Cory Miller | Adventures in Entrepreneurship » Free WordPress Theme

RockinThemes PR6 Free WordPress Theme Site For Sale

Cory Miller — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 18:42:47 +0000

Nathan and I have decided to put our free WordPress themes site up for sale over at SitePoint. We’ve released more than 40 free themes there and it accelerated our business like no other marketing idea we had.

You can see more details on the auction page, but I wanted to officially announce it here.

We decided to sell the site because we’ve been overly busy with other endeavors (and clients). In other words, our focus has been on other things.

The site has been very good to us since we started it in February and it’ll be hard to depart with it. But we’d love our baby to go to a good home.

Internet Marketing With Blogs Site Launches With a Free Theme

Cory Miller — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:57:05 +0000

I’m pleased to announced the official launch of our Internet Marketing with Blogs website … and with it our first-ever free WordPress theme specifically designed for Internet Marketers.

We’ve designed this first theme to give Internet Marketers an easy way to put up sales pages and manage it all in one place – WordPress!

If you want to download the free theme, go to the IMWB site and download your theme.

Duct Tape Business Blog Theme Released With New Header Logo Image

Cory Miller — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 02:53:54 +0000

Due to popular request, John Jantsch and I have released version two of our Duct Tape Business Blog theme … this time with an editable graphic in the header.

Please note: If you’re not skilled at Photoshop or tweaking a blog, you may want to use the Duct Tape Business Blog theme with the text header.

Key features:

Three column
Web 2.0 look
Widget ready
Header graphic (PSD file included)
125×125 graphical ad ready for your products and services

Take it for a test run here.
Download it here.

This is the support post for this theme. Please report all theme-related issues in the comments below, including the site links and browsers where problem exists. Before commenting, please read this post on issues covered (and not covered) in free theme releases.

Our Free WordPress Themes Site Gets a New Dress

Cory Miller — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 20:28:53 +0000

I just gave RockinThemes, where Nathan and I have launched over 40 free WordPress themes, a new facelift.

The old site was, well, old and outdated. Badly. We’ve got some tweaks still to do but you get the idea.

Here’s a screenshot:

Issues Generally Not Covered in a Free WordPress Theme Release

Cory Miller — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 21:17:39 +0000

After more than 30 free WordPress theme releases to the public (aka community), I’m starting to see a trend in the comments I get in the support posts from users of my free themes.

So I thought I’d take the time — ala this post — to inform my users in particular of what typical issues are included in a free WordPress theme release.

I have written this post for two primary reasons:

1. I need a place to point people to for my future releases so I don’t have to reiterate everything I’ve already done. I’ve seen other designers get so frustrated with the community because of some of the issues I’m going to explain here and I don’t want that burnout to happen to me.

2. I do want to help free theme users get the best help possible. This isn’t just a rant. With new bloggers using WordPress every day, the education process must be continual. Thus, I offer this up to the community as well.

OK, so on to the issues not covered and this post …

ISSUES GENERALLY COVERED IN A FREE THEME RELEASE

Here are a list of things that theme authors, namely me, will usually fix “for free.”

The theme breaks during normal operations in Internet 6, Internet 7 or Firefox
A major theme file is missing, like the comments file, or footer file
WordPress PHP code isn’t working properly or fails

NOTE: Most everything else — i.e. outside of this list — is something you will need to pay me, or another designer to do for you if you can’t do it yourself.

EXAMPLES ISSUES NOT COVERED IN A FREE THEME RELEASE

The header is text and you want an image logo in its place. Or vice versa. The theme was created with that particular design in mind. If you want more, please pay the designer to do that for you.
You tinkered with the code and messed it up. That’s outside the free theme release parameters.
Plugins that you’ve installed but don’t work in the theme. There are literally thousands of free plugins out there. And there is no way a designer can provide a style for them all.
You don’t like a particular style element and want it changed. Like a blockquote, or a headline color.

NOTE: Yet again, In all of these cases, you should hire the designer to do this work for you if you can’t ….

TWO COMMON ISSUES NOT COVERED

You import a photo into a post that is bigger than the content container. Solution: Resize the image and make it smaller.
You install a new plugin or widget and the theme break — not all plugins or widgets, or themes for that matter are created the same. Remember: This is an open source environment. Solution: Don’t use 500 free plugins and expect them all to work simultaneously in your theme.

HOW TO GET THE BEST THEME SUPPORT

To get the best support for a theme-related problem, please include as much detail as possible in the comment post, including the website address where the problem exists and the web browser where the problem is seen.

ONE BIG KEY PIECE OF ADVICE FOR ALL FREE THEME USERS

If you have a theme-related problem … but you have taken off the author/credit links on the bottom of the theme on your site … don’t expect the designer to help you. This has happened to me several times.

Someone asks for help, then I visit the site to see what the problem is … only to find out they have done me the disservice of taking off the only thing I ask them to keep — credit for the work I’ve done.

OK, that’s it so far … I’ll continue to update this post as I run into more issues.

COACHING VIA CHAT

Do you just need someone to help walk you through some of the harder issues of tweaking your theme? Try our coaching via chat service. Contact us today to find out rates for this service.

Direct Response Web 2.0 Free WordPress Theme

Cory Miller — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 02:44:55 +0000

In collaboration with copywriter Ray Edwards, we’re releasing a free WordPress theme based on the custom blog design I created for him — called Direct Response Web 2.0.

Key features:

Web 2.0 look
Widget ready
Two columns

Download the theme here.

This will be the support post for this theme. Please report all theme-related problems here, including site links and browsers where problems may exist. Check out this post for a better explanation of what is and is not covered in this free theme release.

RockinChrome Is Here: My Dark, Three Column Free Theme Released

Cory Miller — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:10:25 +0000

I’m finally releasing another free WordPress theme called RockinChrome …

It’s a dark and sleek, three column theme, with black, grey and red colors … with some advanced features included to customize it just the way you want it.

Here’s a screenshot:

Key features:

Dark theme with grey and red accents
Custom PSD graphic files included
Three columns
Widget ready

Take this theme for a test spin here (demo)
Download this theme here

This is the support post for this theme. Please report all theme-related problems, including the site URL, browser used and any other pertinent information in the comments.

Duct Tape Marketing Business Blog WordPress Theme Released

Cory Miller — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 15:59:44 +0000

In collaboration with John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing, I’m releasing a new free WordPress theme called Duct Tape Business Blog.

Key features include:

Three column layout
Newspaper and magazine Web 2.0 feel
Widget ready
Built-in date stamp on top for fresh appeal
Ready for your in-house products and services ads

Take the theme for a test run here.

This is the theme’s support post. Please report all theme-related problems here in the comments, noting your site link, browser used and specific problem. Please read this post for what is and is not covered in a free WordPress theme release.

Get 40-Plus Free WordPress Themes In One Rockin’ Super Download

Cory Miller — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 03:24:13 +0000

Nathan and I have posted one super big, heavy duty zip file that contains more than 40 free WordPress themes — all our releases to date.

Download this 11mb download here!

All our themes are widget ready, cross-browser tested … the zip file gives you all 40-plus themes individual folders, ready for upload when unzipped.

Clean Copy 2 and 3 Column Free WordPress Theme Released

Cory Miller — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:30:48 +0000

I just collaborated with copywriter Michel Fortin for two more free WordPress themes: Clean Copy 2, a two column, right sidebar theme … and Clean Copy Full, a three column version.

DOWNLOAD ALL THREE THEMES HERE

Here are screenshots of the themes, along with test run and download links:

DOWNLOAD ALL THREE THEMES HERE