Making money with Android for Dummies

Hi

David, I don’t know if you can read me, but I must say your blog article is strikingly inspiring to me, I work in the hotel segment and temporary I’m saving up a bit of money to start an Android app development with freelance developer.

Money is actually isn’t a problem, but the way you operate your strategy and statistical income report is truly aspired, why? Because I want to learn how to do marketing in the virtual market, like Android it has been a very wide and opened to anyone who can do it the right way.

I have a few questions, as a beginner :stuck_out_tongue:

-Android development is a foreign territory to me, I plan to hire freelancer to develop my idea into an app, do you have any advice for me on this ?

-As said, I’m particularly interested in your work with several ads service like Admob, Tap Joy and etc … very experimental, great experience. So I have difficulty understand PPI, what does it actually mean when you suppose to pay for your customer per download and still have profit in the end ?

Thanks for reading :smiley:

Hi! Thanks for the kind words about my blog. It’s great to know that people are getting inspiration from reading it.

With regards to your questions:

  • Freelancers I don’t have much experience with; I’ve actually never outsourced anything in my life (too much of a control freak!). Perhaps some others here could offer advice? Here are some links I found that might be helpful:

http://www.marketandroidapps.com/development-2/how-to-get-an-android-app-developed-as-a-non-technical-person/

http://makingoutsourcingwork.com/developing-software-outsourcing-strategy/

If you can find someone in the same city that you actually know, who would be happy to work with you, that would be ideal. If you have to outsource to someone over the internet it’s easy to make mistakes & get bogged down with communication issues.

  • PPI campaigns: Most of the time if you’re advertising an app using PPI, you’ll make money in one of two ways:

1.) Charge for download (customers have to pay to download your app)
2.) Charge for upgrades (in-app purchases, freemium, etc.)

So the concept behind PPI is, you pay a certain amount (maybe $1) to acquire a user. You then expect to make at least $1.50 in revenue from that user. Normally it would be quite difficult to make that much revenue from banner advertising, which is why so many apps using a PPI campaign feature in-app payments.

For example, say you’ve released a free game which sells gun upgrades for $1 a pop. You could pay to acquire 100 users at $1 each, which is a total of $100 for PPI advertising. If 50 of those users upgrade a gun at least once, and 20 of these users buy 3 or more upgrades each, you’ve already made about $100 revenue from those 100 users.

Of course, the real figures will be quite different. That was just an example to illustrate one possible way of making a positive ROI (Return On Investment) from PPI advertising. The other thing to consider is viral marketing - those 100 people who you “bought” might go off and tell another 20 friends about the app, which means you get even more income from those purchased installs.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
David

Hi David,

Hats off to you… You are doing a great job and really aspiring people like me to learn from great guys like you :-).

My name is Tahir, and I am new to this android world. I have developed a very basic game with one level, and focusing on giving it a professional touch. I am sure I will be able to complete this soon but need some help from the point of view of launching it in the Android World. I would appreciate if you and the Android Development Community help the novice developers like us in understanding the whole process post development of an app or game.

What exactly i am looking for is:
Assuming a developer has the .apk file of a game and he has tested it on mobile etc. and he is planning to launch it in near future, what would be the next checklist he has to tackle with?

E.g.

  1. Should a developer make a Google Account first (i don’t mean a gmail account)? What is the Process for it? What would be the financial implication from developer side?
  2. Should a developer need to open a new bank account for financial transactions?
    • Would it be a Savings Account or something specific for such purpose?
    • Any other thing related to any account transaction need to be taken care of?
  3. How does a developer integrate the Advertisements etc. in the Game when he just has the .apk file? Does this require some coding from game developer side or would the Advertisers like Admob, Tap Joy etc. will provide us with some standard framework/code? If Yes, how to integrate it with the .apk file a developer has?
  4. What should a developer do with this .apk file? How would it go in the Android world ready to be downloaded by everyone?
  5. Any blocking areas which require special attention?
  6. What does a developer must do?
  7. What are the things the developer should try to avoid?

In short WHAT ALL STEPS A DEVELOPER HAS TO TAKE ONCE HE IS READY WITH HIS GAME/APP?

I would really appreciate if anyone having knowledge on this could guide us and help with their experiences.

Many Thanks,
Tahir

You need to go to https://market.android.com/publish/Home and sign up for a developer account. This costs about $25, iirc.

That probably depends on the tax rules wherever you are. In the UK, you have to declare yourself self-employed and keep track of any income. A separate bank account helps, but I don’t think it’s strictly necessary.

You have to integrate the adverts into the java code itself. You can’t just add them to an apk file.

Once you’ve signed up for a developer account on the above link, you just follow the on-screen instructions to upload a new application. The app will need to be digitally signed (this should have been part of creating the APK file.

I’m not sure what you mean by this.

Nor this.

There’s all sorts of things that you should try to avoid, like copyright issues, plagiarism, apps that don’t work, etc. Too many to list. Just be sensible and you should be mostly ok though.

It would be a very bad thing to have people add ad’s into any apk. That would cause a lot of pirating.

Hi,
I am absolutely in the same situation! I am finance controller, by brother is designer and we are looking for developer.

It is challenging because the best would be to find someone whom work with for long-term. And personal comunication is recommended.
I wanted to make game related with Christmas. I found one good guy - communication through skype. One week before Christmas he throw me up! Bad experience!

I think that first project is most important, because you will learn from it. After then just practice, practice, practice…

Good luck with your project!

We have a hard times in life and it’s nice to have an income and have money with Android for dummies.

You need to go to https://market.android.com/publish/Home and sign up for a developer account. This costs about $25, iirc.

That probably depends on the tax rules wherever you are. In the UK, you have to declare yourself self-employed and keep track of any income. A separate bank account helps, but I don’t think it’s strictly necessary.

You have to integrate the adverts into the java code itself. You can’t just add them to an apk file.

Once you’ve signed up for a developer account on the above link, you just follow the on-screen instructions to upload a new application. The app will need to be digitally signed (this should have been part of creating the APK file.

I’m not sure what you mean by this.

Nor this.

There’s all sorts of things that you should try to avoid, like copyright issues, plagiarism, apps that don’t work, etc. Too many to list. Just be sensible and you should be mostly ok though.
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Thanks for the guidance. Successfully published our first free game (Shark Shooter) to Android Market. Here is the link for more description http://tinyurl.com/c7mwr33

Please try this game on your android device and share the comments/feedback on the game (good and bad) (email id : [email protected]). This was made just from learning perspective. For ads we choose LeadBolt LeadBolt App Program

Thanks