What would YOU pay for a WordPress theme designed to bring you in multiple streams of income?
Let’s get specific. Take a look at this JPEG image in a new tab in your browser:-
http://www.frankhaywood.com/wordpress-design01.jpg
Is that nice, or is that NICE?
It’s been designed especially to allow you to review products, build your mailing lists and promote multiple products as an affiliate.
And at the moment it’s just a design, but it’s currently being sliced and developed into a WordPress 2.9 theme (and planned to be converted later into a WP 3.0 theme with custom menu support).
You want? I know I do, and I can’t wait to get it online onto one of my blogs – I am REALLY excited about it.
Now I’ll be totally up front with you about this. I outright STOLE the idea for this theme from the brilliant Jimmy D Brown. Until recently he used to supply a theme similar to this (only not as good looking) for $27.
He’s now “retired” his version of this theme along with some other of his smaller products as he’s moving into bigger ticket items like coaching.
You can no longer buy it from him, although I was very tempted to pay him $97 in return for resale rights, but I decided to go one better and have my own designed instead.
And what you see after countless fruitless hours of searching for a good designer and hundreds of dollars later is the result.
It’s not ready yet. I estimate there’s still at least a couple of weeks work to turn it into a WP theme to my standards – I want multiple “sidebars”, and when the final version of WP 3.0 comes out, custom menu support.
If you used this together with my “WordPress AutoResponder” and “Subscribers Only” plugins (nickel sale still running), it would be an awesome combination, and I don’t use awesome lightly as it does get overused nowadays doesn’t it?
So, going back to my original question. What would YOU pay for a theme like this one?
Or put another way – what should I charge for it?
$27? $47? It’s what I would consider a premium WordPress theme, and they typically go for $75 or more licenced to a single site.
Well, I haven’t decided, after all it’s not ready yet.
And as it’s not ready, how about if I offered it to you on pre-order?
How about if I offered it for…
$10
But only for the first 75 people.
Does that sound reasonable to you?
For your money you’ll get access to your personal download page (courtesy of SmartDD), and when the theme is completed, I’ll send you an email and your zipped theme will apear on your download page.
Now I know you might be thinking WHY am I doing this? Why don’t I just wait until the theme is complete, and then release it for a much higher price?
Simple. It’s another thank you for continuing to be a subscriber.
That’s why I also run nickel sales – just to say thank you for being there.
Okay?
So tomorrow afternoon I’ll let you know where the first 75 people to get there can pre-order for just $10 for a multi site licence.
Let’s say 2.30pm GMT (9.30am EST).
I’m sorry if you don’t get there in time tomorrow, I will offer it to you for $27 at a later date before setting the final price so it won’t be the end of the world if you miss it.
-Frank Haywood
Just bought your “Subscribers Only” plug-in — what a great little tool! Is your WP Auto-Responder plug-in still available somewhere?
@Mary:
Thank you. Yes, for another day or so at least it’s still available at a discounted price in a nickel sale here:-
http://plugingreat.com/3dsons/
-Frank
@Frank Haywood:
Thanks, Frank, but that page seems to offer ONLY the Subscribers Only plugin, which I already bought. I’m looking for the WP AutoResponder plugin mentioned in your sales copy:
“You know I mentioned earlier that there’s another plugin on this site that adds autoresponder and broadcast email functionality to your blogs? It’s called the WordPress AutoResponder and is very inexpensive (yes, you’ll have to purchase this separately if you don’t already have it).”
WHERE on the site is it? Probably right in front of me but, duh, I sure can’t find it. ;-). Thanks.
@Mary:
D’oh! what I meant to say was:-
http://plugingreat.com/3dayns/
Sorry!
-Frank
Hi Frank,
Nice looking theme – however I would make that ugly Google ad in the banner optional. In fact, I hope all the “ads” could be turned on or off at the convenience of the customer.
Otherwise, I think you have a winner. One thing that came to mind is to list some of the more popular plug-ins and what they do (I know you mentioned some of your recent plug-ins in your copy above.) Sometimes, having a list of plug-ins, along with what they do and perhaps several scenarios would give people ideas for product use.
And for $10 it’s a no-brainer!
@Maury:
Yeah I see AdSense as pointless myself as I don’t believe there’s enough money in it – there are far better ways of monetising your blogs. I didn’t ask him to do that, but the designer thought it would be a good idea to show people what they can do with the theme.
Listing the useful plug-ins is a really good idea, thank you. What I’ll do is when both the PluginGreat.com site is officially live and also the site for these themes is live too, I’ll list plugins that I use myself, where and why. I use some plugins on all my blogs, and others where it suits the site niche.
And listing usage ideas for the themes is a good one too. I sometimes take things like this for granted that everyone would know, but of course that’s not the case and it’s daft of me to think like that. I’ll come up with something.
-Frank
Hi Frank
Thankx you can count me in would like to be one of the lucky 75
I just bought the two plugins from you
Sure it would work well with the theme
Looking forwardto the theme
Raj
@Raj:
Thanks for that, and you’re absolutely right. My plan for a while now has been to build a suite of useful WordPress based products that will help pro bloggers turn some profit faster.
Key to this is being able to gather subscribers.
The recent plugins I’ve released will certainly help to build a mailing list (which is vital to your business), and this theme will reinforce that technique with a number of methods to generate income. Aspects of the theme are a clear subscriber sign up box, giveaways (to retain subscribers), plenty of reviews, and a selection of attractive ad formats for the sidebars.
The total sum of it is that all these little things build to make your blog(s) more able to make money. Most blog themes and plugins aren’t designed specifically to do this.
I also have my plugin developer working on an Ad Manager to make it easy to create and manage ads. The Ad Manager will allow you to do things like opt to only show certain ads to new visitors, and hide them from your regulars so that you don’t annoy them. More on this when it’s done.
-Frank
Hi Frank,
Does this come with unlimited use license or a one time use. A pretty neat plugin. I missed out on your new plugin it’s probably out of my budget.
@Spencer:
All my products are unlimited use on as many domains as you personally own. I personally dislike single site licences so I don’t do them myself.
-Frank
Looks great, let us know how it proceeds! I can’t wait to be first in line!!!!!!
-sg
Does the theme you are advertising come in any other color than the blue?
@John Felton Wagner:
No, but I’ll be releasing a number of similar themes in a range of colours and styles over the coming weeks. It’s unlikely I’ll discount any of them once the official site is live and pulling affiliate traffic, although I may run a membership for them which will include a new premium theme each month.
-Frank
Frank,
You have really “outdone” yourself with this beauty. I don’t think I can get genuine and tested soft wares at such low prices from anywhere else. I will be making an attempt to be the one of the first 75.
Keep up the good work Frank. All the best for your future launches.
Rangarajan
@Ranga Rajan:
Thank you.
I agree. I saw it and went “Wow!” I’ve showed it to a couple of friends and they love it as much as I do.
The designer has perfectly captured just what I wanted from a theme of this type and I love his use of colours and graphics.
Hi Frank!
Yes, looking great.
But – some time ago you told us that the best thing since canned beer was the
Semiologic WP system.
Can your new WP-theme(s) be used with Semiologic?
Cheers,
Jan
@Jan Evensen:
Yes, you can still use all the SemioLogic plugins with this theme, which is exactly what I’ll be doing. 🙂
-Frank
Hello Frank –
What will be the url for the offer ?
Are you sending out an email ?
Hamant
It actually is a really nice theme. I think it was a good idea for you to make your own rather than but the resale rights. For one, it would still be considered unique, and for 2 and most importantly, you didn’t have to shell out that much for it. I think the theme for any site is very important. If you find a free theme that works for you then great but for the most part you would want to pay for a customized theme.
Frank sorry to write here, I haven’t received the wp theme…
Also, in regards of your comment about adsense. I do make pretty good pennies in adsense like $80 per day (50% JV with a link builder), I do the purchase of the aged domain, hosting, theme, articles and kw research and then I give the details to the link builder and boom.
@Claudio:
Luckily I retrieved your comment from the spam box – Akismet must think you’re a spammer. Hopefully me marking your comment as not spam will help fix that.
$80 / day is pretty good. My problem with AdSense is you would make much more than that by running other ad types. Google are *mean* and they only pay you pennies for your traffic. What about earning dollars for the same traffic?
And… If Google decide they don’t like you and close your account, or remove all your sites from their index (you kindly let them know which ones are yours by adding your AdSense publisher ID onto them), your business model is GONE. This has happened to lots of people before you.
You really need to start looking at which sites you can put alternate advertising on before it’s too late.
(BTW, your AdSense Publisher ID is one way of Google [and your competitors] knowing which sites are yours, another method is by using Google Analytics. I don’t use either on any of my sites just in case Google decide to take them *all* down because they don’t like *one* of them. If you do use GA, then may I suggest you get a StatCounter.com account instead?)
-Frank