I've got an offer to be in the Free App a Day at Amazon again. They are even scheduling a phone call to discuss it with me personally.
I wanted to mention that there are several ways in which they are more reasonable than last time. They give an idea of what volume to expect: up to 75,000. They warn you to expect a large increase in users on the day you are feature d, so keep this in mind with your backend services. Instead of telling you how lucky you are that they aren't charging you, they are actually paying 20% royalties, but only on the first 3750 of sales on the free day. Asuming you did get 75,000 users, you are getting paid 1% of your list price for each sale. This is probably a good deal for someone, but it is still not for me because of the following: 1. I do rely on backend servers, but I don't control all of them and can't exactly beef them up. Some are government servers, and already have reliability issues. A similar app took the deal in May, and was eaten alive in the comments when the servers were overloaded on the big day. 2. I don't think I can make a profit at .10 instead of $10 per user. They are a net cost. 3. Uncommitted users, those who buy an app just because its free, are likely to be negative. They may not even participate in the hobbies enjoyed by my real target market.They won't understand why anyone would ever pay for the app and they will say as muchint he comments. 4. I don't have a lot of vested interest in selling more on Amazon. The deal requires staying on Amazon for three months more. So far, I believe that Amazon sales are simply cannibalizing Market sales. Amazon's tablet doesn't have a GPS, and I doubt I will sell many there. 5. I don't have a healthy downstream revenue to make money off those users. Despite the Market's crappy support for inapp purchases, I am making some progress at providing some addons. But I am a long way from making as much from inapp purchase as on the sale itself, and even farther from being able to give my app away free and make enough on the addons. My inapp purchase links, incidentally, have been flagged twice in Amazon's approval process, but they've let them slide on appeal. Just my notes in case others are faced with these messages or calls. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en.
