shane@pepe.cc.umich.edu (Shane Looker) (05/28/88)
This may not seem to relate to comp.sys.mac.programmer, but I think it does. Once you've finished a piece of code, product, or whatever, how do you go about marketing it? Are there any reputable companies which will market products? Buy them from you? Pay royalties from sales? Does anybody have any information? Shane Looker shane@pepe.cc.umich.edu uunet!umix!pepe.cc.umich.edu!shane Looker@um.cc.umich.edu
jwhitnell@cup.portal.com (05/29/88)
Shane Looker writes... |Once you've finished a piece of code, product, or whatever, how do you |go about marketing it? Are there any reputable companies which will |market products? Buy them from you? Pay royalties from sales? | |Does anybody have any information? Since I'm in the process of talking to someone about marketing a product I'm working on, I'll try answering some of this. There are basicly two approachs to getting your product to the customers (and getting their money in return :-)), do it yourself or find someone else to do it. To do it yourself is alot of work, since you basicly have to set up a company to do this. But the one advantage is you get all the rewards, not just a pecentage. The other approach is to let someone else take care of the other headaches. Finding those people is the first problem. One way is to become a certified developer. Apple sends you, among other things, a list of publishers looking for products and what kind of products they want. They also give you a name of the person to contact (very helpful) to discuss your product. You can also find publishers by looking at ads in MacWorld and MacUser (or MacTutor for programmer's products) and see who sells a line of products that yours would fit in with. When you call these, you don't have a name, but the person you want to talk to (or at least start with) is the Vice President of Marketing (sometimes the Director of Marketing). Make sure you get his/her name from the receptionist for future correspondence. Finding a reputable company is not easy but most are and a good indicator is how they treat their customers. If they treat their customers well, then they'll probably treat you OK too. What kind of deal you make with them (assuming they are interested), depends on many things. What you want, what they can afford, what they think the sales potential is, etc. Companys will typically buy piece of code or an algorithem (such as Andy Hertzfeld's QuickerGraf), whereas they usually pay royalities on a full product. How much depends on the product, your previous products (if any) and how good a negotiator you are. |Shane Looker -- Jerry Whitnell jwhitnell@cup.portal.com ..!sun!cup.portal.com!jwhitnell