How to Become an Author at TemplateMonster, ThemeForest and CreativeMarket Without Losing One’s Temper

Being a manufacturer/producer is a tough job, you need to put every effort possible into trying to create a product that will be better that its competitors.

Unfortunately, some people don’t bother polishing their products which is why forums covering all marketplaces are echoing with the groans of authors whose products have been soundly rejected. Recently ThemeForest applied a new policy to such authors.

They get banned for 6 months.

According to Envato, they are actually doing those authors a favor so they are able to fix mistakes, improve their skills and make their products better.

Unfortunately, this new ruling affected lots of authors whose products were getting lots of sales and were appreciated just for what they were. Why did this happen?

Envato devised some sort of equation that calculated the ban probability by dividing the number of uploaded products during the last 6 months by the number of soft rejects.

Meaning that if you uploaded 5 products over the last 6 months and a mere half of them required some modifications, then you’re banned from uploading new products over the next 6 months.

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What should these authors do?

1. During this period authors should improve their products and hone their skills if they still want their products to be accepted into the Envato marketplace.
2. Explore other marketplaces. ThemeForest is an old marketplace which has both positive and negative aspects, so if you think your product is good enough you can try your luck selling your digital items at TemplateMonster or CreativeMarket.

So what is this piece all about?

I’d like to show you the differences between these three marketplaces from the perspective of the author so that you can understand which of these three fits you the best. Let’s roll.

TemplateMonster

Yeah, that's us.

We became a marketplace not so long ago, but have already helped lots of makers to make substantial amounts of cash. Check out some author success stories here.

How do you become an author and to upload your first product to the TemplateMonster web templates marketplace?

1. Create an account
2. When you login, in the left menu find the item Become an author.
   
   
   
3. Now you can upload your product as a .ZIP file, but before that you need to find the product archive requirements. There’s nothing special, just make sure that all files inside the archive are structured according to the requirements in the manual.
4. After all files are structured the right way you can upload your ZIP.
   
   
   
5. At the same moment when you start uploading your archive with source files, product information fields will be revealed. You need to fill in all those fields if you want your product to have a decent representation in our marketplace.
   
   
   
   These fields contain basic information about your product including name, description, product type and list of files included in the pack.
6. The next three fields include the following info
   
   
   
7. The next set of fields is about your support. In the event, you rarely leave your workstation you can set a 1 hour response time.
   
   
   
8. As for me, these steps are the most important ones. Here you need to create awesome graphics for your product
   
   
   
   To clarify the meaning of termf for these images.“Main image” is the one you see when you visit any product page, it’s the largest image at the top of the page.Resolution is 800 x 1200 px. Maximum size of the image: 30 Mb
   
   
   
   “Slider images” are a set of 4 items above the main image.Minimum resolution is 965 x 600 px, maximum resolution is 1930 x 1200 px. Maximum size of any image: 30 Mb
   
   
   
   “Presentational images” are the largest images on the whole page, make sure you adhere to the tooltips stating the minimal resolution of these images.Minimum resolution is 2560 x 100 px, maximum width is 5120 px. Maximum size of any image: 30 Mb
   
9. Assuming you have filled in all these fields and created images for as required, you can now press the button.
   
   
   
10. After that, your product will move to the second step
    
    
    

When our review team checks your product you will receive an email notifying you that your product either requires modification or is ready to be published right away.

There may appear an impression that this process is quite easy, and you know what? It’s easy. Make sure you stick to the rules and don’t act irresponsibly.

You may be aware that our marketplace team claims that a product review takes 1 business day, but that all depends on your product. If you’re going to sell a font, then the review will take just a few hours; if it’s a package of illustrations, no longer than 2 hours; but if it’s a robust CMS template the review may take up to 1 business day.

Just be patient and don’t lose your temper. Now let’s have a look at what’s inside the ThemeForest author admin.

ThemeForest

The process of product uploading is practically the same, but there’s a snag. You need to read lots of articles in their help section if you want to have your product approved from the first shot.

The number of requirements they have is astonishing, but despite that, some crappy products somehow get published and sold.

The process of becoming an author is similar to the one described above. First of all, you need to...

1. ...register.
   
   
   
2. Some simple manipulations will help yo<u+0433> find the author dashboard inside the account.
   
   
   
   </u+0433>
3. Hit Dashboard and you’ll be redirected to the page where you can upload the product.
   
   
   
4. Time to upload your first item.
   
   
   
5. When you choose the product category, you will see this notification.
   
   
   
   This is the biggest difference between the TemplateMonster marketplace and Envato. Being an author at our marketplace you can upload as many products as you have at once, and our team will review them one by one without any unnecessary delays.
   
6. After clicking Next you’ll be redirected to the product upload and information filling step. For your convenience the page is divided into 7 parts:
   
   1. Name & Description
   2. Supporting your item
   3. Files
   4. Category & Attributes
   5. Tags
   6. Set Your Price (US$)
   7. Message to the Reviewer
      
      Before you start they suggest that you read their information for authors
      
      
      
      Take it from me, you need to read these FAQ’s if you want to have your products approved. Every part of the product upload has a help article linked to it.
7. The file upload process differs a little bit from the one you’ve seen above.
   
   
   
   If working with our marketplace you need to upload your archive first, and images later, but here you can upload all files (zip + presentation images) using one button Choose File.
   
8. In the next part, you need to set the various attributes of your template.
   
   
   
9. And the last two items are the tags and the price.
   
   
   
10. When you have finished filling in all the fields you can upload your product for a review.
    
    
    

And here comes the moment when you have to be patient.

ThemeForest is known for its extremely long product review process, may take up to 1 month.

Here’s a suggestion. If you have 5 products you want to sell at various marketplaces, you can start by submitting them to ThemeForest, and then you can go to TemplateMonster.

Still, it’s up to you to decide from where you want to start.

Let’s move on.

CreativeMarket

Why do you think CreativeMarket is the last on my list?

In case you were unaware, you won’t be able to sell your products at Creative Market unless you are approved as a seller.

The process is quite simple, but still a lot of those who wish to participate get rejected.

There are two possible reasons for that:

• either the cover letter was written in poor English and those who read it didn’t understand you;
• or your portfolio has products that leave much to be desired.

Still, I’m here not to justify or evaluate your English or portfolio, I’m here to show you the differences or similarities in author/author/seller dashboards.

Let’s see what's inside the Creative Market seller dashboard.

When you get your invite, your user profile will be upgraded to a Store.

As a store, several new menu items will be added.

When you press Add New Product you will see this screen.

As you can see there are 8 types of product details you need to fill in.

1. Product name.
2. Choose main and sub-category.
3. Add at least 5 product images.
4. Describe your product.
5. Upload an archive with product files.
6. Set the price.
7. Add some product properties aka features.
8. Add up to 20 keywords.

When you’re done, change the product status to live...and that’s it.

Your product goes live immediately and appears on your storefront.

And now comes the madness.

The second spot on the top 3 list of the CreativeMarket forum is “When should I expect the first sales?”

If you are lucky to be included in the handpicked section, your first sales will happen quite quickly, but if you are going to find leads on your own, the process can drag on for years...

Summing up

Hear me now! I'm not trying to recruit you, I'm just giving you an unbiased opinion about these there pillars of digital products.

You're the one to decide where you want to sell your products.

Good luck!