Have any designers derived any benefit from being featured on MyFonts Free Font Friday?
One of my families; Remora Sans, is pretty extensive with 5 Medium Italics which are free. When I produced the family I foolishly thought that giving some fonts away for free would be a good incentive for users to buy the uprights. However, on 1st of February MyFonts featured it on FFF, and I was suddenly inundated with downloads for the freebies; nearly 5.5 thousand so far. I thought this would propel Remora Sans straight to the top of the 50 best sellers, and users might actually start *buying* the fonts, but it doesn't even feature. I have had one buyer who bought one upright. It seems Best sellers are based on sales but not downloads.
I don't know if it's coincidence, but this is the worst month ever for sales of fonts at MF.
I think FFF does more harm than good, as there are people who are just eager to get any free fonts every Friday and fewer users are willing to buy fonts as they have been devalued so much.
Needless to say I won't be giving any away in the future as I can't see any benefit from doing so. What do Monotype gain from pushing freebies and hugely discounted stuff? If type designers find it hard to make a living producing quality fonts which take a huge amount of time for little return I'm sure many will just give up and do something else. I know millennials think it's great to work for peanuts and get everything for free, but that doesn't help any economy long-term. I don't understand the business model of Monotype.
One of my families; Remora Sans, is pretty extensive with 5 Medium Italics which are free. When I produced the family I foolishly thought that giving some fonts away for free would be a good incentive for users to buy the uprights. However, on 1st of February MyFonts featured it on FFF, and I was suddenly inundated with downloads for the freebies; nearly 5.5 thousand so far. I thought this would propel Remora Sans straight to the top of the 50 best sellers, and users might actually start *buying* the fonts, but it doesn't even feature. I have had one buyer who bought one upright. It seems Best sellers are based on sales but not downloads.
I don't know if it's coincidence, but this is the worst month ever for sales of fonts at MF.
I think FFF does more harm than good, as there are people who are just eager to get any free fonts every Friday and fewer users are willing to buy fonts as they have been devalued so much.
Needless to say I won't be giving any away in the future as I can't see any benefit from doing so. What do Monotype gain from pushing freebies and hugely discounted stuff? If type designers find it hard to make a living producing quality fonts which take a huge amount of time for little return I'm sure many will just give up and do something else. I know millennials think it's great to work for peanuts and get everything for free, but that doesn't help any economy long-term. I don't understand the business model of Monotype.