Shareware; a good way to go?

[Evan`C]

I'm interested to know if anyone has had any experience creating shareware. Do enough people pay for it to be worthwhile? I know that most people don't really care much about paying for shareware :(
What is the best way to go about making shareware programs? Anyone feel like sharing their experiences or tips on what to do?

Thanks for reading,

Evan

[taka]

Depends what you would consider to be worthwhile. I don't think that anyone writes shareware with the aim of making money out of it :-) I would suspect that most of the time, the programs were going to be written anyway and the author has decided to make them publicly available.

I've never written any shareware but I have posted a lot of stuff that I've written as freeware, the feeling being that I've taken advantage of a lot of things that other people have made available so I have a responsibility to give something back. If I were going to ask people to send money in if they found the program useful, I would consider anything that I received to be a bonus.

IMHO...

[kbomb987]

Believe it or not, shareware can be quite profitable; especially if you have zero-cost involved then everything is a profit for you.

I started out making a simple internet app and put it on a few shareware sites for $3. After getting my first check, I couldn't believe people would actually pay for my software! So I made more features, raised the price, built a whole website for it... the sales continued and grew. Eventually I had multiple internet apps out on my site, a company name, and credit card processing too and was making some very nice money considering I had no overhead cost and very little work involved once the program was released. You put in your 3-4 months or whatever of coding work to make the program, release it and dont have to worry about it - just watch the checks roll in and give technical support.

Of course, don't get me wrong. I don't think I could live off what I make from shareware - it's purely a hobby outlook on it. Everytime I write a program to add to my distribution, I write it with "hobby" in mind, and consider any money I get as a bonus.

But so you know, shareware can work if you have a good hit product. Try it, you might be surprised.


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