How lucrative is it to sell your fonts?

[Psymon]

Hey, folks!

I've been working on a set of historical fonts for ages now, based on a 16th century design, and I've been debating with myself for almost the whole time over whether to try selling them, or just give them away for free. I've known some other professional type designers who are quite well-established, whose fonts are used all over the place, but they told me that they hardly make anything at all from their royalties for font sales (through MyFonts or wherever else), maybe $40/month or so on average.

I seriously doubt that my fonts will be as popular as theirs are -- I don't think there's much of a market out there for historical fonts (as opposed to, say, a nice text font, or a fancy script or calligraphic font). My friends seemed to indicate that they made their living mainly from custom design work, and their interest in font design was more for the fun of it than for the money of it.

Is that really the case, that it's not all that lucrative a business?

[Erwin Denissen]

We don't sell fonts, but I know some people did really well, creating and selling fonts which they designed with FontCreator. Just like in any other business, some are successful. The only way to find out if you're one of them, is to give it a shot.

[Psymon]

Not much to add to that, I guess -- other than that we need a "like" button on here for posts.