Packaging WordPress Themes for Sale

Premium WordPress themes are the way to go, if one is serious about his Blog/website. What set’s Premium themes apart from others is the customer support, valid XHTML and CSS, more features and functionalities (like shortcodes, page templates, color schemes, easy customizability)  and its packaging. Packaging being an important factor, and for some the deciding factor.
So after developing the theme, one need to think about some questions like:

• Is the theme really ready to be released ?
• Will the theme zip include PSD (Photoshop file)
• Will it contain theme documentation, if yes, then in which format ?
• Will it contain any file for license
• Will it contain any readme file

ok, so let’s understand each point in detail.

Think and brainstorm. Is the theme really ready to be released ?
One advise worth taking. Don’t hurry. One can’t go far if the final product is buggy. So think again if you have done thorough testing, or if it still requires some more testing. It won’t hurt anyone if the product takes some more time to get released, but it will definitely hurt to release a buggy product and thereby harming hard earned reputation. So instead of hurrying, take some more time to test the theme, or hire some Beta testers, who know what they are doing. Sometimes as a developer, you may have much confidence over the product and may even think that it works perfectly, but still you may miss out something. Therefore, hire some people to test out the theme.

Do you want to include PSD file ?
Well, the final decision rests with the developer. There are some strategies and points to consider here. Some developers may even sell their PSD file differently, and some advertise as “PSD included in the theme”. Ofcourse, including PSD file will be an extra plus point for your theme. Those users who know Photoshop, may want to delve in changing colors, icons and images and see how it looks like, and if satisfied then they can apply the same changes in the theme through coding.

Theme Documentation:
Some developers/theme companies include the theme documentation in the package. In most cases, its in PDF format. Some may even have special member’s area, for which user’s who have purchased the theme need to login first and then view the theme documentation. Providing members with some special tutorials, how-to’s and guides can even encourage users to purchase the theme, and thereby succeeds in eradicating piracy of the theme and downloading from illegal sources (to some extent).

License and readme file:
If you’ve come this far, then most probably you must have decided which license to adopt, and if you’ve not yet  decided then now is the time to do so. Decide if you want the theme to be GPL, split GPL (like thesis), or non GPL. Some theme Premium theme companies have adopted GPL license which complies with WordPress, however some may even present a twist, that only PHP is GPL, and images, CSS and artworks are proprietary. So its really important to know what you are doing. It would also benefit others to include a readme file for the license, so that user’s who don’t take the time to read about licensing terms can read this file and understand it. If interested then also read this article on understanding copyright and licenses.

Let’s clean up the theme:
Clean up the code. Remove unnecessary files which are no longer required. Be sure to check each and every folder for any unused file, as that may add up to the size of the theme’s zip. Also remove any SVN files and cache files (when using Time thumb script, it creates temporary files in cache folder). These are small things but somehow get skipped and really looks unprofessional if found in the theme. So be sure to clean up the code.

The final checking:
Last but not least, after spending all that countless hours on developing the theme, you don’t want to mess up anything, agree?. Therefore, do a final check. It would also help if you have made a checklist, which would state what to check when launching a theme. It shouldn’t be a long checklist, but just a short one, with check marks and points, so that you can just check mark the points which are completed, somewhat like to-do lists with check boxes.
Finally, its YOU, who needs to decide which way to go, what to bundle, and what not, and which strategy to adopt. Now that you are armed with all the information, go ahead and zip that folder (don’t use RAR).
That’s done. The package is ready to be delivered. In the end quality matters, not quantity. Bug free coding can improve the sales, while a theme with many bugs can hurt the reputation (which isn’t good for long run).
[author id="saqib"]