How To Make A Small Fortune Giving Away Software!
You are familiar with shareware, who isn’t? But, did you know that shareware titles may be downloaded over a million times a week? For example, last time I checked on www.tucows.com a title called Spyware Doctor 3.2 was downloaded around half a million times every week. A free shareware antivirus program called AVG AntiVirus Free Edition was being downloaded well over a million times a week from www.Download.com alone!
Now, think about this for a moment. If you had 500,000+ people looking at your product every week do you believe you could think of a way to make some money?
Learn what millionaire shareware developers already know. Here are some tips: 1. You can acquire the rights to an existing shareware program. Some developers create great programs but fail to promote them. Sometimes you can purchase the source code very inexpensively.
Secondly, if you find a niche market and a title you wish to develop make sure it out-competes and out performs the nearest competition. You want a product that is so far better than the shareware that’s on the market that word of mouth promotes it for you.
Shareware is an information product that can be delivered instantly and for little or no cost to you, the creator. Once in the hands of millions of users it can become one of the most efficient advertising platforms available!
The download numbers for titles like Spyware Doctor are astronomical! Download.com shows over 10,000,000 downloads so far. Sites like www.download.com get so much traffic that their Alexa ranking is among the best of any site on the Internet. If your shareware is listed on hundreds if not thousands of download/shareware sites your download numbers can soar.
Were you to search for free software, shareware or freeware on Google you’d no doubt see over a million sites listed. Simply by posting your shareware titles using a PAD file to numerous shareware sites you can get the benefit of free promotion.
Can You Get Rich With Shareware? Mr. Thomas Deedy, a developer and closet genius, revealed many ways that shareware developers make money giving away software.
There are several powerful income generators that you could employ. For example, if you create a complicated program that has many applications you may want to offer paid support services. Some developers know the answers to every possible complication in the installation, development or on-going operation of their software. So, they create a powerful trouble-shooting menu tree that any technical person can follow.
You can actually sell support by the minute, hour or for an annual fee. You can install your trouble-shooting tree on a site accessible only by support staff. The database of solutions keeps growing until there is virtually no problem that a mildly technical support person can suss out by following the support issue tree.
When the database of issues is about as complete as it can get the support system can charge, say $10 per issue. But, it will only take the staff a couple of seconds to look up the solution and deliver it. So, they make money all day long.
Believe it or not 900 numbers can be a profit source with support. The user simply picks up the phone and is charged either by the minute of a flat fee.
On an expensive program you could sell a support package that includes video and troubleshooting software. For a shareware program that might sell for $2500 at retail you could easily sell this package for $250.
So, imagine you’ve got a valuable business application that should sell on the open market for $2500 but since it is free around 250,000 people download it. If just 2% of those people decide to opt for the support package @ $250 you’d have a winner.
Do the math: 5000 orders @ $250 each is $1,250,000 in gross sales!
If you outsource the production of the video and support software you have just developed an automated way to monetize your shareware that could make you a millionaire.
Sound interesting? Why not visit www.elance.com or www.Vworker.com? You can enter a project proposal free of charge and have professional coders bidding to work with you within 24 hours. Outsourcing to coders in other countries can be very reasonable.
Once your shareware has been created and tested you own the rights. That means you can license the program to other companies to collect royalties on all their sales or agree that you will provide support services and keep 100% of the revenues from support.
I believe shareware development may be one of the best ways to build a million dollar revenue but you need few technical skills to succeed.
Simpler shareware programs don’t require much if any support but they can be equally profitable.
One way is simply to ask users for a monetary contribution, a donation, within the software. By inserting a pay-link for a donation to support the programmer many people who like the software will decide to contribute five, ten or twenty dollars. After all, they’ve received really useful software at no charge and they want to encourage the programmer to support his software and come out with newer, improved editions. And, that is exactly what programmers say:
————————————————————————————————————————– ” Please support my efforts to provide users with support and improve this software with a small donation. In return, you’ll receive a link to an extensive tutorial, help files and you’ll be advised when you can download the latest updated version of XYZ software. You’ll receive lifetime updates all for your small contribution of $10 or more.” ————————————————————————————————————————–
It is easy to setup a donate button using PayPal. Set up three buttons if you like starting with $5 and go on up.
Part of the value of using an upgrade or donate button is that you capture the emails of your users. You can build a wopping big subscriber list which may actually be worth more than the donation. A good opt-in list can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.
When you are ready to get started with your own shareware project look for a broad niche that has a real need. Research the competition and make your shareware better with more power and features.
Other ways to make money with shareware:
1. Include an upgrade option. Let your customer download a pretty cool basic version for free; then show him that there is a new, improved and five times more powerful version available for just $39.95 that includes lifetime support and upgrades. If you add enough valuable features and show that they can’t really live without the more powerful version your sales will go through the roof!
2. Offer other shareware to users just for subscribing. The bigger your subscriber list the more money you can make. Sell some of your more powerful titles.
3. I created a free lesson creator and reader for students. Then, I set it up so that teachers could purchase a much more powerful lesson creator which would enable them to create Advanced Lessons that they can sell on my site. I share the revenue from these Advanced Lessons. See www.Tutorbug.com
Don’t hesitate to tackle your first shareware project. Use professional coders and be innovative and you’ll soon see that there are many ways to make a small fortune with shareware.
Before you spend your hard eanred money creating software consider becoming a shareware distributor to earn a fee on every paid upgrade. Click on SHAREWARE DISTRIBUTOR for complete details.
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