MyFonts and families
Nick Cooke
Posts: 200
Have any of you with families on myFonts noticed a drastic reduction in sales since Monotype started pushing their subscription service? Before they took over my family sales were pretty healthy, now it's mainly singles with the occasional family. Anybody else noticed the same?
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Comments
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When did they start the subscription service?0
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Late January 2016.
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Yes.1
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My guess is the problem is more related to Myfonts' bundles.5
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Yes. I have observed the same.0
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My sales are too small to notice such patterns. Is this issue exclusive to Myfonts, though? I would think offerings at Myfonts influence sales at other vendors as well.1
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Yes I have about 55% reduction in my sales compared to 2014. I´m not sure if just Monotype´s subscription service caused it. I think its also the Bundle Sales. Also meanwhile its a lot easier to produce fonts, so I guess there are much more type designers releasing fonts than few years ago.3
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Well, guys, it's time to look for better distributors and make your website a better webshop.6
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It's time to create a better distributor.
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My 2015 and 2016 were fairly similar.3
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I did see a bit of a drop at MyFonts starting in mid-2016, but I can think of other reasons for it.1
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My earnings are too volatile to draw such a conclusion. I’m more concerned about the increasing “clearance” strategy by which they sell 30-fonts packages for 29$ every third day. Where is this going to?
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Once you drive pricing down, it is hard to raise prices again.7
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I have an idea.
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Hrant H. Papazian said:I have an idea.0
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Some ideas are just too good to. :-) I have to be a bit selfish too once in a while. Sorry for being a tease... I do want people to know we haven't given up though.
(Not sure why Stephen would vote that down.)
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I have been thinking for a long time that we need not so much a new vendor but an online catalogue, where type buyers can view and search typefaces. Once they want to buy, they get redirected to each foundry's own website. The catalogue website would have to be paid for by all participating foundries (equal amount, or depending on the amount of fonts on offer?).
That way, the 'vendor' doesn't take a cut of the profit, and doesn't have to pay nearly as much taxes. It would have to be orgnized as a non-profit.4 -
I think this is the sort of thing Typographica has been talking about. It's a good idea, if a bit conservative. And something the stillborn Tyd* would have done.
* https://www.microsoft.com/typography/links/News.aspx?NID=515
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Sorry to be harsh, Hrant. I just didn't think your tease added anything to the conversation.
@Jasper de Waard We are working on something like that, as indicated at the end of this ATypI talk.6 -
It added hope. Something that does not have to be loud and explicit.
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@Thomas Phinney
>>"Once you drive pricing down, it is hard to raise prices again. "
True, but no serious foundry can publish quality type families every 3 months selling them at $29. It's simply unsustainable. Myfonts may be profiting from this scheme now but at the cost of becoming a repository of dubious quality fonts and lookalikes.
Yes, I know there are some good and decent foundries at Myfonts but the company is not making it easy for them.9 -
I’m under the impression that the scenery is about to change these days, more rapidly than the three years before. The problems are not new. MF seems to aim at becoming the world’s clearance house for font sales, working more and more on pushing masses rather than focussing on quality and value for money. They are working on destruction of the market. Not to mention recent random experiences with getting bullied by dinosaurs who seem to have them in their hands, more or less. - There will be alternatives (there are some already) for us indie fontists, I trust. I think the days of MF are counted.
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@Andreas Stötzner
I am of the opinion that like in every cultural industry there will always be different markets for different tastes. Some distributors will choose profit over anything else and others will privilege quality and originality as their unique selling proposition.
More than ever it's important to educate clients about the differences.7 -
In the long run, MyFonts’ slide could be good for market diversity. For many years the retailer held overwhelming power, with foundries of all classes compelled to sell at MyFonts or risk losing the largest pool of buyers. This dominance was comparable to the way Amazon is the default channel for most book publishers. In the last 1–2 years the trend has shifted, and many foundries are choosing to sell directly and/or through non-Monotype channels such as Fontstand, Fontspring, or Type Network.7
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Although certainly not as bad as "90% off", I don't think rental outfits help value perception.
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To get back to @Nick Cooke’s original question, I crunched my MyFonts affiliate numbers. While your experience as a foundry may vary, maybe these figures can shed some light on the overall sales trends.
The average price of sold units (combining both singles and families) has fallen sharply over the last three years. It was stable for at least five years, hovering at $40 throughout 2008–12, but dropped to $38 in 2013 and again to $36 in 2014. In the last quarter of 2016 it was at $34.
Unfortunately, I don’t have more specific data so can’t pinpoint a single cause. As others have mentioned, there are various suspects: decreasing family sales, the Monotype Library Subscription, and other notable MyFonts trends during this period that lead to cheaper fonts, like heavy discounting and frequent flash sales from Monotype as well as third-party foundries.
And of course we have to consider outside influences as well, such as cheap and free alternatives from Typekit (library subscription) and Google, whose collections and influence grew significantly during this period. Webfont services also gained traction in 2013–14. Despite these alternative sources, my individual affiliate sales at MyFonts actually went up during those years — it was the average price of each unit that fell.
In early 2015 units sold began to decline steadily and have not recovered. This was many months before the introduction of the MT Library Subscription, so I wouldn’t blame it specifically.9 -
Great insights, thank you!
Maybe renting is harming sales too. (It would be interesting to learn what proportion of Fontstand renters end up buying.)3 -
Shouldn't unit price be considered in the context of sales volume? If I'm making $34/unit when I used to make $40/unit, but moving 25% more units than I used to, I'm winning.
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Winning in the short term, but the damage to value perception festers.0
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@Max Phillips, Definitely. Volume may spike for those who cut prices, but I'm not sure it is sustainable. Continually pumping out promotions in which the discount is central seems a poor way to build a reputation.3
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