This is the second part of this article on making more money from your Android apps (see here for the first part). This part of the article covers the release and the steps afterwards.
There is a lot of money out there in the Android app market, waiting for you. You do need to go find it, though. After you implement the tips from the two parts of this article, you’ll be much more likely to get your share of that income.
In the first part of the article we covered steps to get you ready for releasing your app. Now we’re ready to make it available to the world!
4. Deploy Your App to the Android Market
Remember all those graphic assets we prepared in part 1? They’re going to come in handy now for a quick upload to the Android Market.
Now, if you are starting from scratch, there are a few things to get out of the way. First, you need a Google account. Next you need to pay your one-time developer fee to Google, which is $25. That’s it – once you pay your fee, you’re a developer for life (on that account). There are a number of resources on this subject, so I’m going to skip it for now.
Once you’re in the Android Market Developer Console (which I’ve written about before) you have the option to “upload application”. After that you’ll see a screen where you can upload your .apk as well as all of the graphic assets you have prepared. Make sure you upload all of the assets that you have, including the “optional” ones.
Hint: these are options that you want to take. Having the optional items (such as feature graphic, promo graphic, and video) greatly increases your exposure and likelihood that people will download your app in the Android Market.
Also note this peculiar check box for marketing opt-out:
You don’t want to check this box, unless your app is meant for private use (in which case the Android Market isn’t the right place to put it). Any free marketing is good!
Also note that you may want to adjust the category you select based on some of the statistics published by AppBrain regarding what category has more or less competition, paying customers, etc.
Fill out the rest of the text fields and a few other items, and you’re ready to click “Publish”.
Pretty exciting! You’re not done yet, however.
5. Promote your App
Sure, a lot of this is done for you just by being in the Android Market (and anywhere else you upload to). However, there’s a lot of marketing opportunities that you’ll be missing if you stop there. For example:
- App review sites – there are a few that accept submissions
- Your website can attract customers searching for an app like yours (and you are updating it with release notes or announcements, right?)
- Press releases
- Sharing and ‘liking’ your app on social networks and social app markets
Promotion of your app is really a creative process, but that can’t begin if you don’t know you should! Go get ’em!
6. Release Your App to Other Android Markets
This is really an important step. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you know that I have been scraping the web for any and every alternative to the Android Market – not because I don’t like the Android Market (I do), but rather because there are other customers out there that you’ll miss if you never leave the farm.
There are literally dozens of markets out there, which I have been profiling (see SlideMe and AndroidPIT, for example).
7. Maximize Your Ad Revenue
UPDATE: Mobclix is no more; please see the Ad Network reviews to find other ad networks to use.
This one only applies if your app is ad-supported. Since the majority of Android apps are ad-supported (who doesn’t like free?), I’ll go into a little detail here to help your Android app earn advertising revenue.
Most developers are familiar with AdMob. However, not everyone is enjoying high revenue from them. This leaves a lot of room for competition. I’ve profiled my comparisons of AdMob vs. MobClix, a follow up as I wait for the money to arrive, and a slight glitch with AdMob.
Lately I’ve been checking out MobFox due to their crazy-high European ad rates. I’ve also profiled MobFox and will continue to track them. Some of the features that they provide are very promising.
In my apps, I implemented a rotator to share ad time between the different networks to help me understand which one gives the best revenue for each app. Over time, I have changed how much time some ad networks get.
So, consider signing up for MobFox or another ad network and comparing it to AdMob.
Go Forth and Earn!
I hope you enjoyed this article (and part 1) about making more income with your Android app.
After you have implemented these tips, please come back and share your experiences!