thanks dj. have made those change. much appreciated.

thanks for the support :)

thanks frodo, and gus for the TP :)

thanks tag. this started as a clone of another designer's work and would probably not exist otherwise. you have contributed greatly towards the spirit of collaboration. although you did not participate in FS Collaboration 1, i would say you have triggered and provided just as much inspiration by allowing your work to be cloned and modified. kudos bro. with Fontstruct around, there's a lot to be thankful for :)

thanks dj for the discovery. and no, i didn't know, but now that i do, i must contact King Records. hey, they're even using part of my name :)

thanks fontcollector and dj. i didn't know that dafont had started to show download #s - that's cool i guess :) but as dj asks, how many are collectors or users? i have received a few donations, very few and with a combined total for all my fonts from there as well as 1001fonts and fontspace plus a few other places - that i know about and some that i don't; when i did an 'unofficial' tally, it was close to 500,000 as of 5/19 - those numbers include FontStruct, of course :)

having those many downloads, along with some encouragement from online/email strangers led me to start monetizing my fonts and placing them on myfonts.com. i figured if i expanded some sets and made some modifications from the existing posted versions on the web, i could perhaps capture some of that lost/potential revenue. so it's been i little over a month and i have made a few sales, but still not what i would imagine or hope for.

when releasing the commercial version, i also decided to downgrade the existing free versions of the fonts that i am now selling. madison ave. used to be my top daily download until i modified it and it still gets decent downloads everyday. it was replaced by soma as the top daily download. soma was only ever really a display font. i expanded it greatly and have had a sale or two, but its free download numbers remain solid and steady - too steady for my liking :(

so i've been thinking about putting some slugs into the free versions although dafont wants you to have at least a full usable set. so i'm not really sure how to modify the set to maintain a certain level of usability and yet discourage its use or at least encourage the sale of the other version - if there is a way to do this or perhaps that's the quandary of the situation. i think i'm getting to the point where i may have to consider taking down all free version of the fonts i have for sale period - when they reach a certain download regardless of how popular; and hopefully the others sites would cooperate with my wish to remove those versions. clearly most, if not all of my fonts on dafont are past that point. i'm happy knowing people like my fonts enough to download - whether they really use them or not, and perhaps i'm starting to not even care if they do. but i have also reached a point where i think if my work is that popular then i should perhaps only offer at least for free, those fonts i don't sell and see what happens. the commercial versions may not ever really catch on, but i know things take time, that it's the summer, and to be patient. and a few extra bucks here and there never hurt :)

but i also feel like, why should i continue to give it away like that with high numbers. but all of this is kind of like a brave new world - at least for me and will probably be different for everyone who tries it. and like any business venture, it may fail. but as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. i suppose i am more than a little bit disappointed that more (many more) people haven't sent me a donation after download/using the font. i mean, even a dollar for 500,000 = $500,000, that's half a million - geesh :( but i am thankful to those that have; and it shows there are a few - a very, very few ethical people/companies out there. but it is human nature, why pay when you can get for free. but i haven't given up by any stretch and feel i am really just starting. thanks for your support and encouragement.

thanks neurone, for the input. so true about the virginity of FS. when i posted elsewhere i had this mad desire for downloads :) well as they say, be careful what you ask for :( but honestly, my fonts have only been outside of FS for less than a year - about 9 months now. so as a timeframe, i think it has been a good enough period to evaluate if there is a market for my work. even if many are only font collecting, i figure with that many dls, at least try to sell something :) as you suggest, pricing will be the key to success - not trying to break the bank on any single font, but offer many at a lower cost - perfecto dude :) so i will probably slowly start removing/replacing my stuff that's here and elsewhere, but will still keep plenty of stuff free and see how it goes. thanks, friend.

@ upixel - thanks for the info. i took a look and really like fenotype's work. i will study them some more, but don't need any more fonts, i can't even use all of mine :)

@ frodo - thanks for your support and encouragement. we'll see how it goes.

@ geneus - thanks. i think sharing experiences can perhaps help others. and since there is no handbook, i think the more we exchange the better - design-wise and business-wise. there are those fontstructers (yourself included) that i really believe if they haven't already tried, maybe should. you never know what will catch on. of course that presents the situation again of removing the versions from here or modifying them to not be the same as the commercial version. but i think it's a natural progression and that if more of us don't - we're really not taking advantage of the potential that FS holds.

on another topic... upixel did question me about having the FS logo show up in the font file for missing glyphs. this doesn't really bother me, although even now when i see it, i'm like - what's that, oh :) but i also look at it as a badge of honor. oh sure, i guess i could import into another app to remove the FS logo, but i'm proud of what i have achieved here and not really bothered at all that the logo is there or that someone might negatively view it. who knows, it might lead another person to the joys of FS :)