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.
The good news is that shareware is a digital product. There are no delivery or manufacturing costs once bandwidth issues are handled. It costs you little or nothing to get your title into the hands of millions of users. Consider this an enormous source of free advertising.
Download.com shows that over ten million people have downloaded a copy of Spyware Doctor from their site, so far. These free download sites do all your promoting for you because they attract literally millions of visitors a week. Tucow’s Alexa traffic rating is 988 while Download.com’s traffic rating is a phenomenal 89! That means there are only 88 web sites in the software category (that has over 7 million competing web sites) that have more traffic on the Internet. You will want to have your software listed on every site that offers free software to the public.
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.
Shareware Millions Most people are unaware of all the ways someone can make money giving away free software. Here’s some ideas Thomas Deedy told me about that might surprise you as much as it did me.
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.
These developers sell support packages for as much as $150 an hour by charging by the minute. Or, they sell annual support contracts for $250.
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.
For example, you could design the support service so that the client calls a 900 phone line @ $5 a minute or he can purchase a full hour of support for $75 and use it in ten minute increments on an “as-needed” basis.
A more advanced approach is to professionally prepare an installation and support video with actual screen shots from the shareware. You can include a troubleshooting menu and sell the training and support package for $250 including a couple hours of live support if needed.
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.
Plug in the numbers and you wind up with over a million dollars in revenue!
The video/support software concept makes it possible to automate your support business. This work can be outsourced to save you time and aggravation.
You may wish to visit www.elance.com or www.VWorker.com to see about posting a software project. There is no charge to post your project and you’ll be able to look at lots of bids within 24 hours or less.
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.
Try it before you buy it shareware puts the software into the hands of the user risk-free. If they like it they can donate or pay an upgrade fee to get a full-functioning version of the shareware. Many such programs install a donate or upgrade button right in the software.
————————————————————————————————————————– ” 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.” ————————————————————————————————————————–
I would then include three pay links. To contribute $10 click here. To contribute $15 click here. To contribute $25 click here. I would add a bonus of some really nifty software worth several hundred dollars for those who donate $25.
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.
My Advice: Get started on this project right now but avoid creating software that has too narrow a market. You want the most universally needed application you can imagine. You want to create a title that nearly everyone on the Internet knows they need and really wants. You could look at the download numbers and identify a massively popular program and then improve upon it (if that’s possible) by making it more powerful, easier to use or with special features that no other software has.
Here’s a few more ways to earn money giving away software:
1. You’ll want to create a full version and a basic version from the start. Deliver the full version but make it function with an unlock code. Then, when users pay for the upgrade just send them the unlock code.
2. Build an email list by offering something to your customers like an e-zine with insider user tips. Or, simply bribe them by offering them another of your software programs free when they register their copy of XYZ software that they just downloaded. As I said, above, owning a massive opt-in email list can be worth a fortune.
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
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 software consider becoming a shareware posting agent to earn a fee on every paid upgrade. Click on shareware posting agent for complete details. Check here for free reprint licence: How To Make A Small Fortune Giving Away Software!.
