Re: OFF TOPIC: Success with shareware
Re: OFF TOPIC: Success with shareware
- Subject: Re: OFF TOPIC: Success with shareware
- From: Rainer Brockerhoff <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 18:50:19 -0300
At 05:31 -0700 10/08/2002, email@hidden wrote:
>
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 17:49:48 +0930
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Subject: OFF TOPIC: Success with shareware
>
>
Can anybody give any guides as to what percentage of people who download
>
a shareware program actually choose to buy it. Obviously this varies
>
greatly, I just want an idea of what expectations I should have, what to
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aim for, how much effort I should put into a project at the expense of
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other work. Is >1% dreaming, is > a possible outcome.
I think this is mildly on-topic - many on the list are shareware developers, after all.
Anyway, no idea if my experience is typical. My first Cocoa shareware application, XRay, took 10 months to get out of beta. I probably dedicated around 40% of my time to it - say 4 man-months. 4% of the people who downloaded it during the first month registered it. Afterwards, I've dedicated about an hour per day to user support and getting the word out, and am working on a major revision in my copious free time - say another 3 man-months so far.
After the first month, downloads and registrations decreased logarithmically, picking up again briefly whenever somebody reviewed it on the net, so proper marketing and press relationships seem to be extremely important.
After a few more months it was published on several magazine CDROMs, so any meaningful relationship between downloads and registrations was lost. I suspect that on the average 2% of downloaders have registered, and that registrations from magazine copies outnumber those from downloaders about 5 to 1.
Was it worth my time? Definitely yes. I have learned a lot about Cocoa and Unix, made many new friends, and my income was somewhat above what I would have made had I lucked on a good 6-months consulting job - and those are scarce these days.
You mileage will probably vary. There are good articles out there with hints for would-be shareware authors... always worth a read.
I'd be interested in other shareware author's experiences, too.
--
Rainer Brockerhoff <email@hidden>
Belo Horizonte, Brazil
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by" (Douglas Adams)
http://www.brockerhoff.net/ (updated July 2002)
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