Training manuals?

[jont]

how many times I would sell the same theme..... fall into the trap of "oh whilst you are at it, could you move x across by 10 pixels, oh and I'd prefer y to be somewhere else" then you are talking custom site.

This was the conclusion I came to. People want to pay for their site to be different - not only from the default Actinic themes but also everyone elses and then they want something moving, tweaking to make it suit their own needs. If you charge £1000.00 they expect it to be part of the cost ... if you charge it at £35.00 you simply can not do the work.

Integration is another massive issue. It is a struggle as it is on a vanilla v8 site (see all the partial snapshot threads) let alone an upgraded v7 or v6 sites with a myriad of modified templates, different layouts, installed scripts etc. You can bet the first email after someone buys a template is going to be "my cart capitalisation code from Graham is not working" ... you also have naming conflicts, CSS conflicts let alone knowing what every section on the site is doing so sending over a one-size-fits-all-theme is 100% guaranteed to break something on the site (assuming the partial snapshot works in the first place).

[leehack]

You say 1-2 days to integrate at a ballpark figure of £250 per day plus the cost of developing the theme, that does not quite add up to the bottom end of £200-500.

Anyway thats my Saturday Soapbox over now....

We are talking completely different situations, i am talking a one off design for a client, who has no dreamweaver/css experience, and wants the look of the site changed from a standard theme. They will or have already built the site and you are just presenting it.

They send me a snapshot along with a design brief and within the first day i create the layout and integrate it with actinic. I upload it for them to take a look at and then spend 1/2 a day tweaking it to their requirements. Once they are happy, the completed snapshot is forwarded back to them, fully integrated and they continue as they would normally within a standard theme.

For that process i would happily do it all for between £250-350. If they want to start adding amendments and messing around with things after, then they can obviously pay extra for any extra support they require on this.

If you are on about creating a brand new theme, completely redoing the actinic.css etc. then fine although at £1k i wouldn't expect much business personally. I am talking about an external dreamweaver design with it's own CSS file integrated into actinic. Unless a client is wanting something extraordinary (you would look into this before you started), i find it inconceivable that this could not be completed within a day, at most a day and a half. A simple layout and css file can be created within just 2 or 3 hours and within 3 or 4 hours it can be fully integrated. The more you did, the quicker you would be at it also as we all know that the more sites you have to your name, the better design library you have to call upon.

CSS conflicts can all be done at this time also, if your style sheet is loaded last, this can alleviate most problems and anyway you have the store in front of you to check and test.

[pinbrook]

We are talking completely different situations

Yes we are, I am talking about downloadable actinic themes, where you display themes on your website and the customer pays, downloads and integrates. you then sell the same design to x people. This is often asked for by people who want to build a site but don't want to use the services of a designer.

You are talking about a bespoke service to a customer.

If someone came to me and me to design their actinic site I would not subsequently sell the design I did for them to another client. I would work with their snapshot and they would get the full service, I would release to them and expect to support them through getting it all set up and working on their PC and uploaded to their server. I would have specified and quoted for the full job in advance.

[leehack]

That's the confusion for sure. If creating a design for a client i would always want to integrate it and add the actinic stuff in dreamweaver myself as this would usually be 100 times quicker than supporting them and their questions for umpteen hours as they try to do it. They also need to have and know how to use dreamweaver to do this, it sounds problematic at best.

A basic process would be send me your snapshot with your network settings included and your products listed. Tell me what you want by way of a brief and i will then create a base look for you to look at within a day and upload for you to view. We then spend half a day tweaking and adjusting until you are happy. Any conflicts or design issues are sorted at this point as you are physically seeing the site as you would if providing a complete build.

Areas such as header, navbar, left column, main area, right column and footer are pretty standard areas across all sites, it can't really move too far away from that layout, unless i am missing something of course.

[leehack]

If someone came to me and me to design their actinic site I would not subsequently sell the design I did for them to another client. I would work with their snapshot and they would get the full service, I would release to them and expect to support them through getting it all set up and working on their PC and uploaded to their server. I would have specified and quoted for the full job in advance.

If offering downloadable templates, then maybe the royalty free image sites are a guideline on how this could work best. You would need some kind of tiers on templates. i.e. these templates here are £1k each and you buy exclusive rights to them, noone else will be sold them and it will be removed from our site after your purchase. Whereas these templates here are £250 each and they can be used by umpteen people, you will need to do the integration yourself or we do it for £x.xx.

Regularly used templates can still look quite different with logos and colour schemes changed and i guess it's up to the customer what they want.

Maybe the way to go would be to sell a copy of actinic, a theme and it's already integrated, so they just put their products in as they would with a standard theme. This doesn't account for people who buy it first though and then realise they haven't got a clue what they are doing.

I'd be surprised if there is not some possibilities in this area that are pursueable.

[RuralWeb]

Additionally if you will do the integration, you could also fall into the trap of "oh whilst you are at it, could you move x across by 10 pixels, oh and I'd prefer y to be somewhere else" then you are talking custom site. There is an Actinic developer who has already said this happens almost everytime they sell a theme, the customer wants it to be customised - within the price!

I agree with this and its one of the reasons I too have kept away from selling templates.

Its a strange world out there and I often get contacted by people who ask for quote for a custom template - I send it out and they come back saying they can get a template for $xxx so if they bought that would I modify it for them for next to nothing ao they can get the custom design they want

People do not understand the difference between a stock template and a custom design.

[leehack]

Do you think this all stems from the inbuilt themes not providing customers with what they thought they would have. They look at them and none of them inspire or they don't quite get to grips with how to change colour schemes etc?

A template service could provide a 3 tier service:

1 - Exclusive template individually designed - £x.xx
2 - Stock template as standard - £x.xx
3 - Stock template with customisation - £x.xx

I'd have thought there would be some merit in that personally. Who knows, nowt stranger than folk.

[RuralWeb]

I'd have thought there would be some merit in that personally

There you go - you have just talked yourself into a little template building business. If you can churn them out for 250 I may even buy a few myself Let us know when you launch your download website.

[RuralWeb]

Do you think this all stems from the inbuilt themes not providing customers with what they thought they would have

This was an area of much discussion last July when V8 was launched, I think most people including me expected more in the way of new templates. Some of the new ones were designed by members of the forum eg jo but there could and can still be more from Actinic. Once the remaining problems with V8 are sorted then more people may come on line selling templates - there are quite a few already so if people want them they can get them although from what I have seen they all a bit more than what lee is going to charge.

[pinbrook]

There you go - you have just talked yourself into a little template building business. If you can churn them out for 250 I may even buy a few myself Let us know when you launch your download website.

Me too

A template service could provide a 3 tier service:

1 - Exclusive template individually designed - £x.xx
2 - Stock template as standard - £x.xx
3 - Stock template with customisation - £x.xx

You are still missing the point of integration issues and support

[leehack]

The themes are quite poor IMO, i think they'd do far better slimming down the numbers and coming up with some that actually catch the eye. If they did this, template services would be impacted on somewhat.

I have no intention of providing a downloadable template service. By your own admissions, you and Jo have looked into this and decided against such a move, so i would suggest that you are both far nearer to doing this than me.

Let me know when you get it launched.

[leehack]

I didn't know you was responsible for one of the inbuilt themes Jo, which one is it? If it's the smart theme, please don't respond.

[RuralWeb]

integration issues and support

As jo says this is the real problem area. If you are building a template for a new site then its a doddle BUT if you are doing one for an established business with bits of custom code here and there, stock control, products being changed daily and a whole host of other potential problems then it can become a real problem not to mention the legal aspects of your template crashing the site.

You wont see any downloadable templates from me any time soon

[pinbrook]

you are both far nearer to doing this than me.

and at the same time never further away, I am not going to offer downloadable themes for the reasons I already posted.

I didn't know you was responsible for one of the inbuilt themes Jo, which one is it? If it's the smart theme, please don't respond.

Contemporary was mine. although it was somewhat changed when actinic got its hands on it.

[RuralWeb]

although it was somewhat changed when actinic got its hands on it

And hacked by me in the first live V8 site