Selling shareware stuff
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I'm now out of University (just awaiting results now, 25th of this month is the big day). Whilst I try and hunt down some kind of employment I was considering improving some of the controls I've written articles about on CP, adding more features, improving the code etc. and then selling them through any of the online shareware sites. I'm not really too worried about which service to use (I've found that eSellerate provide automatic payments to my bank, so they seem pretty good so far), but it's more general advice from those who've done something similar - any pitfalls, ideas? [Update] Incidentally, I was going to leave the articles as they are up here (instead of asking them to be removed), and focusing on improving the code, features etc. so that they would become more of a commercial standard -- they're pretty barebones at present. [Update] -- Paul "Put the key of despair into the lock of apathy. Turn the knob of mediocrity slowly and open the gates of despondency - welcome to a day in the average office." - David Brent, from "The Office" MS Messenger: paul@oobaloo.co.uk
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I'm now out of University (just awaiting results now, 25th of this month is the big day). Whilst I try and hunt down some kind of employment I was considering improving some of the controls I've written articles about on CP, adding more features, improving the code etc. and then selling them through any of the online shareware sites. I'm not really too worried about which service to use (I've found that eSellerate provide automatic payments to my bank, so they seem pretty good so far), but it's more general advice from those who've done something similar - any pitfalls, ideas? [Update] Incidentally, I was going to leave the articles as they are up here (instead of asking them to be removed), and focusing on improving the code, features etc. so that they would become more of a commercial standard -- they're pretty barebones at present. [Update] -- Paul "Put the key of despair into the lock of apathy. Turn the knob of mediocrity slowly and open the gates of despondency - welcome to a day in the average office." - David Brent, from "The Office" MS Messenger: paul@oobaloo.co.uk
Getting listed on www.componentsource.com [^]is a good idea - Have a look at the other controls on there to give you an idea of prices, escrow agreements, site licenses etc. Think carefully about your support offering, do you want people phoning you at odd hours of the morning, or are you going to offer email only or forum-only support? DON'T underprice yourself. When it comes to controls, people are reassured by price. As the beer advert goes; "Reassuringly expensive" :) I use esellerate as well, they offer a good service. Use them for the payment processing, I'd be reluctant about putting the 'esellerate seller' into any of your products, especially if they're components. Look at using something like Armadillo to protect your code. There, that's all the knowledge I'm going to share at this point. If you want to know more, then join the ASP... www.asp-shareware.org[^] ;P John www.silveronion.com[^]
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Getting listed on www.componentsource.com [^]is a good idea - Have a look at the other controls on there to give you an idea of prices, escrow agreements, site licenses etc. Think carefully about your support offering, do you want people phoning you at odd hours of the morning, or are you going to offer email only or forum-only support? DON'T underprice yourself. When it comes to controls, people are reassured by price. As the beer advert goes; "Reassuringly expensive" :) I use esellerate as well, they offer a good service. Use them for the payment processing, I'd be reluctant about putting the 'esellerate seller' into any of your products, especially if they're components. Look at using something like Armadillo to protect your code. There, that's all the knowledge I'm going to share at this point. If you want to know more, then join the ASP... www.asp-shareware.org[^] ;P John www.silveronion.com[^]
Thanks for the pointers, one other quick point, any thoughts about license agreements? Is it necessary to go to the lengths of getting one written by a lawyer, or is it better to write out a list of terms etc. and just get agreement from the user at time of purchase etc.? Again, thanks for the links. -- Paul "Put the key of despair into the lock of apathy. Turn the knob of mediocrity slowly and open the gates of despondency - welcome to a day in the average office." - David Brent, from "The Office" MS Messenger: paul@oobaloo.co.uk
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Thanks for the pointers, one other quick point, any thoughts about license agreements? Is it necessary to go to the lengths of getting one written by a lawyer, or is it better to write out a list of terms etc. and just get agreement from the user at time of purchase etc.? Again, thanks for the links. -- Paul "Put the key of despair into the lock of apathy. Turn the knob of mediocrity slowly and open the gates of despondency - welcome to a day in the average office." - David Brent, from "The Office" MS Messenger: paul@oobaloo.co.uk
License agreements are fairly standard. There should be no need to go through a lawyer (unless your type of product or licensing is significantly different to everybody else) Best thing to do is 'borrow' a license agreement from a similar product, and modify it to suit your requirements. If you want, you can ask the original author for permission (I did this once when I liked the look of a license agreement, turned out it is more or less the same agreement doing the rounds everywhere!) The sort of license agreement I'm talking about here is the one that appears in a dialog box during installation, nobody reads it :rolleyes:, but they have to click the 'I agree' button to continue the installation. You might want to have it in a readme.txt or in the help docs somewhere as well. There are some public newsgroups over at the ASP if you want some extra advice on this one. Oh, and by the way.. I am not a lawyer... ;P John www.silveronion.com[^]
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Getting listed on www.componentsource.com [^]is a good idea - Have a look at the other controls on there to give you an idea of prices, escrow agreements, site licenses etc. Think carefully about your support offering, do you want people phoning you at odd hours of the morning, or are you going to offer email only or forum-only support? DON'T underprice yourself. When it comes to controls, people are reassured by price. As the beer advert goes; "Reassuringly expensive" :) I use esellerate as well, they offer a good service. Use them for the payment processing, I'd be reluctant about putting the 'esellerate seller' into any of your products, especially if they're components. Look at using something like Armadillo to protect your code. There, that's all the knowledge I'm going to share at this point. If you want to know more, then join the ASP... www.asp-shareware.org[^] ;P John www.silveronion.com[^]
John Honan said:
Look at using something like Armadillo to protect your code. I have a keygen for Armadillo if you need it. ;) (that IS a wink) --- "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." -Wolfgang Pauli (1900 - 1958), on a paper submitted by a physicist colleague