Taking Your Fonts to Market: Foundry, Reseller, or Go Solo?

My sincere apologies for our extended hiatus. Perhaps it’s appropriate to break the six-month silence with an answer to a type question that I hear more than almost any other: “I am a new type designer. What’s the best way to get my fonts on the market?”

Here is the best answer I can muster, drawn from over 10 years of examining the retail font industry (in what some might call disturbing detail). This advice is intended to be as unbiased as possible, but my perspective is inevitably shaped by four years as a type director at FontShop.

When people ask about selling their fonts, the conversation almost always begins with the ol’ bottom line: “I wanna make some bank! Who offers the best royalty rate?”

But the question of commission or discount percentage should be only one of many: What else is in the contract? What services do they guarantee? Do I respect their brand? What kind of audience do they speak to? Is their library a good fit for my typeface design? Is signing with a retailer even the right thing to do?

It’s also important to understand the difference between a foundry (AKA vendor or publisher) and a reseller (AKA distributor or retailer). Here’s a rundown of your options.

1. Signing with a Foundry

A foundry can be considered a font manufacturer. Examples are Linotype, Monotype, P22, and FontFont. Foundry type can be distributed through multiple channels, such as their own web shop and the shops of their resellers. When you submit a typeface to a foundry for release it is usually an exclusive deal. They will maintain the right to sell the font according to their contract. Royalties range from 20%-50% but there is also an important distinction: most foundries pay a percentage of the wholesale price of the font. In this model, as the font goes further down the distribution chain, the designer is getting less of the retail price. Other foundries, like FontFont, give a percentage of the suggested retail price. No matter where the font is sold, the designer gets the same cut.

2. Signing with a Reseller

A reseller offers fonts from multiple foundries. The major type resellers are Fonts.com, FontShop, MyFonts, and Veer. Resellers sign a contract with a foundry/publisher and offer the fonts in that foundry’s library. The foundry usually receives between 40–65% of the retail price of the font. Each reseller has a different customer base and produces different kinds and quantities of promotional materials. Examine them thoroughly and ask about their marketing strategies. Some independent foundries (like ShinnType and Mark Simonson) have found success in reaching a wide audience by offering their fonts through many different resellers. Others go for a more exclusive strategy (like Porchez Typofonderie at FontShop, Jukebox at Veer) benefiting from a boost in promotion that comes when a retailer can claim they are the exclusive reseller.

3. Going it Alone

Building a foundry and selling fonts exclusively on your own web shop brings you 100% of sales, of course. Exclusivity has its benefits, as Hoefler & Frere-Jones, Jeremy Tankard, and Lineto will attest. It can give your brand a certain boost in value. But unless you are already well known, it can be a lot of very hard work to get customers to your shopfront, while lesser fonts are benefitting from broader exposure and marketing. There is also that nagging feeling that you don’t know how much more you could be selling were your fonts available elsewhere.

Charting a Course to the Market

So the first decision to be made with each of your fonts is whether you want to go the foundry or reseller route. If you decide to submit your fonts to a foundry, find the outfit and agreement that is right for you. If you choose to build your own foundry, decide whether you want to sell the fonts exclusively on your own, or through one or more resellers.

Success can be wrought from any of these models. Much depends on what’s important to you, the fonts you’re selling, and what kind of work you’re willing to put into distributing them.

I almost certainly neglected something in this summary and I welcome any rebuttals or filling of holes from those who are actually making a buck from drawing type. There are hundreds of you out there and many lessons to glean from your experience.

Comments

Stephen, I've always appreciated the various iterations of this overview that you've offered. I also appreciate how unbiased you've managed to be.

Your focus here is primarily the marketing end, "getting to market," as you clearly state. But there is another consideration for those starting out, which is implied in some of what you say, but not addressed explicitly -- font production.

When considering whether to go with a foundry, a reseller, or go it alone, one must consider how much responsibility for the technical aspects one wishes (or is qualified) to take on. Beyond the glyph drawing and spacing/kerning, there are increasingly more complicated technical aspects to be handled -- from proper name fields and ascent/descent parameters to OTL feature writing, etc.

A foundry will offer final production (as well as quality control and tech support). Some resellers may offer some assistance, but for the most part consider you the foundry and hold you responsible. Going it alone, of course, requires you to manage it all yourself.

So, in addition to considering how much of a business person/administrator you wish to be, you have to consider how much of an engineer/programmer you wish to be as well. With the advances in OpenType format, the technical barrier for entry has begun to rise again.

Kent Lew | Nov 20, 2008 05:47 AM

Very informative article. I'm glad to see some action here. It's been too long!

Jon | Nov 20, 2008 07:02 AM

Thanks, Kent. I mentioned a bit about font production, but yours is a type designer's perspective that will make this guide all the more useful. I'm sure your partnership with Font Bureau is more than a marketing arrangement, their technical and design expertise helped make Whitman possible.

Stephen Coles | Nov 20, 2008 09:41 AM

Thank you for this informative and thought-provoking post. I am in the process of creating my first typeface in my father's handwriting. Although it is going quite slow, I will hopefully be faced with this decision soon.

I suspect if my plans are to create type as a hobby, rather than a profession, I may try it alone for six months to a year. If that does not work, my "mentor" owns a foundry, and he might be willing to give my typeface a whirl on his site for a percentage. After purchasing several of his fonts I became interested in creating my own, and he has provided me a bit of guidance here and there along the way.

Again, thank you for the terrific reference information.

Wynne Hunkler | Nov 20, 2008 10:14 AM

Stephen

What a thoughtful exploration. One of the major components for "foundry" consideration for me came post facto. My foundry is truly an advocate for my work. Not just sales etc., but monitoring piracy. I cannot tell you how much that has meant to me. So add it to your list if you would please. Thank you

Michael

Michael Clark | Nov 20, 2008 07:14 PM

Since we are no longer melting metal and casting type, can we find another word to replace "foundry". It seems such a silly term for what we do.

James Montalbano | Dec 7, 2008 06:12 AM

Sometimes I'm with you on that, James. Leading too. Then again, it's nice to retain a bit of the past in our lingo to remind us where we came from.

Stephen Coles | Dec 7, 2008 01:05 PM

We still "dial" the phone and "ship" packages, even though there are usually no dials or ships involved. It's just how language works.

Mark Simonson | Dec 18, 2008 10:04 AM