I've recently been contacted by David Jones, FontSlice, about selling my font library through his online startup "font—sub-setting glyphs" web site. I must admit, the concept sounds intriguing, but I cannot help feeling uneasy about joining the bandwagon on this. I would be very interested to hear everyones opinion on this topic before I entertain the idea.
His web site link is:
http://fontslice.com/about/Thanks.
Comments
There might be a small but profitable niche for FontSlice and the foundries who take part in this service, but I don't think it will really ever kick off like they hope. (I remember the claim »becoming the new MyFonts« in that Typophile discussion)
@Ralf, very good point indeed! I agree completely. Renting fonts or using fonts on a time basis is a much better approach to this entire thing. Much more sensible than all these 'sub-set fonts' floating around.
I'm going to sleep on this one for awhile longer. Interesting concept, but I just do not see it bringing in substantial additional revenue, just more confusion from the 'users' point of view.
Thanks guys.
My initial thoughts about his model when I first read it is that I would not be interested. I think he is opening up a can of support worms for someone if he is targeting the "average consumer" who is used to buying a CD with 1,000 fonts on it for $9.99 including shipping.
I would much rather sell 50 complete fonts at regular price to professionals than sell 5000 parts and pieces of fonts at some deep discount to an "average consumer" who is only interested in how cheap they can get it for.
So my final thought on the subject is: I realize that things do change and at some point in time I might consider it, but for now the answer is "no".
But, I think I will start to offer different versions of my font families going forward. I've been starting to make 'Pro' fonts with 500+ glyphs for the same selling price as my previous 256 character sets. It sure takes a lot longer to make these professional extended fonts, and tedious to say the least. So, a less expensive sale price for 256 versus 500+ and extended language support. I'm thinking $19 for basis version versus $39 for the 'Pro' version. Maybe worth the effort to sell fonts to the low-end 'user' and other markets simultaneously. Give everyone a better choice on budget restraints.
I would be much more interested if FontSlice had rights-managed photography style pricing. It would be great to know that if Warner Books slaps a font on the cover of a J. K. Rowling novel I’ll get a big fat check that might cover the cost of a risky type design. Nick Shinn tried this, and IIRC, nobody even bought the inexpensive versions. If you’re going to design extended character sets in display fonts, do it because you love doing it. There really isn’t much of a market for selling fonts in Eastern and Central Europe.
However, I think the greatest impediment was the naming: if you search for Paradigm at MyFonts, you find the $9 version, and don’t realize what a deal it is, because there is no mention of the $59 Paradigm Pro version.
I have the same problem there with Beaufort and Handsome—I suspect I am losing sales of their Pro versions to the basic version. Also, as they are listed as separate families, there is less likelihood of Beaufort in general making the Bestseller list there, which misses out on the publicity boost that gives to sales.
It might be better to make some weights free, but I don’t go there, and generally keep the prices quite high, which reinforces my image as a quality brand.
In the long run, if you’re going to the trouble of making large OpenType fonts, in families, with lots of language support and features, then I think it makes sense to target the high-end market with premium pricing.
It’s also easy to make fewer fonts. However, the many-options strategy seems to work for FontFont.
I have only given away (2) free fonts in my Contax Sans family—reg & Italic. I thought this might work out to be a good marketing strategy. It seems to work for some foundries. But, I certainly have not seen the results I was hoping for.
I do not think I will be trying this again, any time soon.
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Thanks Mark, I will look into that.
However, the reason they are separate families at MyFonts is so that the Pro upgrade could be treated as a new release, and hence given promotion.
The solution is to delete the old versions, which I didn't do with Beaufort and Handsome.
Another thing I like about this system us that it feels more fair to me. Decking fonts out to support several languages is an added expense but I don't think the customer who only needs 5 letters for a poster should have to foot the bill.
I'm not expecting a windfall from this but it took me less than an hour to sign up and package my fonts for release. It cost me nothing and maybe I can access a new type of customer. It's not really the kind of deal I did a lot of hand wringing over. It's never been done before and that was enough of a reason for me to try it.
Slicing by duration of usage instead of by glyph seems like a better solution to me, although technically more difficult to implement.
I do not wish FontSlice nor David Jones any ill-will, nor do I want them to fail. I like new ideas and new ways of doing business. I wish them all luck. Initially, I thought this might be a good idea. But, now, after hearing some of the 'pros&cons', I still feel some trepidation about this model for selling 'slices' of fonts.
As others have pointed out, renting fonts is a better overall model. If someone is on a budget this certainly is the way to go. But, all these derivative variations of 'incomplete-fonts' floating around out there is disturbing. Feels like something may break somewhere along the way. Furthermore, it just feels like we are further 'cheapening' our products somehow. You know, I worked in the graphic arts industry and advertising for many years. Agencies and art directors never have any issues with purchasing a photo or image for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Yet, these same people feel that a $20 or $30 font will blow their budgets. I'm sorry, this is just wrong thinking. And all these other people, who want to spend $1.99 for an entire CD of hundreds of fonts or buy a few letters for a logo or a headline, well, that's just a bit strange. Is anyone out there selling or purchasing pieces of art images? Sorry, but it just seems like everyone today is trying to somehow make another 'buck' off 'this' or 'that'. Nothing wrong with that, but really, why not just make a good product and sell it as that. If someone likes what you have created, has a use for it, they will buy it. My fonts are like my 'children', I'm not splitting them up. It's 'all' or 'nothing'.
Ray, I wish you much success. Let us know if it works out for you. I think everyone here will be watching closely to see what develops further. Good luck.
Is there anyone here, btw, who objects to Photo-Lettering's approach, and thinks it somehow cheapens what we do? I've never heard anyone saying so.