Obviously you don't have to answer this, but were the extra sales enough to support the development of those free skins? That's my main point about the free skins really

Well those ones weren't created as a way to promote our pay-for stuff.
We had just finished Solara, and wanted to do some personal skinning, with no pressure or hassle to please the lowest common denominator.
And in fact when people saw screenshots of the skins before we'd even considered uploading, the general opinions were that we could have sold either of those as well.

I uploaded Prometheus as an afterthought. The suite had actually been around for about 3 or 4 weeks before I thought to put it on any skin sites.

 

Well those ones weren't created as a way to promote our pay-for stuff. We had just finished Solara, and wanted to do some personal skinning, with no pressure or hassle to please the lowest common denominator.

Indeed, there is a certain amount of pressure when you're creating a skin you intend to sell, or have been hired to develop. It makes doing a skin for yourself a little sweeter. But even though it was the farthest thing from my mind while I created Avenger, everything with your name on it helps to promote your pay stuff.

Obviously you don't have to answer this, but were the extra sales enough to support the development of those free skins?

It's difficult to asses whether giving away the Avenger and Prometheus skins have driven enough Solara sales to cover the cost of their production, because it's difficult to tell what that cost is. I spent a few hours every night after work and a couple of Saturdays over the course of 2 weeks putting together the Avenger skins. But that was in my free time. That's the same way I worked on Solara, only it took more like 6 to 8 weeks, and there were far more applications skinned. That, however, is the advantage of working with a partner. That's the same way I work on corporate skins too, because it's the only time I have to skin. So the cost to me is whatever I value my free time at.

Your skins are of the highest quality, and all those subdesigns are surely making a lot of people very happy (including myself, honestly, I've been running it at home since the day you released it), but what you have with MetalX2 is more like 10 skins than 1. No wonder it seems difficult to justify the production time, you're spending weeks longer on a single release than most people who are selling skins do. Now, if you sold a skin with a whole bunch of subdesigns and cool features like metalX, and gave away skins of the same quality with fewer bell and whistles, I think you might strike a balance. You don't have to try and meet every possible configuration and feature that any user might desire. Just make it the way you like it, polish any imperfections, and release it for free. I don't believe that any of the current premium skins out there contain subdesigns, custom colors, special-function buttons, winamp controls, or any of that, yet they still sell.

Of course, it would be naive for anyone to expect that they could jump right in and instantly be profitable. No business can. You have to build a brand, and build a loyal customer base. Those people tell more people about you. Give things away to get people's attention. Get them to join your mailing list so you can tell them when you've released something exclusive. Releasing Avenger and Prometheus, as well as Stinger (which came before Solara), introduced people to SkinPlant and resulted in sales of Solara. A few times a week, somebody new joins our mailing list. New people discover our skins, then visit our site, and if they don't buy Solara, they will at least know about us when we release our next premium creation.

A poll seeing who buys skins to support the artists or who buys skins simply for the skin would probably be a good idea, or did they already a poll like that?

I have to say... I started skinning during the Windows95 days. Skinning was not easy but it wasn't a nightmare either. Since I've returned, I've updated 3 of my old skins to XP standards. It was a hell of a learning curve and took longer than it did to create the originals. I can't even imagine what it would be like if I hadn't had a base to work from.

My point... as Brad said, skinning is a lot harder than it was in the old days. Thus unlike those days gone, I believe more than ever that some of these top-notch skinners are totally justified in asking for some kind of return on thier investment.

I fear that at some point, some of them are going to regain thier sanity and realize just what they've been giving away all these years.

If people want to ignore my experience in selling niche stuff then by all means do so.

But here's some food for thought:

When you sell something you have factors that affect things based on percentages and you have factors that affect things in absolute numbers.

In niche markets (<100,000 potential sales) absolute numbers do matter. If commercial skins were selling 50,000 copies even, then the absolute number of people who buy it to support those who support the community could probably be considered secondary.

But as I wrote before, premium skins are likely to sell between 1500 to 3000 units in their effective lifetime. 2000 units X $9 = $18,000 which is a pretty decent return considering the time involved. But 1500 to 3000 is definitely a niche market.

As a result, taking into account the absolute numbers of people who do buy things based on the fame of the author matter. Or put another way, the "core" group in the skinning community (roughly 30,000 people) are the ones who are statistically much more likely to buy skins based on the fame and support of the skin author.

The general public, by contrast, won't care. But of the 1500 to 3000 likely purchases a good quality skin suite would get, I would expect that a solid 500 to 1000 of them do so because of WHO is creating the skin pack.

So unless the skin author can find a truly vast distribution mechanism to get their skin out to a lot more casual users, those core buyers have to be taken into consideration. And since I don't see that situation changing in the short term, that is why I believe premium skins will help generate more free skins.

But if that's not enough, the fact is, before someone is going to get published, they need to have a solid resume.

The moral of the story is, you can't apply broad market forces to niche markets. Which is what some people are attempting to do here.  My career has been spent making "stuff" for niche markets so I do have some idea what I'm talking about.

I am amazed this business is playing out on a public message board.... I am intrigued; this is like the skinning version of the Godfather.

I think a basic point has been missed here. The question is: why are you skinning? If you have a vested interest in your creations then maybe you should be looking at this from a business point of view. If you skin because you love to skin or create for it's own sake then you should not even ask the question. The motive of action is all important in determining the outcome.

So the question remains: why?

Well Fuzzy, I'd have to give an answer which sits in between the two you've given to choose from. I skin for pleasure and to improve my graphic skills, but increasingly find it an expensive hobby to maintain as an unemployed person. I therefore look for ways to support my hobby through the generation of a small amount of income.

I don't skin purely for business or for pleasure, but somewhere in between.

Lot of substance in what Brad has mentioned in #45....about niche markets, etc...

One saving grace is that generally, Pixtudio has already pioneered the uncharted waters....copping one heck of a lot of flak over the concept of free vs. paid....just think back to the hysteria over at Customize.org..where their reputation/s were insulted and degraded by the 'FREE AT ALL COST' 'me' generation.

Since then, with the successes of those actively doing commissioned works for quite prominent companies, and the publicly released 'commercial' skins and suites, those who follow really only have to have suitable 'product', as the concept of 'buying a skin' is well established....[within that core that Brad mentioned, at least].

Good old 'Joe Public', who knows little about skinning and even less about skinners will need more than only one option of 'buying' a person's skin....he'll NEED to see for himself that person's capabilities via a 'freebie', which, if sufficiently enticing in style and quality may coerce him to lay down his readies on a premium one...essentially creating a 'fan' who could very well go on to purchase ALL that person's product.

I can see 'logic' in this.....can anyone else?...

Oh Oh I do I do

I m having fun seeing some people whom I look up to posting things along the same lines of posts I have started to make and then only delete because I do not figure I am qualified to post on the subject very much if at all.

Set a goal and then pick your vehicles you will make the most from and use those to get you to your desired destination...

While your at it, don't reinvent the wheel but stream lining it a bit where you can is a good thing

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I think both of Brads writings were right on. I see the need for freebies and I agree that this is still a niche market for skins. Start small and grow.

I fully support premium suites..tHEY WORK SO MUCH BETTER...Im enjoying carbonix right now..

Well speaking as a 'customer' I bought 95 % of the purchase suites that came from this or related sites (Pixtudio, Skinplant, FauxS-X) but I have to say the only ones I regularly use (or return to) are the full blown suites like Universe Metal or Logika in combination with Orion icons because they offer skins for all applications I use. I bought the Carbonix pack, too and used it some while (Apogee is still running with a single additional WB and IP license on one of my machines) but after a while I find myself returning to a full suite like the ones mentioned above, because I don't find fitting other skins for single WB's. I don't want to go through the hassle of re-coloring the orion icons for every color as an example (I have 3 other colors made of them yet, which meant recoloring 750 icons...) So the final point of my long story is : I would really have to think about purchasing single WB skins again in the future (And I think I am not alone). So to sell them really good there have to be some compound skins going with them (at least for me). BTW that's the main reason You find some ports at least to sysmetrix of some of my most liked WB skins. If I had the time You would as well find winamp ports by me, as that is the minimal configuration that would drive me to use purchase skins.