Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#31

Post by rmATinnovafy » Wed, May 23, 2012, 11:30 PM UTC

alanfalcon wrote: post #29

nextparadigms wrote: post #26

At $1-$2 prices, purchases are made mostly on impulse. This is why I think e-books should come down to that price, too. For many authors the sales would just skyrocket, because people will just start buying 10 books at a time, without even thinking that it may take them a full year to read them all. But they will just "want them there" for a later read.

But once they do realize that they have a year's worth (or more) on their reading list, why would they keep coming back to the store to buy 10 more books?

And that will lead to authors only publishing short books, or even sell individual chapters for $1. Not a good thing.

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#32

Post by tinylittlefish » Wed, May 23, 2012, 11:41 PM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #30

fedebene wrote: post #11

This is a great result for a single day, but isn't this a sign of a wrong initial pricing? I would try to lower the price for a month or two, to see how the market reacts. I believe that you still have to find the sweet spot in the price/demand curve.

Not necessarily -- it could be different market segments. There might well be one group who will gladly pay full price, and a different group who'll gamble two bucks just to check something out. Personally, $0.99-1.99 falls into impulse buy territory, while $14.99 means that I won't buy it unless I'm positive it's exactly what I need.

The impulse buy thing is a really important reason this works.

For example, I adore Transmit and have no need for any other FTP app. I bought Forklift anyway when they discounted it to $1. Haven't even launched it yet.

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#33

Post by jacquesm » Wed, May 23, 2012, 11:41 PM UTC

jws wrote: post #9

Extrapolating your day on day sales figures, you should see about 600k copies get sold tomorrow and 54M the next day.[1] Morgan Stanley probably isn't too busy now, you should get their Facebook team to run an IPO based on that, before tomorrow's number come in. EOM [1] by July every particle in the universe will own a copy, that might cause sales to taper off.

You're just jealous ;)

Valid point though, if you have a small part of a large graph for a new product it somehow always looks like a hockeystick.

But if he can maintain this for even three weeks or more then he's on to something. Stranger things have happened.

A word of advice for the OP: keep it quiet. Bragging like this is going to bring copycats and unwelcome attention in large quantities. If you're making 'easy money' keep it to yourself.

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#34

Post by blantonl » Wed, May 23, 2012, 11:53 PM UTC

well, I just added $6.96 ($9.95 - 30%) to your revenue numbers for today. I had no idea about this application but it looks great and solves a pain point for me.

Some successful Hackernews marketing in action I suppose.

Good luck on future success in the App Store!

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#35

Post by christoph » Wed, May 23, 2012, 11:53 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #33

jws wrote: post #9

Extrapolating your day on day sales figures, you should see about 600k copies get sold tomorrow and 54M the next day.[1] Morgan Stanley probably isn't too busy now, you should get their Facebook team to run an IPO based on that, before tomorrow's number come in. EOM [1] by July every particle in the universe will own a copy, that might cause sales to taper off.

You're just jealous ;) Valid point though, if you have a small part of a large graph for a new product it somehow always looks like a hockeystick. But if he can maintain this for even three weeks or more then he's on to something. Stranger things have happened. A word of advice for the OP: keep it quiet. Bragging like this is going to bring copycats and unwelcome attention in large quantities. If you're making 'easy…

I agree in principle. However, it's not "easy" money, he produced a quality, well thought out app and then got lucky (or executed a well thought out strategy) with marketing.

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#36

Post by theevocater » Wed, May 23, 2012, 11:55 PM UTC

alanfalcon wrote: post #29

nextparadigms wrote: post #26

At $1-$2 prices, purchases are made mostly on impulse. This is why I think e-books should come down to that price, too. For many authors the sales would just skyrocket, because people will just start buying 10 books at a time, without even thinking that it may take them a full year to read them all. But they will just "want them there" for a later read.

But once they do realize that they have a year's worth (or more) on their reading list, why would they keep coming back to the store to buy 10 more books?

personally? yes. Many times I'll buy a bunch of cheap (physical and digital) books, read them for a bit, get bored and then eventually sell the physical books.

Most times if a book is expensive I'll put off buying it, but if its a dollar or two, no love lost if I only read a few chapters and don't like it.

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#37

Post by jacquesm » Wed, May 23, 2012, 11:56 PM UTC

christoph wrote: post #35

jacquesm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just jealous ;) Valid point though, if you have a small part of a large graph for a new product it somehow always looks like a hockeystick. But if he can maintain this for even three weeks or more then he's on to something. Stranger things have happened. A word of advice for the OP: keep it quiet. Bragging like this is going to bring copycats and unwelcome attention in large quantities. If you're making 'easy…

I agree in principle. However, it's not "easy" money, he produced a quality, well thought out app and then got lucky (or executed a well thought out strategy) with marketing.

Something that has already been made can be copied much quicker than it was originally developed.

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#38

Post by josephcooney » Wed, May 23, 2012, 11:59 PM UTC

rmATinnovafy wrote: post #31

alanfalcon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But once they do realize that they have a year's worth (or more) on their reading list, why would they keep coming back to the store to buy 10 more books?

And that will lead to authors only publishing short books, or even sell individual chapters for $1. Not a good thing.

Why would this not be a good thing?

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#39

Post by fbuilesv » Thu, May 24, 2012, 12:00 AM UTC

alanfalcon wrote: post #29

nextparadigms wrote: post #26

At $1-$2 prices, purchases are made mostly on impulse. This is why I think e-books should come down to that price, too. For many authors the sales would just skyrocket, because people will just start buying 10 books at a time, without even thinking that it may take them a full year to read them all. But they will just "want them there" for a later read.

But once they do realize that they have a year's worth (or more) on their reading list, why would they keep coming back to the store to buy 10 more books?

Because this is how a lot (most?) people work. They read about something interesting today, buy the book, send it to their Kindle and then forget about it. When they get to actually read a book they enjoy they might start looking for more titles from the same author/genre and at $2 you won't think too much about buying 2-3 at once.

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#40

Post by Mz » Thu, May 24, 2012, 12:04 AM UTC

alanfalcon wrote: post #29

nextparadigms wrote: post #26

At $1-$2 prices, purchases are made mostly on impulse. This is why I think e-books should come down to that price, too. For many authors the sales would just skyrocket, because people will just start buying 10 books at a time, without even thinking that it may take them a full year to read them all. But they will just "want them there" for a later read.

But once they do realize that they have a year's worth (or more) on their reading list, why would they keep coming back to the store to buy 10 more books?

A) I once read that only about 17% of the books people buy actually get read. People seem to get some satisfaction out of "owning" the info even without consuming it.

B) When I was homeschooling my sons I frequently bought actual (dead tree) books for a dollar or so off the clearance tables. It was cheap enough that I was willing to gamble on their usefulness. Some panned out. Some didn't. Enough panned out for me to feel it was still well worth it.