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February 22, 2005
Pay for Plugins
While I would love to do what Jason just did and quit my job and do the blogging and plugin development thing full time, it is just not an option for me right now. We need the health insurance and my steady paycheck now that Jenn is quitting her job.
And since we are going to be losing her income, I need to make sure that all of the work I do outside of my day job is as profitable as I can make it. So I figure I have two options: either drop the blogging and plugin development thing for the time being (if not for good) or start charging for some of my more time consuming plugins and try to find other types of revenue streams I can generate with this site and my plugin work.
I thought I would start the charging with Workflow, and probably MultiBlog 2.0 (not the current version) after that. Everything that has been publicly released up until this point will still be available free of charge. I have also thought about instituting some kind of rayners-plugin subscription idea, where folks could get access to the bleeding edge stuff that I am working on, as well as get first priority for bug reports and feature requests. It is just an idea at the moment though.
I put a lot of time and effort into many of my plugins. And while I have received donations from a number of very generous folks (and I do appreciate it quite a bit; if I do charge, you will all get discounts), the return on my investment of time spent working on all this plugin code is pretty abysmal. With the situation we are entering into now, that is not something that I can afford to continue. Whatever I end up doing, things will be different from now on.
Posted by rayners at February 22, 2005 10:37 PM
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Comments
Hey man,
I can understand how you feel about this. I for one can speak nothing but praises about your MultiBlog plugin (there's nothing like it in the "other" CMS camp), and even though the current version more than delivers for what I want to do with it, I could happily pay for a newer version if it shows a major improvement.
The main trouble with the Web is that, for a long time, everything was expected to be free - free software, free love, free info. Now that most of the worthwhile content providers have come of age to realize that in the Web fame and fortune don't (usually) come together and want their money back (in a sense), they are facing a lot of resistance from those still clinging to the "free" bandwagon. It will probably take a number of years before we finally shake the "free or else" thing off ourselves and realize that all those code goodies don't "just show up" or are there "just because"...
Good luck with all your future decisions and endeavors.
Posted by: beto at February 23, 2005 05:18 PM
Yes, you have helped me out so much with your plugins and while having them all for free has made you my blog god I wouldn’t begrudge you at all if you started charging.
You are very talented, wish more people would support you out of goodwill… just please never have a NRP style pledge drive
Posted by: Sean at February 24, 2005 02:34 AM
By all means charge. I am a beginner with MT. I am willing to "Pay" for all the help I can get. I just tried to install MT Mulitblog-plugin. Even though I followed the directions EXACTLY it does not work. How frustrating.
Posted by: Linda at February 25, 2005 11:35 AM
It's not a bad idea, although the only plugin I'm waiting for you to finish is the extended comments so I can put threaded comments on my site.
What kind of fee frame are you looking at implementing?
Posted by: Richard Vasquez at February 27, 2005 08:14 PM
I had to let you know that I tried the tutorial that you wrote and I was able to do EXACTLY what I wanted. The plugin works beautifully. Thanks
Posted by: Linda at March 1, 2005 09:42 PM
Sounds like a good idea. I know that I've used your plugins with great success, and they'd be worth every penny. Good luck.
Posted by: MB at March 4, 2005 09:27 AM
I agree with the sentiment, I would say go for it. I cannot say I would be able to pay, as I am quite broke myself, but I understand the need to be paid for your work. You make kick ass plugins, and I have no doubt they will be worth the price you'll charge. I also think this will become a growing trend, though I hope that the makers remember that their most frequent users aren't wealthy corporations.
Posted by: Geek ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.rayners.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 5, 2005 03:59 AM
David, go for it... everyone should know that the kind of quality you put on every single line of code you release is worthy.
Have you ever considered some kind of "supportive donation"? I think you can have a nice mix of incomes with that, plus adsense, plus "proplugins" and all.
For me, this is a good idea. regards
Posted by: mariano at February 23, 2005 08:23 AM