Temporarily de-anonymizing myself because my Android experience is apparently not typical. My main paid app (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dozingcatsoftware....) is getting around 25 purchases per day, with no marketing effort whatsoever. It was featured in a few blogs and podcasts, but they came to me. It's had over 10k downloads in a year, and my original goal was 1000. Reasons I think it's done better than average:
- It's not a game. As patio11 notes the competition in that area is incredibly intense. In the last few days I've picked up Angry Birds Rio for free, Galcon for $1, and AirAttack for $3. If you aren't an experienced game developer, you're not likely to produce something at that level.
- But it is fun. It has unlimited "replay value" and lets users be creative and show off what their phone can do.
- The free version converts really well, paid downloads are around 20% of free downloads. It does everything the full version does except for saving pictures and videos. There are no ads, other than a Market link to the full version.
- I don't have to spend any time or money on custom artwork. Even the buttons in the latest version I took from the camera app in AOSP.
So maybe I'm just lucky, but creating a quality app in a non-saturated field has been enough to produce a decent side income, without having to deal with business or marketing at all.
- It's not a game. As patio11 notes the competition in that area is incredibly intense. In the last few days I've picked up Angry Birds Rio for free, Galcon for $1, and AirAttack for $3. If you aren't an experienced game developer, you're not likely to produce something at that level.
- But it is fun. It has unlimited "replay value" and lets users be creative and show off what their phone can do.
- The free version converts really well, paid downloads are around 20% of free downloads. It does everything the full version does except for saving pictures and videos. There are no ads, other than a Market link to the full version.
- I don't have to spend any time or money on custom artwork. Even the buttons in the latest version I took from the camera app in AOSP.
So maybe I'm just lucky, but creating a quality app in a non-saturated field has been enough to produce a decent side income, without having to deal with business or marketing at all.