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Text File
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1987-04-21
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7KB
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125 lines
Producing a commercial software package
=======================================
By Scott King
=============
*eds note* this is a part of a larger file by Scott, the first parts of
which appeared in last months issue.
Hello STOSSERS, one and all! Just in case you haven't worked it out, I am
the author of Video Supreme. Video Supreme, incidentally, is a video
titling and on-disk intro creator, available from Goodman International
for £14.95. If you want to know more, read ST USER (September 93 and
Christmas 93) and ST FORMAT (November 93). Right, enough pluggin', and
on with the article.
This article was written by me to encourage all you STOS programmers to
"digit extract" and make some money. As you know, STOS certainly gets
dumped on a lot, especially users of other Basics. Well, jealousy does
bring out the worst in people,doesn't it?. Because of all these "non-STOS"
programmers, and the fact that the "almighty one" (Mandarin software)
has decided to amputate itself from STOS, you may have been
discouraged from trying to produce a commercial product of some sort.
Don't let them get to you - STOS is the BEST!
The idea for a program, as you know, is the first major obstacle that a
programmer has to overcome. The idea for Video Supreme came from
seeing another video-titler that was being sold for £30 and only allowed
you to display/dissolve a screen in about seven different ways. This,
to me, was unbelievable. I couldn't believe that this program, that
you couldn't do hardly anything with, was being sold for so much money.
Because of this fact, I decided to write my own video-titler.
The first thing I did was to speak to Mike Goodman to see if he would be
interested in such a program if I wrote one. After saying he would, I got
down to the task of writing Video Supreme. After a couple of months I
sent Mike the first working-version of the software to make sure that I
was heading in the right direction. Mike soon got back to me, to say
that I was, and to suggest about releasing it commercially.
During the next couple of months I continued to write Video Supreme,
coming up with more and more ideas as I went (some of which have been held
back for version 2). When I'd finally finished the software, and had
written the manual, I sent the completed product off to Mike. He then
came up with a couple of ideas to make the software more compatible
with hard-drive systems which took me an evening to incorporate, and
Bob's your Uncle and Fanny's your Aunt etc.
Mike then worked out a reasonable price for the software, taking into
account: the cost of producing the manuals, the cost of the disks, the
cost of copies needed to be sent off for reviews etc, the cost of other
small overheads and a small (but reasonable) profit margin for both of us.
Having both agreed on the facts and figures, it was all systems go!
Basically, that was my job done, and now it was all down to Mike Goodman
to get the ball rolling. He produced the software packages, sent off
copies to the mags (including STOSSER) for possible reviews and sorted out
advertisements for the software. Before long I was seeing a full-page
advertisement in the Goodman's catalogue, favourable reviews in the
leading ST magazines and the icing on the cake..ST USER (Christmas 93
issue) nominated Video Supreme as one of the best twenty products in 1993.
Wow! Am I chuffed to bits, or what?
I won't give you facts and figures, but writing Video Supreme was
financially rewarding enough to have made it worth my while. I haven't
got money pouring out of every orifice in my body, but I'm very happy with
what I've made. Basically, don't expect to be a millionaire from your
efforts,but you may be surprised with how much money you do actually make.
You could try going to a commercial software house, but don't be surprised
if you get told to "go forth and fornicate with yourself". Even if they
did like your work, you'll probably only get a percentage the size of an
omeoba, not to mention the fact that they'll probably tell you to re-write
most of your program anyway. Stick to somewhere like Goodman International
etc, at least THEY know what us poor programmers go through and the
Managing Director's cat doesn't get a percentage of YOUR work. I'm not
saying that Goodman's will release your software commercially, if at all
but you'll never know until you try.
Have a go! What have you got to lose?
Things to consider
==================
If you haven't released any software before, the following points may be
of some use to you:
* When choosing a program to write, try to write one that hasn't been
done too many times before. Definitely NOT a Ramdisk program!
* If possible, make the program compatible with half-meg machines.
* Try to make the program as joystick and/or mouse driven as possible.
* Make your program as graphical as possible. You'd be surprised how
much this adds to the user-friendliness of the software. Don't put
in any hard-core pornography, not unless you're the type of person
that doesn't mind the authorities dragging you out of bed at three
in the morning, to tell you that they're going to take your ten
thousand pounds worth of computer equipment and sell it for fifty
quid at the local auction.
* When you have an idea, to add to the software, sit back and think of
a way to take this idea further. What may seem like a simple
addition to the software can sometimes turn out to be one of the main
features.
* Try to get somebody else to try out your software as soon as
possible. The further you get into a program the harder it becomes
to change it. No, not Grandma who gets confused switching a light on
and off.
* Don't get too disheartened if the software doesn't live up to your
expectations. Your software may still be very popular as it is.
Also, don't be put off from writing software because you think that your
system isn't good enough. When I wrote Video Supreme my system was a 520
STFM, NO external floppy OR hard-drives and a fifteen year old colour
television with a broken on-off/volume knob. Nobody's system could be
worse than that!
Scott King.