This is something I do. Here's my site: http://www.eswsoftware.com/
I think the biggest issue is getting people to find out about your products.
I started with one and have extended the range to a small handful by now.
I've found that when a tag is listed as new on the Macromedia exchange,
sales shoot up, then when it disappears they drop almost to nothing. I've
also found a very high cross-selling rate: it's much easier to sell to
existing (happy) customers. It's simply not true that if you build something
good, people will come. I would recommend giving away a few simpler tags too
so that developers come to see your site as a resource rather than just a
shop, and so that developers can get a feel for the quality of your
products.
The second big issue is support. Your apps need to be bulletproof, tested on
a variety of environments, or at least be very clear about where they won't
work. If it's not tested on BlueDragon or CF5 then say so (none of my apps
work on BD yet due to very subtle language differences). If they're not well
tested you'll end up putting more time into support and your customers will
be less happy. It's less work to fix a problem before release than after.
Also customers will expect a fairly high level of flexibility as far as
functionality and visual appearance. Then when you make the product
flexible, they may say it's too complicated. Finally: documentation. Without
good documentation every second person will ask you the same question. If I
sell a product for $30 and then spend an hour helping somebody solve a
problem (which I often do: I was up until 1:30 last night helping somebody
out on the other side of the world) then I'm getting paid for my time but
not for the tag development itself. It's something you want to try to avoid.
I find most support issues come from the two ends of the skill spectrum: the
CF newbies who hope your tag will save them from having to learn too much CF
(fair enough, but it can be frustrating when you discover they don't even
know how to call a custom tag) and the power users who find the bugs and
come up with lots of ideas.
I wouldn't see it as a quick way to make money. It can be very rewarding
though.
[Todays Threads] [This Message] [Subscription] [Fast Unsubscribe] [User Settings] [Donations and Support]
