plan to properly monetize my passion so I can continue to do it while paying the bills at the same time. However, unlike Jason, I do not have a theme or plugin to sell. Also, consultant work is out of my league. What I truly enjoy doing is continuing to write about the evolution of WordPress through this website. I also love the fact that I can provide a wide outlet for people to share their stories on how they use the software. Anyone who has ever interviewed me for a podcast or for a textual post realizes that I love talking about the software. After all, that’s why I have my own show. So I what I love to do is generate content without being tied down into what I can write about. The problem is, this content is free so I have to come up with other creative ways to generate revenue. Here is a list of current methods with a couple of other methods I’m thinking about.

Existing Revenue Streams

Display Advertising – This has worked well for me since I added it to the site. The only problem is that the display ads do not get as many clicks as advertisers would like. However, the display ads definitely provide visual awareness of their product or service.

Audio Advertising – This has also worked well for me although there are currently no advertising slots being used on the show. This type of advertising is two deals in one. Not only do the listeners get to hear about a product, event, or service, but the text as well as a link to it is provided within the content of the show notes.

Affiliated Reviews – This method by far has had the biggest impact on me in 2010. Especially the review I did of BackupBuddy. Affiliated reviews have definitely picked up the slack during the times when there were open display advertising slots. I’ve also taken to the idea of any affiliated review I perform gets added to the Tavern store since the review post can get lost after a few days.

Revenue Stream Ideas

Branded Merchandise – I’m currently researching various companies to figure out how I could easily create some WPTavern branded merchandise for folks to purchase. I wouldn’t mind having a WPTavern mug myself or a couple of shirts to give away at any WordCamps I attend. Since the audience has pushed me for merchandise, I’ll figure out a way to deliver. The only problem with going through a company is that the prices are generally steep and I only make profit if I charge above the flat rate price. However, the convenience of not having to package and ship the items myself makes up for that.

VIP Membership – Longtime fans of WPTavern.com know that I was very close to putting in a pay wall for the forum. However, I backed out of it after a lengthy discussion. I’m now considering doing it again but instead of making the entire forum a pay wall, I will be creating a new section in the forum exclusively for those who pay a membership fee of $25.00 a year which I think is fair with all things considered. Some of the perks I’m working on include special monthly deals on commercial products or services, an area where members can post and respond to job offers, a private forum that can be seen or responded to by ONLY paying members, a special discount on any of the merchandise I sell as well as any other perks I can think of.

WordCamp Sponsorship – I’ve toyed with this idea before but I turned it down because I didn’t want to be a shill for a company. However, after giving it some more thought, I’m pretty sure I can conduct my business at a WordCamp without that happening. I’m going to try and come up with a price that at least covers my airfare and hotel to a city where a WordCamp is being held. During this trip, any video content, audio content, or posts that are generated from the event will be branded with the sponsors company, product or service. Also, if the sponsor sends me some sort of sponsor package with business cards, a hat or shirt branded by them that I could wear, buttons, etc. that would be even better. I even wouldn’t mind giving that companies stuff away to any fans in attendance. The key here is that this would allow me to work for the people, work for myself, and work for the company that sponsors me all at the same time without having to worry about the financial aspects of it all.

That’s It:

I really hate the grocery store where I work but the thought of quitting and not having job security is scary, especially when I know I can make one to two-hundred dollars per week if need be. With WPTavern, there might be a week that goes by where I don’t get paid anything and payments come in at all different times of the month. It’s also important to note that much of the money that WPTavern makes goes back into the site or helps pay for my travels to WordCamps. Not much of it is used to directly pay myself.

Also, it is my strong belief that if making money is your only goal in life, you will probably spend the rest of your life chasing that goal and never end up where you want to be. I realize that the title of this article is “How I Monetized My Passion”, but what I really mean by that is money can sometimes become a by-product of chasing your passions. Money is not a bad thing, but it really should not be your means to happiness. When I left my day job two years ago, money was never my end game, and I hope it’s not yours when/if you decide to make a major change in your life. Let your interests and your passions be the driving force behind change in your life – I did.

In my situation, money is not the end all be all. Money is what will help me to continue doing what I love to do. I don’t want to become filthy rich from running an enthusiast community, I just want to make enough to continue doing what I’m doing while being able to put bread on the table and give my wife to be the confidence that what I’m doing is paying off. A sense of accomplishment and well being wouldn’t hurt either.

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Review Of Outline By ThemeGarden

Review Of Outline By ThemeGarden

By Jeffro on April 20, 2010

At A Glance:

Outline is the first commercial theme out of the gate from ThemeGarden.com by the same guy who runs Press75.com, Jason Schuller. Outline is a stylish theme that has up to 3 columns, a full page template and nice looking typography.

License:

All themes released under ThemeGarden.com contain a dual license but are GPL compatible. The PHP code portions of these themes are distributed under the GPL version 2.0 license. If not otherwise stated, all theme images and cascading style sheets (CSS) are NOT GPL licensed, and are released under the ThemeGarden.com Proprietary Use License v1.0 unless specifically authorized by ThemeGarden.com.

Pricing Model:

The pricing structure for ThemeGarden is a bit different than you might be used to with other commercial theme providers. Themes are not sold individually but as part of a subscription plan. It’s the club model where you purchase a specified amount of time and within that time, any new themes that are released or upgraded will be available to you as well as support. The cheapest subscription plan is $50.00 and that will get you three months. However, the biggest sticking point regarding this model is the stipulation that depending on the subscription plan you choose will determine how many sites you can use the theme on. This is interesting because the PHP code within the theme can be used on any number of websites since it’s GPL licensed but you can not use the CSS or images as they are licensed separately. Without the CSS or images, it makes the theme look terrible and is most likely not worth using. Take all of this into consideration before you sign up.

Installation:

Installation was quick and easy as all I had to do was upload the theme zip file in the WordPress back-end.

Configuration And Use:

After installing the theme, I discovered that I needed to have the Simple Video Embedder plugin as well as the Yoast Breadcrumbs plugin installed in order for the theme to function properly. I have mixed feelings on this. I’m glad the plugins were not bundled with the theme because that would be a waste but on the flipside, why should any theme be developed where it depends on one or more plugins in order to function properly? I believe a theme should be able to function on its own without any plugin dependencies.

After installing both of the required plugins, I got to work configuring the theme. Like the Genesis theme by StudioPress, Outline sports one theme options page where all of the options are housed within two columns. This makes configuration quick and easy.

Here are the things you can configure:

Logo Customization – Outline provides a way to upload a custom header image. I like the way Outline does this as the upload link points to the media library where I can upload the image to. The media library also gives me the URL to the image which is what I need to copy and paste into the path box in order for the image to be displayed. Alternatively, you can use text for your header.

Tagline – This text will be displayed within the site header.

Optional 460X60 Header Advertisement – This option has a box that can contain any code related to the header banner spot. In my opinion, I think Hybrid News has the best implementation of this idea where instead of making ad boxes part of the theme options, just put a widget container where the ad would go and make the container 460X60 pixels in size. This way, you give the end user more flexibility in determining how to use that spot and it’s one less theme option I have to configure.

Featured Content – Unlike some other implementations of this idea, Outline gives you the choice of deciding which category will be part of the featured content carousel as well as the number of posts from that category to display.

Featured Categories – Next to the featured content carousel is a spot for 6 additional categories to be featured.

Post Layout Options – Outline has a built in method to either display post excerpts or the entire post.

Post Thumbnails – The ability to disable post thumbnails from displaying on single post pages.

Navigation Options – Nothing fancy here, just the ability to disable the categories menu or the RSS link that shows up at the end of the menu. However, there is a nice touch here in that if you add your Twitter id, it will add the Twitter icon to the end of the menu which links directly to your account.

Static Page Options – This will disable page title from showing up within static pages.

Footer Text – Instead of editing any theme files, this box gives users an easy way to configure the text that is displayed within the footer of the theme.

Analytics – A box dedicated to storing your Google or Woopra analytics code.

Save The Web – This is the first time I’ve seen this within a theme. The Save The Web box tells IE6 users when they browse your site that there are other options available.

Using Outline to publish content has it’s own little quirks. When compiling a post in a featured category, you’ll need to make sure that you set a post thumbnail or else it won’t be displayed in the featured category. It would be nice if this were an automated process as it adds one more step to the publishing process.

As for sidebars to put widgets into, Outline has 8 different sidebars. Each sidebar corresponds to the specific template it shows up on. For example, the home page has a home page left sidebar and a home page right side bar. Single post page has a single posts left sidebar and a single posts right sidebar. While this might seem flexible, I think it makes things a little more complicated than need be. I think that if theme authors were looking for a way to provide differentiation, one way would be to provide a widget display interface that meshed in with the standard widget configuration. This interface would enable users the opportunity to state when the widget will be displayed. For example, in Outline, the Single Posts right and Home Page right sidebars are in the same spot. I think it would make more sense to just combine them into one sidebar and allow the widget to be specified on when to show up. A good example as to what I’m describing can be found in the Widget Context plugin.

Support:

Those who register to ThemeGarden.com have access to a variety of support materials including documentation for each theme and support forums. Since the company is new, you won’t find a detailed archive within the forum but Jason makes it a point to offer great customer service.

Conclusion:

At the end of the day, I recommend Outline to those individuals who are either just getting started with a site or for those who don’t want to go through their backlog to change how their archived content displays within this theme. The theme is easy on the eyes but I think it adds a little more work to the publishing process. You must also take care to use properly sized images for assigned thumbnails or they will look terrible within the featured content area. If Outline doesn’t suit your tastes, you should give Vidley a look over.

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