I’ve sold a lot of different products, both my own and as an affiliate, and the digital ones usually have a 50-70% commission rate for affiliates. Think about it - you do a design once, and then Matt and crew put it on display for thousands and thousands of wordpress.com users to see, every day. Isn’t that kind of publicity WELL worth the 50% pricetag?

If not, perhaps sticking to selling them through your own site, and leaving out a huge number of customers is the better way for you to go.

Understand I am *NOT*(!) saying Matt & Co. would sell a theme to a thousand people but only pay the designer for 750 of them, but there has to be transparency in the accounting, at least for the designer. Also wouldn’t the ability to see how many blogs are using Joe Schmo’s design be a good way to get Joe Schmo to embrace the idea?

See, I’d like to be able to say on my hypothetical web design site something like “WordPress.com, the fastest-growing hosted blogging solution, has adopted my “Hideous 1.0″ WordPress theme which is being used by 32,516 of those bloggers today.” See what I mean? And how would this number be verifiable by the designer?

Just food for thought; I don’t expect a firm answer on something that’s just an idea at this stage.

Procedural question: Has there been any updated feedback from the official Automattic crew based on this “distributed discussion” (comment conversations, posts, forums, etc. on different sites) on the WP.com Theme Marketplace Topic? I mean, that’s the problem with an open ended distributed discussion — you get a chance to speak (thanks!), but no one knows when, and what the next step will be, and where it will be given.

Ok. Having said that, and after reading and blogging more on this topic, I think:

* 60%/40% to Automattic is fair, since the designer assumes more risk than the company.

* I think the GPL release concern could be addressed by standing with the requirement that a theme for sale on WordPress.com be released GPL on WordPress.org. But, I would add that the designer, (and only the original designer) retain rights to sell a “Pro version” which must include a number of upgrades in the design, including several new page templates, a custom home page, and 3-5 custom header images. Win - Win - Win. WP.com users get new premium themes. WP.org users get new themes released in the spirit of Open Source. Designers retain the right to sell exclusive upgrades for their designs.

* Payment via PayPal for WP.com sales should be prompt, with some allowance for billing/return issues. 2 weeks sounds right.

What say you?

See you on the “meta distributed board” — MDB — oh no… another TLA (Three Letter Acronym).

Regards -
Scott

I first read about Matt’s idea for a WP.com marketplace a few days ago here. I’ve been thinking about it and here are my thoughts on the subject, as far as the selling of themes goes:
My first reaction was that it sounded like a wonderful i…

Thanks for the information, but let’s keep this on topic. We need to stay focused on how this will, or will not, benefit the parties involved. I’m hearing a lot about how this will impact designers, but I want to hear more from users. What do they want? What will they be willing to buy, why, and how much? What can WordPress.com give them to make this project a success?

And I want to hear from WordPress Plugin authors to find out how we can work to include them in this process as I know that WordPress.com users would PAY TONS for access to Plugins even more than Themes.

A quick glance at the “drmike” pages shows it is mainly a venue for anti-Mullenweg rhetoric. Much of it is repetitious, but there are items that can help provide a fuller picture of the WordPress scene.

“drmike” & friends are a tad over-the-top, and spend too much of their time and skills (which they do have..) exaggerating the length of Matt Mullenweg’s forked-tail and fire-spewing horns. But, I do recommend taking a side-trip to “drmike”, and following links from there to the blogs of other like-minded posters whom you will see there.

For example, there is interesting discussion of the limited style-coding presently possible with WordPress MU, the (Multi-User) version that provides free blog-services on WordPress.com.

If WP MU is to be useful to independent webmasters (who manage multiple blogs for less-skilled clients), it would seem to need a full complement of styling assets. If MU is to become fully competent, wouldn’t the improvement extend to WP Dot Com?

“drmike” & Co. do seem to have some views & info on this, and other points. Tell us more?

- Ted

Matt Mullenweg and WordPress has a reputation for talking, listening, before deciding, and then admitting when they screw up.

Sorry, Lorelle. I just lost all respect for you when I read that. I can give you many examples of where this hasn’t occured.

I like your point that creating a theme is mainly an act of “construction”, that the “pure design” is “secondary”. I think that’s true. The implications might be scary for some designers, but following through on them could give us a better product.

But I *really* like that you introduce the word “dichotomy” to the debate. Your intent may be down a different thread, but dichotomy is the defining fact of WordPress.

Not just civilization, but society as we know it emerged from/as a dichotomy. Mesopotamia and the Yellow River are not the cradle of civilization - it was the dichotomy between the Valley-culture, and the cultures surrounding it that … created us.

WordPress’ success is plainly due to the dichotomy. The goal for Republican/Conservatives is not to destroy the Democrat/Liberals. Obviously, Conservatives do not exist, without Liberals. That there is only room for one, and the other is some kind of problem, is a faux.

That many prefer to live alongside the Nile of WordPress.com is not a problem for those of us who prefer to live in the adjoining Wilderness of Dot Org. Neither they nor the authority they accede to is our enemy - nor even a competitor. It’s a dichotomy, and it’s good.

… So, tell us more about resolving that interesting design-construction, um, dichotomy, along the River.

- Ted