Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-10-14 | 35KB | 163 lines
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&Shareware software is one of&computing's great achievements.&Imagine if you could go to your local&high street electrical store and walk&home with a Walkman. If after using&the Walkman for a month, you liked it,&you would go back to the shop and pay&them for it. On the other hand if you&were not happy with it you could just&throw it away or give it to a friend.&The only difference between this&Walkman and one which you pay for in&advance is that there is no stupid box
or free headphones.
&The above may sound silly, but it&describes roughly how shareware works.&The Walkman is probably about the same&price as many top shareware packages.&Shareware is attractive to the&consumer because it means they can&protect themselves from being ripped&off for some over-priced software they&may never use. While the programmer&gets an easy way to distribute&software with none of the risks of
advertising and investment.
&Now if you are a programmer out there&and are thinking about muddying your&own feet in the torrid world of&shareware then read this. I have&written this short article from my own&experiences in shareware. If you are a&shareware author then this may help&you as well, or if you disagree with%what I say then write in and tell me!
[3m! Is There Money In Shareware?
[23m&Programming anything is a lot of work&(if done properly). So if you were&thinking of making a fortune from&shareware then think again. However if&you want to make a simple part time&income doing something you enjoy in&the evenings or weekends then read
&Skipping a few stages, lets say you&have just sold 50 copies of your new&shareware program. It will certainly&give you a warm glow paying in all&those cheques. However when you pay&them in, just stop and think how much&time and money you have spent getting$your program to the unwashed masses.
Firstly is the hundreds of hours&spent sat in front of your favourite&compiler seeing Error 65 for the
umpteenth time.
Next comes your investment in the&compiler and all those technical books"which are breaking your bookshelf.&
Another consideration is your&hardware investment. If you are&programming in C or assembly you will&need a hard-disk and probably a couple#of megs of memory for good measure.
&If you were a business you would be&bankrupt by now, however you will get
some benefits:
Most obviously, money. The®istrations you receive could be&used to pay for a weekend break or you&could invest them in hardware to work&on a sequel to your shareware success&or (for the cash conscious) pay off
you credit card bill.
Secondly is fame. A very limited&sort of fame. If your program is a&success then you may find strange disk&mags and libraries writing to you.&Also it is a great feeling to see your
program in print in a magazine.
Letters. Getting letters from®istered users, saying "look this&program is great, it has saved me&hours of work" etc. are great to&receive. If you are already into Amiga&correspondence then you will get many&new contacts (who already think you&are great). Many letters will contain&details of new ideas for the program&(or bugs). From these ideas you can&improve your program further, making!the program even more attractive.
What To Write?
[23m&Now the above has whetted your&appetite (or driven you away) what are&you going to write? As a rule you&should not sit down and think of&something to write, you should be hit&by a flash of inspiration. As that&rarely happens, here are a few
pointers to help you:
Think of something original or&tackle an existing problem in an&original way. Easier said then done,&but do NOT just write another&addressbook/flat file database&program. Amiga Shopper reviews about&three of these every month in their PD
section.
Make your program the best&available. Sounds obvious, but you&would not be so sure when you see some&of the tat that calls itself&shareware. If your program is rubbish&no amount of selling or advertising&will make it a success. On the other&hand if your program is good then it
will (almost) sell itself.
Make your program look nice. People&like software that looks nice, I do.&If your program has a dodgy&user-interface or just looks plain&tacky people will not want it. This&one is as important as making it the&best available. Good looking software&is often used for screen shots in
magazines.
Make sure your code is bug free.&(Users of early versions of my&shareware are rolling about the floor&with laughter as I write this!) Whole&books have been written on the subject&so I will not bother you with&debugging strategies. Except test all&menu options and try extreme values&for everything. Make sure you push&your program by entering invalid data.&The easiest way to get testing done is&to give copies of your program to your&mates. Give them a free registration
for their troubles.
Don't write it in AMOS. Cruel? No&way. I can tell an AMOS program a mile&off. AMOS compiled programs are not WB&friendly and use lots of memory. AMOS&programs stand out like a sore thumb,&from the slow mouse pointer to that&file requester. It's all in AMOS.&After saying that though, I would&(reluctantly) recommend AMOS for&anything graphical. However do NOT try&to write a word processor or anything&normal with the language. Whatever&Europress say, AMOS is definitely for&writing games only. (Umm... slightly&abridged. It's OK for disk mags isn't
it Andrew? And demos? Ed.)
VMorph v2.3 Shareware written with AMOS
Reviewed next issue.
[3m! Do people actually register?
[23m&Who knows? For every registration,&maybe between 5 and 10 people will&have seen your program. No matter how&good your software, there will always&be people who do not register.&Obviously if your program does not&have mass appeal (like a disk-sector&editor) then don't expect many
registrations.
&Remember to price your software&realistically. You are expecting&people to send money to a strange (to&them) address that they have never&seen before. If your software&represents good value then people will register.
&Another way to encourage registrations&is to make it easy to pay. The single&biggest complaint about foreign¤cy transactions is the bank-&charges. If you allow your users to&pay in some other way, perhaps in PD&disks, you will get a few extra®istrations. Also you could accept a&few major currencies. US$,
sterling&and DMarks are the biggest currencies.&Sorry to AUS$ and NZ$ but they are&pretty obscure to us Europeans. A good&example is Nic Wilson the author of&DirWork and PCTask. Although an&Australian programmer he accepts&payments in any major currency or even
credit cards. (nice one!)
[3m" How To Encourage Registrations
[23m&There are three main ways to encourage%the public to register your software:
Crippleware. This one is not&recommended unless the registered&version of your program is the same as&the shareware one. To the uninitiated,&crippleware is the idea of limiting a&feature (such as the SAVE option) so&that you can only try it out and not&use it properly. This method is NOT&recommended; personally I would not®ister a crippleware program no&matter how good it was. Take a&database for example, you limit it to&only cope with twenty records, how&does a prospective user tell how it&copes with 2000? The answer is, the&user will try another piece of software.
Annoying requesters. This is my&favourite. The basic idea is that a&requester periodically appears,&reminding the user that the software&is unregistered. The requester&contains your name and address, the®istration fee and what you get if&you register. If you make the&requester too frequent the users may¬ bother registering because they&cannot test the program properly for&this dirty great requester that keeps&appearing. If you make it too&infrequent then the user may be able&to use it without registering. As with&everything in life, you should strike
a balance.
Offer something. You can make®istrations more attractive by&offering something more than the&shareware version offers. This is&usually new features in the program.&For a shareware program of mine I&offered a free copy of my disk&magazine to all who registered. The&idea was quite a success except I had!to duplicate twice as many disks!
&If you are ripped off. I mean someone&stealing your idea or hacking your&program into something else then you&may have a legal case. At this point&you should take professional legal&advice to see what your options are.
&I do not consider it worth the worry&getting too heavy on legal issues in&Amiga shareware because there is so&little at stake. On the PC you would&be talking about
1000s for a top&package, but on the Amiga, there is&only
100s at stake. You must decide&very carefully what you are prepared&to do if you software is ripped off. A&court case could cost you
1000s if you lose.
&One final point, make sure you protect&your program by clearly stating the
following:
&Copyright (c) 1993 Andrew Woods. All
rights reserved.
&(Obviously substitute your name here).& This should appear on every program&screen and text file. Also post a copy&of your program to yourself, and make&sure the postmark is visible. Leave&the envelope safe and sealed and it&will make good evidence in court#should you need to defend yourself.
&Please note: I am not a legal eagle or&anything, and the situation may be&slightly different in your own&country. The above is how I see the
law in the UK (and Europe).
Writing The Documentation
[23m&In commercial programming, writing the&documentation is equivalent to&sweeping the floor. It is always the&job the junior programmer gets. Which&is a shame because it makes for
illegible documentation.
&There are no rules for writing&documentation (at least I don't use&any!) You could get a book on the&subject or get hold of an existing&.doc file for a shareware program. You&must NOT copy any of the text, just&follow the structure of how it has&been laid out. As a general guideline&I find most docs are laid out like
this:
Legal stuff (this program is
shareware etc...)%
Introduction (what is this program)&
How it works (menu options, key-
presses etc...)&
Tutorial or tips (using the program etc...)&
Have your say (adverts, comments,
the next version...)
&Your prospective users will appreciate&it if you include a file on disk which&they can print out to save them&writing a letter. This will be a&simple form for them to fill in their&name, address, machine spec and any&comments on the program. It is wise¬ make the form to complicated&because most people have better things&to do then fill in forms (like do
their tax returns).
&A new area for the Amiga is&AmigaGuide
documentation. AmigaGuide&allows you to structure a doc file so&that the reader only has to read the&bits s/he is interested in. A good&AmigaGuide file has buttons that the&user can click on to whisk them to&another section of the file,&containing related information. CBM&have released the full programmers&AmigaGuide distribution into the&public domain recently. It is on a#Fred Fish disk between 800 and 900.
[3m" How To Get Your Program Noticed
[23m&So you have this brilliant new&program, you think it will wipe the&floor with the competition, now you&want the world to know about.&Personally I think this is the most&frustrating part of the whole&enterprise. Here are a few quotes from&some PD libraries after sending them&my diskmag, TDH (these are all real
quotes):
"TDH... Is that a Star Trek mag?"
(original)%
"It must have got lost in the post"
(classic)&
"We'll call back tomorrow"
(pass the sick bag)
&Get used to the above. My advice is to&find a good library that you are&friendly with and send the stuff to&them. A PD library is a good ally to&have as they can get programming&information and utilities from&bulletin boards for you. However don't&discount the power of the largest&libraries. The big libraries are used&as the source for the smaller&libraries, so your program will&gradually filter down to all the&libraries. The best way to get a&program noticed is to send it to a&magazine for review. The big PD&libraries will also send a wad of&disks to the magazines (but you should¬ rely on this) and I recommend you&send it to all the good Amiga mags for&review yourself. More often than not&your program will not make review&unless it is truly brilliant. All the&major UK magazines do not accept&material from the programmers anymore&(despite their denials). I have&personally sent them stuff, only to&see it reviewed four months later when&it was sent by a major PD library. I&presume this policy is something to do#with their advertising departments.
&However, if you get a good review in a&national magazine then you should get&plenty of registrations. The only&problem is they all arrive on the same
week!
&A new way of getting noticed which I&have started to experiment with is&advertising. I don't mean proper&adverts in magazines (that is VERY&expensive). I am talking about lineage&in some classified magazines. You can&often get 25-30 words free. This is
Not a Star Trek Mag but one written in AMOS by
this column's author.
[23m&enough to get a message across. Nearly&every magazine (paper or disk) has&some form of classified advertising&which should allow you to get in&contact with your public. One word of&advice; don't try and sell your®istered version in the advert, just&get them to send a disk or money for a&shareware copy. Very few (if anyone)&would send large amounts of money to a&four line advert in a magazine.&However, many more would risk sending&a disk because they have less to lose.
Finally...
[23m&That's about it for this little guide.&I hope it is of help to someone out&there. If you want to get in touch&with me, for individual help or as a&shareware contact (legal only!), then
write to me:
Andrew Woods
1 Westwood Gardens,
Scarborough,
North Yorkshire,
YO11 2JQ
UNITED KINGDOM.
&Or you could write a letter to The"Editor to complain (or praise) me.
The Editor comments...
&. I'd complain if I were you - it's
more likely to get published.
&. Andrew's comment that you should&"make sure your code is bug free" is&no doubt now causing users of the&early versions of his shareware to&start cancelling their subs to Amy PD&and Shareware Review for allowing him a column.
&. My (serious) comments on shareware&can be seen in the "Thoughts On
(.txt)