MyFonts backlog
Vasil Stanev
Posts: 775
Sorry for the personal question, but I have posted a new font on MF for black friday last year and it still has not gotten through. Anybody else experiencing too much backlog? is there EVER a time new products get posted in the same week? 
1
Comments
-
is this your first release? MyFonts can take some time evaluating a first release but after you have been established it goes quicker. Also, you had the holidays.0
-
This is my third release. Nov 23 was well before the holidays.0
-
Did you specify the year of the black friday?
In all seriousness though, to me the quality of MyFonts foundry/designer interaction is the epitome of everything that is wrong with monopolies. When I do get a personal interaction the folks there are great, but systematically, their service is horrendous — for a 50% cut, especially. Are you sure they did receive and acknowledge your "release OK"?4 -
I am looking at our gmail correspondence. First they found some problem, then they insisted I use their new Prosper tool, then the tool rejected me (I am not sure) because it is a drop cap font and there is no use in filling out te whole set (not to mention the Basic version has only the Basic alphabet)m then they could not find the font at all at somewhere in their system, disregarding what we spoke about three letters prior, then silence. All the while while MF kept sending me New Year promotions. I missed both Black Friday and Christmas!
I guess I have been too naughty for Santa
0 -
I am curious about the 'Prosper tool'. Is it a proprietary font testing software?
0 -
Yes, it was presented to me in a beta version. Since a human(s) will have to check the font anyway, I do not know how it will save time for MF, but it is here anyway.Ramiro Espinoza said:I am curious about the 'Prosper tool'. Is it a proprietary font testing software?
"I'd like to invite you to be part of the beta test foundries while it is in final stages of development.""
And all e-mails, despite varying tone, are from Mary Catherine Pflug, MyFonts Foundry Manager
I have the darnest feeling half the teams there are just now starting to get the hang of their job requirements. This tardiness goes back at least to 2015. I understand they may be understaffed, but it does not take 15 people to dig a hole, every position should have a relevant number of people and manhours attached to it. This is not road repair.2 -
Hi. I have the same problems with Prosper tool. I wait few weeks, but approved font still not released. Foundry Manager told me to re-submit or wait till developer fix bugs.0
-
How MyFonts has not been overtaken by Fontspring I don't know. They seem drastically understaffed; each successive website overhaul seems to make it worse; they have pretty much stopped any form of promotion/marketing other than pointing out deep discounts, and they take 50% for the privilege. I used to make a decent amount there which has convinced me stay on in spite of all this, but recently sales have dried up so much I'm wondering if I ought to just cut ties with them. But then I remember I still don't have any better options ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The staff there are really good, don't get me wrong, there just needs to be more of them.3 -
Since last fall, now that Typekit offers such a huge selection of desktop and web fonts to anybody with a Creative Cloud subscription, with no usage/sync limits (at least, not on the desktop), that has got to eat into MyFonts revenue.
I was going to say that I was impressed by how much more MyFonts search capabilities do than Adobe’s, but then I discovered the boolean AND (match all of the above) is broken; every time I add another search term I get more hits, not fewer. Oh well.5 -
For the past year, I've sold considerably more on Fontspring than MyFonts.Dave Rowland said:How MyFonts has not been overtaken by Fontspring I don't know.6 -
I’m inclined to believe that MyFonts’ income has tanked hard based on their recent act of desperation: adding advertising to the home page.
I also get the impression that they’re losing interest in fixing problems. There’s a bar for categories to browse at the top of every page; click the “Slab Serif” button and you’ll see a list of mostly non-slab fonts like FF Din, Optima, and Gill Sans. It’s been like that for months. They wouldn’t have to spend more than five minutes fixing it; just link it to a search for “slab serif” instead of linking to the broken slab serif tag. This kind of thing makes me think that they’re not even trying.6 -
I'm also having problems using Prosper... Seems pretty flawed. Best focus attention to other platforms like Fontspring in the short term - Or maybe set up your own shop and push marketing in that direction?0
-
Last three times I've emailed MyFonts I've gotten this reply -
This is to confirm that we’ve received your message. We will usually respond within 2 business days.
Guess what? No replies.
0 -
WELL THEN, gentlemen, I think the answer starts to get obvious
We must migrate to sites not affected by the monopoly virus. Before 50 percent becomes 70. 1 -
Do that, make those sites popular and Monotype will buy them up using the money they should have spent fixing MyFonts. Then they'll lower the royalty rates even further in an attempt to make their money back.
1 -
Thing is... as a small time, independent designer the biggest benefit for me is to have my typefaces where they will be seen by the largest audience. Unfortunately, that still seems to be MyFonts?1
-
Also, the year of hazing it took to get a contract at MyFonts is an investment of sorts.Recently, the lure of a better return made me contact FontSpring, but their reply was that FontSpring deals in serious fonts for businesses, and that my display faces are better suited to the MyFonts market, whatever we may imagine that is.3
-
Exactly my experience...K Pease said:Also, the year of hazing it took to get a contract at MyFonts is an investment of sorts.Recently, the lure of a better return made me contact FontSpring, but their reply was that FontSpring deals in serious fonts for businesses, and that my display faces are better suited to the MyFonts market, whatever we may imagine that is.1 -
let's do a survey (can be anonymous) on the degree of profitability of the main markets
I was rejected too by Fontspring
0 -
.0
-
K Pease said:Recently, the lure of a better return made me contact FontSpring, but their reply was that FontSpring deals in serious fonts for businesses, and that my display faces are better suited to the MyFonts market, whatever we may imagine that is.
Just thought I’d pop in to add some context to this response, since I’m the one who answers all new vendor submissions at Fontspring. I’m sorry if the message came across that we didn’t think your fonts were serious. We love display fonts, script fonts, and fonts of all styles!
However, what we like ourselves and what our customers gravitate to are two different things at times. What we’ve seen over the past few years is that text typefaces do well across the board, from many foundries. Once you move to display and script families however, a few fonts sell well, and then most others don’t nearly as much. We’re not exactly sure why this is, but it’s most likely because of our early focus on web fonts. The customers who used those the most came to Fontspring, and as a result that’s where our base is now.
Combine that with the amount of new foundries that apply to Fontspring (multiple a day) and we had to change our stance on who we accept. Previously, we accepted all new foundries, but that often ended in many new foundries who focused on display fonts coming away with little or no sales. After the work they went through to sign up and upload their fonts, it didn’t feel fair to them at all.
So, while we’re working on increasing our sales across the board, we also had to be realistic with new foundries, even ones whose fonts we may personally like but think are unlikely to sell well on our site. Our recommendation is still to sell on as many platforms as you can, especially ones with bigger customer bases like MyFonts or Creative Market. Maybe one day we’ll be all you need, but until then we’re going to keep improving our sales across the board.We’re still welcoming suggestions on what you’d like to see us do better. We have ideas and plans for expanding into new markets, but we definitely want to hear your ideas on how you think Fontspring could improve.
7 -
At least they rejected me real quick.K Pease said:Also, the year of hazing it took to get a contract at MyFonts is an investment of sorts.Recently, the lure of a better return made me contact FontSpring, but their reply was that FontSpring deals in serious fonts for businesses, and that my display faces are better suited to the MyFonts market, whatever we may imagine that is.
0 -
Maybe the market is saturated and who hasn't should move to bespoke.
0 -
I appreciate your professional response, John, and I'm sorry to have made you need to write it when I aired my experience. This is the exemplary conduct that would make me proud to be working with FontSpring, if I were.I don't doubt what your statistics are telling you, but it may be worth considering that (1) they may be self-perpetuating when they direct the scope of the selection available, (2) this may just be the universal reality of typefaces that are meant to be appropriate for a narrower range of uses, and (3) the possibility of just one sale some years from now is still worthwhile if it costs us nothing.The diplomacy of "it's not fair to y'all" is commendable but of course it's really about the resources it takes to have more data sitting on your site, and about how much noise you are willing to make visitors sift through. I'm not offended by that reality. Heck, maybe 50% really is what it takes to maintain volume like that, I wouldn't know. I do not blame any distributor for, after discovering they've let in one five-a-day deco trace firehose, wanting to mitigate the effects of welcoming any more, whether by gently turning people away or by throwing the twelve labors in the way of new applicants.1
-
five-a-day deco trace firehose
ROFL
That is gooood stuff.
0 -
What does that even mean?Ray Larabie said:five-a-day deco trace firehoseROFL
That is gooood stuff.
0 -
It means I thought it was a funny line.0
-
Vasil Stanev said:
What does that even mean?Ray Larabie said:five-a-day deco trace firehoseROFL
That is gooood stuff.
@Vasil Stanev Did you mean the original line? I was kinda lost by it, too, I guess the language barrier kicks in with some sophisticated punchlines. Here's a start:Which I find hard to interpret, because if it is healthy, that would mean the font they let in sells good (?), so I don't see how they would need to mitigate anything.Then I can believe "deco" and "trace" could relate to the character of the font, and "firehose" to either the font or how it sells.Probably all of the above is wrong, so natives please explain to us dummies.
0 -
I interpret the firehose as a person who releases a large volume of cheap fonts all the time (five fonts a day, hyperbolically). Not sure about «deco trace», maybe the font is just a collection of decorative dingbats traced from pre-existing images...?
1 -
“Trying to drink from a firehose” is an English idiom for trying to get what you want but the supply is only found in overwhelming volume.3
Categories
- All Categories
- 43 Introductions
- 3.7K Typeface Design
- 800 Font Technology
- 1K Technique and Theory
- 617 Type Business
- 444 Type Design Critiques
- 541 Type Design Software
- 30 Punchcutting
- 136 Lettering and Calligraphy
- 83 Technique and Theory
- 53 Lettering Critiques
- 483 Typography
- 301 History of Typography
- 114 Education
- 68 Resources
- 498 Announcements
- 79 Events
- 105 Job Postings
- 148 Type Releases
- 165 Miscellaneous News
- 269 About TypeDrawers
- 53 TypeDrawers Announcements
- 116 Suggestions and Bug Reports