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sanitys3j |
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Post subject: How Much $$$ can you make?
 Posted: Sep 09, 2004 - 02:09 PM
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Joined: Sep 09, 2004
Posts: 2
Status: Offline
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I mean, just from making themes & perhaps mods for Nuke?
Bad times, good times, & avg's. are what I'm kinda looking for.
Just curious, and also I think it is, but (am lazy) I just wanna be certain. Is PostNuke copyleft?
Universally,
sanitys3j |
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Ray |
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Post subject:
Posted: Sep 09, 2004 - 02:42 PM
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Information Hound
Joined: Aug 17, 2004
Posts: 681
Status: Offline
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Money can be made from producing themes and mods. How much money depends on the skill level and acceptance of the author.
Is PostNuke copyrighted? In a sense yes but it is considered to be "open source" meaning that the code is free and can be used and modified by the general public. |
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sanitys3j |
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Post subject:
Posted: Sep 09, 2004 - 03:35 PM
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Joined: Sep 09, 2004
Posts: 2
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I understand the skill has to be there, and I have it with other web/code based stuff. I've got a pretty scrutinizing eye for detail. Also, I really love coding.
Anyway, assuming that skill is there, what sort of things can help with the "acceptance of the author"? Do you mean just general web marketing/networking? What?
Assuming a meager/moderate level of "acceptance" is it enough for a guy (w/ 2 kids) to make a living? |
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Ray |
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Post subject:
Posted: Sep 09, 2004 - 03:51 PM
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Information Hound
Joined: Aug 17, 2004
Posts: 681
Status: Offline
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Acceptance of the author would, in my humble opinion, be showcasing your skills and work so that people could see what you have to offer. So, yes marketing would be vey important.
There are so many free mods and themes available in the cms world that I would have to question whether you could make an acceptable living from making your own mods and or themes. You can make some extra money doing something you enjoy but to make a living, questionable. Mars would be the better person to make a statement on this as he is the person/owner of this site that does all the work creating the themes here.
If you were to develop a business based upon providing all things needed for primarily commercial sites whereby you would provide full site management from start to after sales servicing of the site/s then perhaps it would become a viable source of income. However, there are many companies that are currently doing the same thing.
I, personally, would be cautious if considering making real money in this business. However, I wish you all the luck in the world if you are willing to attempt to make this happen.  |
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GlueBeard |
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Post subject:
Posted: Sep 09, 2004 - 04:36 PM
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Pirate Critic
Joined: Aug 18, 2004
Posts: 344
Location: The Isle of GlueBeard
Status: Offline
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sanitys3j wrote:
I understand the skill has to be there, and I have it with other web/code based stuff. I've got a pretty scrutinizing eye for detail. Also, I really love coding.
Anyway, assuming that skill is there, what sort of things can help with the "acceptance of the author"? Do you mean just general web marketing/networking? What?
Assuming a meager/moderate level of "acceptance" is it enough for a guy (w/ 2 kids) to make a living?
It all just depends on how successful you are at selling your skills and talents. The best artist in the world can starve, if no one buys his art, and if he makes no other effort to feed himself but his art work.
I think that one of the crucial distinctions is between two primary time frames. The first is in "getting established." The second is in "being established."
Being established is, in essence, success in action. Getting established means trying to become a success. Once you are a success in this field of endeavor, you would be able to support yourself, your wife, and two kids.
But, the real question is, how does one become successful, or at the very least, how does one shorten the learning curve to success?
Also, once successful, it is not sufficient to just be successful. At that point, you will then likely worry over how to STAY successful. That is what you are truly after, isn't it? Long term sustainability in a success pattern.
Understanding your market is important. You have the actual, tangible market for your products or services, and you also have the potential market for your products or services.
Understanding your competition is no less equally important. Your competition will be many, and they may often come well prepared to do battle over the same dollars that potential customers wave about in the air for a new, improved, or revised theme.
One of your competitors, for example, will be Mars, himself. Mars, in mythology, is often referred to as the God of War. In competition for money to be made from themes, you must be prepared to do battle with the gods, themselves, of thematic design.
If you choose, upon reflection, to not enter the market, then the competition for Mars is reduced, thereby making life a little bit easier on him.
But, your concern is not Mars. Your concern is yourself, and potentially, the chances of making some money and sustaining yourself by doing theme work for a living.
Mars, for some reason, has apparently decided previously to make life harder than it otherwise has to be on his competition by creating, and offering to the public at large, the very same public which constitutes the total potential consumer base for your products and services, a range of theme products and services. In addition to offering custom themes, Mars also hawks his donation themes and, damn him and his innovative ways, free themes.
How do you compete with someone of Mars' caliber who, now and again, conjures up some free and donation themes? If you can't, then why put yourself through the misery?
But, how do you know, and I mean really and truly know down deep inside, that you can't compete with that, unless you try? Well, that's the great irony in it all - You don't and you won't until and unless you try.
From the public's perspective, we prefer to have choices. Competition often provides the element of choice to us. A greater range in styles and options, and a greater range in prices that stems from the injection of competition into markets of all sorts and types and flavors.
If you enter the arena of theme crafting, then do yourself a favor, and come prepared. If you offer crap, then some bastard like myself will come along and denounce it as just, exactly that - CRAP!!
The one thing that always seems to do well, in virtually every arena of business, is quality. The better you are at what you do, the more likely it is that you will be immediately recognized for your talent and skill. Talent and skill are, indeed, marketable items. Everyone who holds a job of any sort, no matter what that job is, holds certain talents and skills which they apply to the task at hand.
If you produce great quantities of crap, not only is it still crap, but word will eventually make its way throughout Cyberspace that, rather than go and check out your work, instead, the word will be to avoid this guy like the plague, because his work is pure and unadulterated crap.
Of course, thousands upon untold thousands of Chia Pets, Pet Rocks, and Mood Rings have been sold down through the years because of successful advertising campaigns and catchy slogans. But, words, slogans, and catch phrases are no substitute for quality work and quality products.
Taste and style, however, vary widely from individual to individual. This is not, however, a license to offer up shoddy handiwork under the mere guise of "variety." There is a great and notable distinction between offering a variety of crap and a variety of quality.
If, on the other hand, you are the best thing since sliced bread, when it comes to theme design, and yet you move so slow that it takes you forever and a day to produce a theme, then quality, alone, may not be sufficient to keep the hungry fed.
Theme design is part of a larger community of web page design. Your competition will not simply be theme crafters. It will also include web design firms and individuals, and also, graphics artists and graphics studios have long since entered the fray. Then, of course, there is every Tom, Dick, and Harry who happens along to muddle the waters further.
Furthermore, there is the issue of adaptability to contend with. If you are the very best at what you do, but refuse to adapt to the hyper-collage world of your potential customer base, then your potential customer base will shrink, accordingly. What you want is less important to the customer than what they want.
This, of course, is just the start of what all to consider. You will only get better by competing against the best, and not by competing against the worst. Competing against the best hones the cutting edge.
If you do enter the maelstrom of competition, be prepared for a long, hard trek through Hell.
Of course, I am not a theme designer, so what would I know about any of it, anyway, huh? |
Last edited by GlueBeard on Sep 09, 2004 - 07:30 PM; edited 3 times in total
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GlueBeard |
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Post subject:
Posted: Sep 09, 2004 - 04:47 PM
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Pirate Critic
Joined: Aug 18, 2004
Posts: 344
Location: The Isle of GlueBeard
Status: Offline
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| You might also wish to consider a slow, steady, and gradual descent into the world of for-profit theme crafting, preferring to look at it as a way of supplementing your income, rather than being the primary or sole source of income for yourself and your family. |
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mars |
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Post subject:
Posted: Sep 10, 2004 - 12:12 PM
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Site Admin
Joined: Aug 15, 2004
Posts: 3934
Status: Offline
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Everything said above is what my answer would be.
But you also need to remember that I do this for FUN and not profit, I couldn't support myself alone on this, nevermind my wife and kids. 
If I was to start doing this for real I would have to drop the free themes and really work at advertising... |
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GlueBeard |
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Post subject:
Posted: Sep 10, 2004 - 05:29 PM
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Pirate Critic
Joined: Aug 18, 2004
Posts: 344
Location: The Isle of GlueBeard
Status: Offline
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mars wrote:
If I was to start doing this for real I would have to drop the free themes and really work at advertising...
Actually, I don't agree.
Many people in many fields of endeavor do both for-profit and free work of the same type.
If anything, I would think that your free themes DO constitute a form of advertising. I suspect that it is because of the free themes that your web site enjoys the user traffic that it does.
Many will, of course, want that which is free, preferring to settle for a predesigned look and feel, in favor of forking out bucks for something custom and unique.
The free themes help to get the word out about your skills and talents, and far from inhibiting your ability to generate a profit off of custom theme work, I believe that free themes hold considerable potential to get the word out about your skills and talents beyond those that are just interested in free themes. People who use the free themes inevitably will tell others about where they got their theme, when asked about it.
Free themes are also useful, I feel, for generating a portfolio, especially when one is new and just entering the theme crafting arena. Far from viewing free themes as simply a theme designer just working for free, if viewed from the perspective that the theme designer is simply investing in their future, both short and long term, then free themes can become a handy tool for establishing oneself as someone to be taken seriously, where theme work is concerned.
Companies and stores will often give things away, things of all sort, to try and attract or to increase traffic flow.
Some people, of course, have a very narrow and dim view of free themes. Some think that they only help to flood an already glutted market, giving the potential customer base less and less reason to splurge for a custom theme, as more and more free themes are made available to the masses by the collective sum total of all theme designers.
But, this sorely underestimates both the desire of web masters and organizations to be unique and special, and it also underestimates people's willingness to depart with some of their hard earned money.
As a theme designer begins to pick up some custom theme business, they can begin the transition to using their custom sales as part, most, or even all of their portfolio. The more impressive the portfolio, the better a theme designer's chances of making a new sale. Portfolios simply give people, prospective customers, some insight into your theme crafting skills and talents.
Now, it may be true that you give the free themes away because theme crafting is fun for you, Mars. But, is that really the only reason that you create some themes and give them away for free? Even if it is, just because you might not ever analyze the entire free themes issue on a deeper level does not mean that the other aspects of free themes is made any the less true, simply because you like crafting themes and don't mind giving at least some of them away.
Theme crafting can also be used as a form of barter. A clever theme crafter might strike a bargain to create an impressive free theme in exchange for free web hosting. Are either the theme or the web hosting free in such a scenario? It depends upon one's perspective, I suppose. Of course, one would first have to find a web host willing to enter into such an agreement, but it certainly is not beyond the scope of possibility, for one willing to make an earnest effort to market themselves in ways that are either profitable to themselves, or which help to offset the costs associated with becoming and remaining established as a for-profit theme designer.
If no one knows who you are, and if you don't even have a portfolio to showcase your handiwork with, then as a just-starting-out for-profit theme designer, in my considered estimation and judgment, one will have their work truly cut out for them.
But, for the savvy and wise, for those willing to work outside the traditional confines of the box of normality, free themes can be, I think, just another weapon in a theme designer's arsenal of salesmanship.
Taking the analysis of the free themes concept a step further, one might wish to consider the possibility of a strategic plan to utilize free predesigned or even free custom themes for select targets in order to help spread their name recognition across a far broader cross segment of the population. Sites with notably high user and visitor traffic would be prime candidates for targeting under such an elevated approach to marketing one's theme crafting talents.
It is, in essence, an extension of the "showcase" concept. It is critical, I believe, to become and remain ever cognizant of the fact that showcasing one's talents does not have to be a one-dimensional creature.
It isn't about using such a marketing technique to persuade all of a given targeted site's users to become paying customers of your custom themes. Rather, it is simply a technique whose primary goals are to generate increased user and visitor traffic to your own site, and also, to enhance the prospects and chances of generating some new sales. In the process, you get the word out even more than before, and you can also add to your portfolio some sites that might be well known to a number of people. If you created the theme for "such and such" web site, then you might also be just the guy that "so and so" is looking for to create a custom theme for their site.
It is largely about perspective, state of mind, and attitude.
Understanding the possibilities and gaining insight from new perspectives often helps to open new doors for the new or experienced theme designer. |
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