
I’ve decided on a course of action for having my own products.. Rather than write an ebook which I wouldn’t do anyway because I just despise writing copy! and rather than try and convert my CommentLuv plugin to become a fully fledged big budget premium plugin (which I will do eventually), I am going to try my hand at releasing some smaller plugins for a very reasonable price.
People want updates and support
From my own experience of my free plugins, one thing that I know people want when installing plugins to their site is somewhere to go for help when things go wrong or when other plugins don’t play nice.
Another thing they want is regular updates or at least the knowledge that their site isn’t going to break because they update their WordPress code and the plugin doesn’t play nice with the new functions.
If it is too big it’s too bad!
The biggest road block to me releasing the super duper update to CommentLuv that would take it into the realms of ‘premium plugin’ is the fact that it’s already grown to such a long list of source code and it’s functionality is already a headache when I start thinking what I’ll have to do it add this or that feature.
I’ve seen it with other premium plugin coders that are trying to survive on their own. Releasing something so big and so super duper that you can charge between 50 and 100 dollars for it means you have to really make it super duper and chock full of features. Then you’ll have to create a support site and probably forums where you’ll spend 50% of your time, the other 50% will be either coding the updates or marketing. Good luck if you want to release more than 1, you’ll need a team of coders, supporters and designers and marketers.
For he guys at premium.wpmudev.org it’s not a big deal but for little ol’ me? well, I’m going to try something different. Something that is maintainable and wont require a visit to Dragons Den or seek angle investors. Something that I can actually release more than one of.
Bring on low cost, great value blog bling!
My plan is to release a set of great value blog bling plugins at a price where people wont have to break the bank or hesitate for too long before buying. I’m going to integrate it with the existing comluv credits system which allows existing comluv affiliates to advertise them and earn a percentage from any credits purchases that result and I’m going to provide top level support that is exclusive to people who purchase the plugins.
They are going to be useful little buggers, these plugins -o -mine! And because they are going to be managable in size and updates, I’ll be able to release more than one. Here’s three very reasonably priced plugins that I have written and found to be really useful for my own sites.
Dashboard Tweeter
Price: – $20
A nice dashboard widget that greets you with your latest @replies from twitter and allows you to respond without ever leaving the dashboard area. The advantage is that you can set up your own twitter application so when your replies go out there, there’ll be a handy link directly back to your blog for people to click.
It also has Direct messages and your twitter stream to browse too. All links and hashtags are automatically converted to open in a new window links and all replies/DM’s will use the proper format so that they are fully compatible with the twitter api.
You can see what it looks like in action here – Dashboard Tweeter
Installation video, lifetime updates and support forum
future: this could be expanded to allow your recent posts to be tweeted from the widget and even notify users who have supplied their twitter username when their comment has received a reply.
Guest Blogger Notify
Price – $15
If you’ve ever had a guest blogger come to visit and write on your site then you’ll like this one. It will allow you to choose which meta boxes you want shown on an add new post page in your dashboard when it’s a contributor.
It’ll also add a user configurable message box to the write post page that you can use to let contributors know what your posting guidelines are direct on the page they’re writing on.
What sets it apart will be that it automatically emails the contributor when their post is published using the message you set.
No more support tickets or emails from contributors asking if their post is published yet!
Instructional video and premium priority exclusive support.
Future : this could be expanded to have a feature where guest posts will show an author box with the users bio description and links to their site.
Choose Full Feed Post
Price: -$15
This will be useful if you use subscribe to feed by email services by Feedburner or Feedblitz.
It will allow you, on a post by post basis, to choose which posts will show the full text and which posts will show just the summary in the RSS feed of your site.
Now you no longer need to choose one or the other, you can have both! If you have set your feed to excerpts only but you have a newsletter type post or something you would rather the reader sees fully in their feed read then you can. Similarly, if you have full feed posts set then a particularly long post can be set as excerpt only which keeps the size of the emails that are sent out down to manageable levels.
Same full exclusive support and instructional videos.
future: This can be expanded to have a feed only shortcode function so you can show text , images and links only in the feed. A great way to encourage people to subscribe.
Life time updates!
One of the advantages to me and to the purchasing user would be to have lifetime updates and priority support.
If I am getting paid for it then answering your support questions is a no brainer! I would be happy to exchange my time for your money
Updates to wordpress break the plugin? no problem! if you’ve paid for a plugin then it seems fair that I would make sure that it would be compatible with future versions of WordPress. Once you have paid, you will be guaranteed lifetime updates.
All of this for just a few dollars.
Would you pay ?
If you knew you were going to receive 1st rate support and guaranteed updates, would you consider paying between 5 and 20 dollars for a plugin?
your comments are welcome!
A new luv in my life
I’ve started coding the upgrade to my CommentLuv plugin, it’s going to be called CommentLuv 3.0 (original huh?)
More features than you can shake a stick at
This time around I want to do it all again from scratch and I’ve already got a good idea of what I’m going to add to it.
Just for the last blog post link and it’ll be configurable like Lucia’s linky luv plugin
This will allow a registered comluv user to have their registered site name next to their real name in their comment.
How many people have been asking for this? lol, it’ll be in the new version!
I’ll store the last blog post, user id and request id in the comment meta so the comment text doesn’t get mangled and every link will be identifiable by the info panel. no more ‘cannot find member’ messages.
Why not allow the blog that installs commentluv to click a button and be registered straight away? yey!
I would like to add premium options, one would be to allow you to give your registered users a full 10 posts to choose from when they comment.
If there’s more you want to add, let me know in the comments…
[edit] I’ve just realized, this post is number 300 on this blog. Synchronicity. mmm Yummy.