Source Code Millions
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!
Many shareware titles never hit these big download numbers but what if you had a title that got downloaded just 100,000 times every week. Could you make some money with it?
Here are a few ideas how you can make money with shareware: First, you need the rights to a universally needed software program. Look for an application that most everyone on the Internet has a need for. However, there are plenty of niche markets with extremely high demand as well. Research the categories that are in high demand.
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2. Research your market to see what the competition is doing. If the market is big enough you may decide to spend the time and money to improve on the most popular title out there. Get lots of free publicity with word of mouth advertising by developing a five star shareware program.
Remember two things. First, software is a digital product. Your cost per unit is zero because sites like tucows and http://www.download.com/ are only too happy to provide the bandwidth resources so that millions of people can download your software.
With over ten million people having downloaded Spyware Doctor so far you can see that the traffic to a site like www.Download.com is enormous putting their Alexa traffic ranking around 89. Post your shareware to similar shareware sites to have a chance of having your title downloaded a lot.
Millions of sites are listed when you search under the terms free software, shareware or freeware. So, for you to get maximum exposure the key is to post your title to the most shareware sites possible.
Show Me The Money! When I was a bit less informed I asked my personal computer/Internet guru, Thomas Deedy, how these software developers made any money. His answer opened my eyes.
One of Tom's favorite ways to monetize shareware is to offer support services. This is the "real" business and the shareware is just the means to feed it. Your technical person collects every possible support issue and puts them into a support database "solution tree". Then, this tree is the way support staff troubleshoot problems.
Then, they sell support packages at $50 to $150 an hour. The developer installs the trouble-shooting menu tree software on the computers of a support staff. He hires a programmer who may be constantly working to refine and improve the software to manage the support room. He provides the support when the trouble shooting menu doesn't have all the answers.
Of course, every time that happens the programmer adds that problem or glitch to the trouble shooting menu until it is a rare day indeed when someone asks a question that has never come up before. When a customer encounters a problem he clicks on "help" (from within the software) and finds out that support is happily available for a modest fee by "clicking here". He pays for support by the minute or by the hour.
Some support services even use 900 numbers and charge per call. Or, they precharge for X number of hours of support. It is like a reserve account and users use it if needed.
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.
Companies are more than happy to pay $250 for a support package like this. The numbers could get very exciting if your shareware was downloaded 250,000 times and only 2% purchased support.
That works out to 5000 orders for the video and trouble-shooting software @ $250 each or $1,250,000!
If you handle it this way you can actually automate the entire business and your costs are limited to the initial development costs for the software and the cost to create a powerful video tutorial and help file. You can outsource all this work simply by creating a detailed flow chart of exactly what you want the program to accomplish and how you envision it working for customers.
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.
This may be America's easiest way to become a multimillionaire and you don't even have to be a programmer to do it!
Simpler shareware programs don't require much if any support but they can be equally profitable.
Many programs are offered on a free trial basis. After 30 to 40 days the program requires you to register and pay the license fee or it expires. Or, you can set up a "DONATE BUTTON" and collect donations. As an incentive offer your users unlimited access to any upgrades plus some support for their modest donation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " 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." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can leave the amount of the donation up to the user but I recommend putting in three contribution levels: A $5 donate button, a $10 donate button and a $25 button that offers bonus software valued at hundreds of dollars at that level.
You can be sure a substantial number of people will contribute $$ but the capturing of the user's name and email address may ultimately be worth more than the donation. Anyone who can build a massive opt-in emailing list has the potential to earn roughly a dollar per name per month. Major players like Mark Joyner built lists of around a million names. A single email to his list could generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales.
If you'd like to become a shareware millionaire try and find an application that will have wide-spread appeal. Look at what others have done and then do it better.
Here's a few more ways to earn money giving away software:
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 lesson authoring software to make free lessons. You could download it free. But, I also made an upgrade version that permitted the teacher to make Super Lessons that could be sold on my site. So, I make money from people purchasing the Professional Lesson Authoring Software for $1995 and from sale of the Super Lessons. Of course I split the revenue for the Super Lessons with the authors of these lessons. See www.Tutorbug.com
Yes, some of these ideas will take effort and cash to set up. But, I believe this may be one of the most realistic ways an ordinary person can become a millionaire almost overnight.
Before you spend your hard eanred money creating killer software titles consider becoming a shareware posting agent to earn a fee on every paid upgrade. Click on shareware posting agent for complete details. This article, Source Code Millions has free reprint rights.