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$ cat selling-jekyll-themes.md

I spent a few hours reverse-engineering what makes Jekyll themes sell on jekyllthemes.io. Here’s what I found.

The conversion checklist

Every theme listing that performs well has five things in common:

1. A live demo link — the single biggest conversion driver. No demo, no sale.
2. Dark mode — the dev audience expects it. Not having it feels unfinished.
3. “No jQuery” or “Vanilla JS” in the feature list — developers notice and it builds trust.
4. GitHub Pages compatible stated explicitly — saves buyers a support headache.
5. 3–5 quality screenshots — desktop and mobile, ideally showing light and dark modes.

If your listing has all five, you’re already ahead of 70% of the competition.

The gap in the market

Most paid Jekyll themes cluster in a few categories: minimal blog, portfolio, documentation. The themes that sell at premium prices are the ones with no direct competition.

Here are the genuine white spaces I found:

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$ grep -c "terminal" jekyllthemes-paid.txt
0
$ grep -c "glassmorphism" jekyllthemes-paid.txt
0
$ grep -c "cyberpunk" jekyllthemes-paid.txt
0

Aesthetic niches with zero paid alternatives and real demand. That’s where we’re building.

Pricing

The market has a clear sweet spot at $49 — over 40 themes sit at this price. Entry level is $19–29 for docs/simple blogs. Premium tops out at $99 for multipurpose themes with 20+ layout variations.

For a single focused theme with a distinctive aesthetic, $49 is correct.

Build order matters

Don’t build 10 themes then try to sell all of them at once. Build one, get it live, submit it, get your first reviews, then build the next.

A single theme with 5 reviews converts better than 10 themes with none.

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$ echo "ship one, learn, repeat"
ship one, learn, repeat
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$ cat welcome.md

Thanks for picking up jekyll-terminal-theme. This post is a quick orientation to everything the theme gives you out of the box.

File structure

After you drop the theme files into your repo, you’ll have:

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.
├── _config.yml        ← start here — all your customisation lives here
├── _layouts/          ← default, home, post, page
├── _includes/         ← header, footer, head
├── _posts/            ← your markdown posts go here
├── _sass/             ← all styles (don't need to touch these)
├── assets/
│   ├── css/main.scss  ← SASS entry point
│   └── js/terminal.js ← boot sequence, copy buttons, keyboard shortcuts
├── index.html
├── about.md
├── archive.md
└── tags.md

Configuring the theme

Open _config.yml and find the terminal: block:

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terminal:
  username: "you"
  hostname: "blog"
  prompt_char: "$"
  color_scheme: "green"   # green | amber | blue | white
  show_boot_sequence: true
  scanlines: true
  crt_glow: true
  cursor_blink: true

Change username and hostname to match your setup — these appear in the header prompt: you@blog:~ $.

Color schemes

Four built-in color schemes are available:

Switch by editing color_scheme in _config.yml.

Keyboard shortcuts

The theme adds a few shortcuts your readers will appreciate:

Writing posts

Create a file in _posts/ following the standard Jekyll naming convention:

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_posts/YYYY-MM-DD-your-post-title.md

Front matter:

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---
layout: post
title: "Your Post Title"
date: 2024-01-15 09:00:00 +0000
tags: [one, two]
description: "A short summary for SEO and the post list."
---

That’s all you need to get started. Enjoy the theme — and if you run into anything, open an issue on GitHub.

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