Thursday, November 1, 2012

October 2012 Profits


Hello and welcome back.

This week has again shown more improvement. I am very pleased with the figures. I almost hit my 3rd primary goal (the goal was $30 in a single month, I hit $26.95!). Very close - things are looking up and my final goals are now looking more realistic - I know I am still, on average, making less than a dollar a day, but this is 50x more than I was earning when I first published the free version of Computer and IT Quiz for Android.

All current ads are focused towards selling Computer and IT Quiz Pro, and so I am not earning ad revenue.

Primary Goals
  1. Earn over $1 in a single day. ACHIEVED
  2. Earn $10 dollars in a single month (approx 33c per day) ACHIEVED $16.26 - mostly from sales of Computer and IT Quiz Pro
  3. Earn $30 dollars in a single month (approx $1 per day) (got close - $26.95)
  4. Earn $50 dollars in a single month.
  5. Earn $100 in a single month.
  6. Earn $500 in a month.
  7. Earn $50 a day/$1500 in a month.
Secondary Goals
  • To earn $5 in a single month - ACHIEVED $16.26 - mostly from sales of Computer and IT Quiz Pro
  • To achieve more than 1000 ad impressions in a single day (highest is 964).
  • To achieve 500 active installs for Simple Calorie Tracker/Counter (currently 267).
  • To achieve 2000 active installs for Computer and IT Quiz (currently 5016). ACHIEVED
  • Create my first graphical game. ACHIEVED
  • Leave full time employment.

Friday, October 5, 2012

September Profits - Sorry, It's been a while

Hello - sorry I haven't updated for a long time, but I won't bore you with why.
You want to see numbers, I'm sure, so here is the latest information:


Primary Goals
  1. Earn over $1 in a single day. ACHIEVED
  2. Earn $10 dollars in a single month (approx 33c per day) ACHIEVED $16.26 - mostly from sales of Computer and IT Quiz Pro
  3. Earn $30 dollars in a single month (approx $1 per day)
  4. Earn $50 dollars in a single month.
  5. Earn $100 in a single month.
  6. Earn $500 in a month.
  7. Earn $50 a day/$1500 in a month.
Secondary Goals
  • To earn $5 in a single month - ACHIEVED $16.26 - mostly from sales of Computer and IT Quiz Pro
  • To achieve more than 1000 ad impressions in a single day (highest is 964).
  • To achieve 500 active installs for Simple Calorie Tracker/Counter (currently 267).
  • To achieve 2000 active installs for Computer and IT Quiz (currently 5016). ACHIEVED
  • Create my first graphical game. ACHIEVED
  • Leave full time employment.
As you can see, I have had some success with Computer and IT Quiz Pro. Not a massive number of sales, but I believe this is because of the boost in downloads and installed of the free version.
For some reason (again, I am not sure why), I have had a surge of installs, taking active installs and daily device installs way above what they have ever been.

I am going to continue experimenting between running ads I get paid for hosting, and my own ads for Computer and IT Quiz Pro, to see which earns me the most money.

Conclusion of the last couple of months
I am very happy - I am slowly achieving more of my goals, and to be honest, I have done very little work on any of my Android projects recently, or this blog (again, sorry).

Thank you for reading.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Android - Make Money from Home with Android Apps - Guide for Beginners


What is the purpose of this post?
If you have been following my blog so far, you will know there have been a lot of ups and downs in my efforts to make money from home, indeed to make a living with my Android apps.

My intention is to go through a few of the decisions I had to make before I started this blog, and how I got to where I am now in terms of development. I feel the information will be particularly helpful to those who with to earn a living with their own Android apps, and work from home as a developer.


My Android money making plan
The modern world is full of people who want to make money from home. Some people only dream of it, but nowadays it is common to hear of application developers earning a very good living, right from their laptop at home.

When I first discovered Android, I immediately wanted to become one of those people. I wanted to choose my own working hours, create something of my own that others would enjoy and/or find useful, and most of all earn enough money from it to quit my full time job and take up Android development full time.

I did have to ask myself a couple of questions though before I began devoting time and effort to development:

  1. Am I capable of developing an Android app that will be popular enough to earn money?
  2. Can I make a living with Android apps?
  3. How do I make a living with Android apps?
I will answer these questions with the same answers I told myself.

1. Am I capable of developing an Android app that will be popular enough to earn money?
As with many things, you need a good idea, a lot of time and a lot of patience to be successful. Developing an application starts with a good idea, and I do have them from time to time! If you believe you have a good idea, or you know of something that people need and that they don't already have, then build it.
If there is a weaker alternative available, build on it and make a better version, or a version that is cheaper, and you are onto a winner.

This is just common sense, and it is the strategy I have been and will be using in the future in order to ensure my Android application development business/career is a successful one.

2. Can I make a living with Android apps?
Yes is the simple answer to this question. It has been done numerous times by individuals. My intention is not to become rich. In fact, I can stand to earn a little less than I am earning now in my current full time employment due to expenses driving and parking at work (approx £200/$350 a month fuel and £20/$35 for parking), which is money I would save if I worked from home. Not to mention saving on car maintenance costs ( 1000-1400 miles per month means my car needs plenty of attention!).
One particularly interesting story about an individual who has earned a decent living with Android apps, is that of Edward Kim.
After a lot of research, I decided it is quite possible to earn a living with Android apps.

3. How do I make a living with Android apps?
The process of making money with android apps is quite simple:

  1. Think of an idea
  2. Check if it has been done already
  3. If it is not currently available (or you can build a better version), then develop it
  4. Publish it
  5. Earn money from app sales or in-app advertising
Once you have your idea, spend as much of your time as you can making it as good as possible. A second rate app will not be successful. An app with bugs or a bad interface will not be successful.
If your app is bad, your ratings will be bad, and it's a (cliché alert!) downward spiral to failure.
Build a good app, and people will download it and keep it.

The most important piece of information I can offer to anyone wishing to make a living from Android development.
Patience is a virtue. Don't give up and don't stop improving.
Even if you are only ever making minor improvements to your apps, you are learning new skills, and improving your app even a little, may get you those extra positive ratings.

Thank you for reading.
Mike.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Firsts Steps to Making Money with Android

Welcome again to my blog.

I recently had the first download of my paid  Computer and IT Quiz Pro  app, and have now decided to have another look at the goals I initially set, to see if any of them have been reached. I have highlighted reached goals in green:


Primary Goals
  1. Earn over $1 in a single day. $2.37 in a single day by sale of Computer and IT Quiz Pro
  2. Earn $10 dollars in a single month.
  3. Earn $30 dollars in a single month.
  4. Earn $50 dollars in a single month.
  5. Earn $100 in a single month.
  6. Earn $500 in a month.
  7. Earn $50 a day/$1500 in a month.
Secondary Goals
  • To earn $5 in a single month (so far this month $4.57, that's the highest so far).
  • To achieve more than 1000 ad impressions in a single day (highest is 964).
  • To achieve 500 active installs for Simple Calorie Tracker/Counter (currently 271).
  • To achieve 2000 active installs for Computer and IT Quiz (currently 1040).
  • Create my first graphical game. Done this - see Make 'em all Red
  • Leave full time employment.
As you can see from above, I have indeed reached two of my goals towards making a living with Android apps. One primary goal (which I am extremely pleased with), and one secondary goal. Naturally both goals are important to me, but achieving the first of my primary goals means I am that one step closer to achieving what I set out to achieve with this project - the live from the profits earned developing apps for Android.

Another plus for today, I found another bug that was causing some crashing issues in the free version of the Computer and IT Quiz app, and have now ironed that out...


And on that positive note, I will end this post.
Thank you for reading.

Mike.

Friday, July 13, 2012

June 2012 Profits

Latest Information on the Spiderdog Android Project
Hello and welcome back - thanks for continuing to read my blog about Earning a Living with Android Apps.



I released a paid version of Computer and IT Quiz PRO in late May. This intention was to boost my earnings and add to the low income I am earning through my Admob ads. Unfortunately, as of yet, I have had no downloads I have now had my first download!

You are probably asking why anyone would pay for Computer and IT Quiz PRO when they can still get Computer and IT Quiz FREE... well, so far the difference is in PRO you can review all your answers at the end, and it does not contain any advertising, so you get a much neater app. I do have some plans for more features, to make the paid version more appealing. Any comments on this would be greatly appreciated.

New App Coming Soon
I have already started work on another app now - it is based on the code for the Computer Quiz, but is a completely different category (not computers). Sorry, I can't give away any more information, but creating the questions is a lot of fun!

I will release the new app as paid, as it is quite specific and there is no quiz the same on the market at present. Hopefully it will get some downloads, but we will see. I will post when it has been released.

June 2012 Profits

Admob earning - $2.24 ($2.19 of which came from Computer and IT Quiz FREE).
Admob ad impressions - 17,851 (17,148 came from Computer and IT Quiz FREE).
Paid app downloads - 0
Paid app earnings - $0.0

These numbers are indeed very low, and as I have devoted all my ad space to advertising my Computer and IT Quiz PRO, next month there will be now ad earnings at all... but, I am still fully intending on earning a living with my Anroid apps, and I will continue working at it until it happens.

My next post is now available here
See you soon.
Mike.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Busy - but will it be worth it?

These last few weeks at work have been extremely stressful - we have found out just how close we really are to losing our jobs. This has pushed me a lot harder with my Android work, although the added stress makes getting home from work and starting working on Android very tiring.

I need to start earning proper money with Android and not these few dollars I am currently earning (this month it look as though my AdSense ad earnings will be back down again...).

I didn't really want to go down the paid app route, as I enjoy the higher downloads of free apps, and as I hardly ever download paid apps, I figured other people wouldn't either. Anyway, I figured I might as well give it a go.



I have spent quite a lot of time learning a few new tricks in Android development, and one of those is learning how to use an Android library project correctly - this means one project is the main 'library project', and other projects reference code in the library - it saves on a lot of repeated code and layouts. I used this method to split the Computer and IT quiz into two version - Free and Pro.

The Computer and IT Quiz Pro now contains all features of the free version (which is still the same), but has the ads removed and additionally has a review mode to review all questions and answers at the end of the quiz. I have put the pro version up for $2.49, but only released the review feature in the app today. Hopefully it will boost my development income but we can only wait and see.

I will keep you up to date on any progress, and will release the June monthly figures/profits too very soon.

Thanks again for reading. Click here for my next post.
Mike.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Another Lesson in Testing Before Releasing

Computer Quiz Down Again!

We should learn from our mistakes... unfortunately I don't seem to grasp that concept!

I recently released another bad update of Computer and IT Quiz - this time I accidentally copied in the AdMob code twice and so nothing appeared on screen when the quiz was run. A simple enough mistake to make, but the problem is, once again, if I had tested properly before releasing the update, it would never have got out there.

This again shows the importance of thorough testing, even with a minor update, as mistakes may find their way into code you didn't even intend on changing, and here is the result:

Thanks for reading.
My next post is now available here.
Mike.

My First Flash/Adobe Air App for Android

'Make 'em All Red' is released on Google Play

I have just uploaded my first Adobe Air for Android app to Google Play (it may not be visible yet).
The app is a simple puzzle game that was developed very quickly to try out a little of the basic stuff in Flash.
It is a keypad puzzle whereby you light up all the keys/lights on the screen using different light combinations provided by the buttons:

I have not figured out how I should monetise Flash games - it may be a lot more difficult to place ads in there than with Java Android apps, but I will look into this for my next project. 'Make 'em all Red' is free and has no adverts.

I enjoyed learning the very basics of Flash (most of what I learned isn't in this app) - it is a lot less daunting (and a little more fun) than the heavy programming involved in normal Java Android development, and even if it does not become my main development method, I sure I will churn out a few more Flash games and apps along the way!

Thanks for reading,
My next post is now available here
Mike

Monday, June 11, 2012

Using Flash to Develop Android Games and Earn a Living

Hello and welcome back to my blog.

This post will briefly cover two topics - firstly the release of my latest app, Stop Binge Eating, and secondly my new interest in creating Android games using flash animation.

Stop Binge Eating
My newest app is born from my own need, rather than to make money, but I have added a little to it in order to release it to the Google Play Store. It is a very basic app which simply provides a little advise to those who feel they are about to binge eat or have just done so. It also links to a new forum I started which is mainly for users of the app to discuss their binge eating issues.

I only posted the app earlier today so we will have to wait and see if it gets any downloads - it is, after all, very basic.

Using Flash to Develop Games for Android
For a long time I have assumed I would not be able to succeed in the game development side of Android application development, in order to earn a living. Game development is quite complex and time consuming. I had been looking into this recently, however, and discovered how (using the power of Adobe Air for Android), games can be developed very easily with knowledge in Flash (which is much easier than learning graphics programming in my opinion).

Unfortunately, I have little knowledge of Flash, but I am sure I will have lots of fun developing my first game very soon! I will, of course, let you know how it goes very soon.

My next post is now available here.
Thanks for reading,
Mike.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

May 2012 Profits

May 2012 Profits

How has this month been?

This month has seen me getting close to my first goal, and very close to a couple of my secondary goals. 

I have started work on a small app designed around weight loss - it's a very basic app and I designed for myself, rather that to make much money. But of course, once complete it I will release it on the Google Play Store and see how it does.

I also found something interesting which may explain my empty AdMob stats for Simple Calorie Tracker and Earn Money with Android (the app for this blog). I was looking around the AdMob site and noticed all my apps were using the same publisher ID (an ID used to collect stats for each app). So all the stats from all three apps were showing for the Computer and IT Quiz. I have since changed this and we will see how the stats change next month, but for now, here are May's numbers:

May 2012 Profits

Total earnings this month: $4.98 (Last month: $3.09)
Most money earned in a single day: $0.86 (Last month: $0.46)
Maximum ad impressions in a single day: 997 (Last month: 803)
Total ad impressions: 23,217 (Last month: 17,689)
Primary goals met this month: None (close to Goal 1 - earning $1 in a single day (highest was $0.86)
Secondary goals met this month: None (just 2 cents off earning $5 in a single month!)

Next month I will list my other apps in the profits, but there seemed little point in doing so this month.

I am very happy with this months numbers - I know they are not anywhere close to my final target, but it does take a lot of time and effort, and the fact that the numbers have all improved this month is fantastic.

I will have more time this month to put into development and hopefully get another app out before the end of the month, but I will keep you posted.
Mike.


Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Some Additional Goals for Monetising Android Development

What is this post about?
In my initial post for this blog, I listed my goals for this projects as a whole - my financial targets that I am ultimately setting out to achieve. I will list those again as a refresher:

Primary Goals
  1. Earn over $1 in a single day.
  2. Earn $10 dollars in a single month.
  3. Earn $30 dollars in a single month.
  4. Earn $50 dollars in a single month.
  5. Earn $100 in a single month.
  6. Earn $500 in a month.
  7. Earn $50 a day/$1500 in a month.
The above goals are incremental and will take a long time to achieve, as I haven't reached even the first one yet. I am going to call these original goals my primary goals. As my career developing Android apps for money progresses, to goals will be ticked off in order.

I would also like to throw in a few side targets for fun and motivational purposes - I work a lot better when I have a realistic target to reach. I have listed below a few secondary targets, which may or may not happen in order, and I may add to these goals throughout:

Secondary Goals
  • To earn $5 in a single month (so far this month $4.57, that's the highest so far).
  • To achieve more than 1000 ad impressions in a single day (highest is 964).
  • To achieve 500 active installs for Simple Calorie Tracker/Counter (currently 271).
  • To achieve 2000 active installs for Computer and IT Quiz (currently 1040).
  • Create my first graphical game.
  • Leave full time employment.


I feel these secondary goals are just the tool I need to help me form a great career.
Does anyone use similar (or completely different) strategies for motivation?

My next post is now available here.
thanks, Mike.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Back to Work Developing Android Apps

Back to Work
Sorry to any readers who have been expecting more regular updates - I have not had much time to spend on app development or this blog over the last couple of weeks since I got back from holiday, but things are now back to normal.



My Andromo app - 'Earn a Living with Android Apps'
In my last post I mentioned a website called Andromo, which lets you create your own content based apps in just a few clicks. I created an app which uses RSS to feed my blog to this Android app.
So far I have had a whopping 8 downloads and currently 1 active device install. So that app has not (yet) taken off...

Earnings
This month has seen me earn a little more than last month - I have not yet met my first goal, but came very close, and of course any increase on the last month is a step in the right direction. I will post the monthly profits in a couple of days - there are a couple more days left yet!

App updates
As this is my first evening back developing, I have made only a small modification. I have placed an information page in my Computer and IT Quiz, which contains links to my other apps. Hopefully a little cross promotion will up the number of downloads I am getting for Earn a Living with Android and Simple Calorie Tracker/Counter.

Thank you
Thanks for sticking with me and my blog, as well as reading my story so far. Please check out my apps to date and see what you think - all feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me a lot!

My next post is now available here.
cheers, Mike.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Can I make Money with Andromo for Android?

**Please not since I wrote this post, Andromo have announced they will start charging for their service. Despite offering me a large discount for being a valued customer etc, I don't think I will be subscribing..**

After searching the web recently, I happened upon something called Andromo.
Andromo.com is a website/tool that allows you to create (mainly content based) apps for Android, without any coding, very quickly.

As far as I can tell, at the moment it is only good for creating multimedia and information based apps. This sounded cool though so I had to have a go - I asked myself the questions: Can I make money with Andromo apps? If so, how much money can I make with Andromo apps!

With nothing to lose Andromo is free) I set out creating the app for this blog, titled Earn a Living with Android - click here to check it out. It delivers the content from this blog, via its RSS feed, straight to the app. It worked perfectly and it took me about ten minutes to create and then you can just download the APK file ready to copy to your mobile or upload to the Android/Play Market. Brilliant.

I am very impressed with Andromo, and I will be developing more apps in the future with it.

For now, please check out the app I created with Andromo.

At the end of the month, I'll add the stats for the app I just created too!
Thanks again for reading, My next post is available here.
Mike.


Monday, May 7, 2012

April 2012 Profits

First let me start by saying my 2 week holiday to Florida was amazing - had the best time ever visiting the theme parks and, of course, eating burgers.

So down to Android business... well I'm happy to say that despite a scary start to this Android development career, things are now back to normal. I am still earning only a small amount of money, but uninstalls are no longer rising at the alarming rate like they were before, and the earnings are still pretty much the same as they were before any problems.

I still haven't reached my first goal yet of reaching $1 in a single day yet, in fact my stats for April for  Computer and IT Quiz are:
Earnings: $3.09
Total impressions: 17,689
Active installs: 1,070

Stats for Simple Calorie Tracker/Counter are:
Earnings: $0.00
Total impressions: 0
Active installs: 269

Now, that sounds quite poor -  but if you have read my earlier posts you will see that I have a lot less active installs due to a (still not fully explainable) large period of uninstalls of my main earning app,  Computer and IT Quiz.

I am actually very pleased with these results, and my app continues to receive very positive feedback (mostly 4 and 5 stars). I hope that next month I can earn at least $5 and maybe achieve my first goal. We shall see.

Thanks again for reading - my next post is now available here.
Mike

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Active Installs still Falling

What's going on - active installs still falling?
Active installs are still falling fast for my  Computer and IT Quiz app - Active installs are now at 1,295 (was 1,658 at the start of this blog and was at one time around 3,000).
I still cannot figure this out. I have had another look through the statistics and can that it's not any specific version of the app that's being installed - it's all versions. There may be a problem with the app on some devices although feedback has given no clues as to the problem.

I had hoped to turn the  Computer and IT Quiz  app into something that earned me at least a little money towards my final goal of $1500 per month, but at this rate I'd better put more effort into some of my new ideas.

I will spend a little more time on the app when I get back from my 2 week break, and then see how things go - I will set up some more emulator screen sizes for testing, as currently I am only testing on my HTC Sensation.

So here are the stats for this month so far - I will post the full months stats when I am back from my break:

Computer and IT Quiz:
Active installs last month: 1,658
Active installs now: 1,295
Profit so far this month from Adsense: $1.26
Adsense impressions so far this month: 9,367

Simple Calorie Tracker/Counter:

Active installs last month: 272
Active installs now: 272
Profit so far this month from Adsense: $0.0
Adsense impressions so far this month: 0

Interestingly, looking at the number of impressions for the computer quiz, it is around the same mark as it was at this point last month, before all the uninstalls started happening., so there may be some hope yet. Hopefully the active installs out there now are strong and are used regularly, to create a large volume of ad impressions - after all that's what I want at the end of the day.

I would also like to point out that the Simple Calorie Tracker/Counter has very little activity surrounding it. Maybe it just isn't exciting enough - after all it is a very simple tool (as it was designed to be). It just doesn't seem to have a place in the Play Store.

Tasks for when I return:

  • Get started on my next app - I have now got the creative juices flowing, so to speak. I can't really give away any details - again, it's not a major app but it is one I believe will be very useful for guitar/bass players.
  • I will also see if the uninstalls have evened out when I get back, for the Computer and IT Quiz. Lets hope they don't fall enough to cause my app to drop down the list in search results in the Play Store.
Thanks again for reading this blog - if you have any comments or suggestions please send them to spiderdogsw@gmail.com.

Mike.


Friday, April 13, 2012

Why are my app's active installs falling?

Hello again, and welcome back.

Today, I want to share with you an unusual drop in the number of active installs of my app, Computer and IT Quiz.

I've been working hard on the app, and I'd hoped this work would have translated to more downloads of the app.

Unfortunately, I've had a drop in the number of active installs. And not just a small drop. This graph shows active installs for the last six months - check out the drop at the end:



Before the drop, active installs were steadily on the rise, and have been since first publishing the app. Now, the total installs have fallen to a level less than they were a year ago, without any obvious reason.

I did release a bug-riddled version of the app a while back (not intentionally - I didn't test properly!), and it's the only thing I can think of that might have caused this issue...

Let that be a lesson to you folks - always test properly before release.

On a more positive note, I hope that, as I've made a number of improvements over the last two releases (and fixed the bugs), numbers will start to pick up again.

I'll stay positive - if I keep improving the app, the numbers will pick up again.

Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this? Did it motivate you to work even harder, or did it cause you to give up? Please comment below and tell us you're story. I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading.
Mike.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Developing and selling Android apps with no experience

Hello everyone and welcome back!

If you read the first post yesterday, you'll know I'm starting a career in Android development, and want to earn a living working from home developing and selling my Android apps.

  • So where to begin? 
  • Do you need programming experience?
  • Are there any start up costs?

Let's take a look...

My programming experience


At university I studied a free route computing course, which involved some C++ and Assembly language programming. I was pretty good at both, but never an expert at either, and studied neither in the final year of my degree.

Since then I've worked in two technical support roles, neither of which involved any programming.



How I got started


A couple of years ago I looked into the possibility of buying myself an Android phone - the HTC Hero. While I was reading into the Android operating system, I learned that apps could be developed by anyone with a developer account, and published straight to the Android Market (now called Google Play Store).

There were two ways of generating income - you could charge a fee for users to download your app, or you could use in-app advertising to generate money.

I got all tingly, bought the phone, downloaded the development software, signed up as a developer and started tinkering.

Costs


Here are the things you need to buy to develop and publish Android apps:

1. A Windows/Linux/Mac computer with internet access (I'll assume you have this already).
2. A developer account ($25 one-time fee when I wrote this).

All the development software is free and so is the emulator (you don't strictly need an Android phone/tablet to develop, although I strongly recommend you test all apps on real devices before publishing).

My First App


The first app I created was Computer and IT Quiz (a recent version of the app is shown on the right). It was full of bugs, but there was nothing else of its type on the market at the time. I made the app available for free on the market.

Computer and IT Quiz was fairly popular but due to the bugs, received a lot of bad reviews, which in turn put others off downloading. I fixed the bugs over the following months, and worked hard to improve the app with more questions, and a better user interface.

Note - since writing this post, I have released a paid version of Computer and IT Quiz. The paid version has more features and no ads.

My second app


I created the Simple Calorie Tracker/Counter app (now called Blou Simple Calorie Counter, pictured left) not long after the first release of Computer and IT Quiz. It received fairly good reviews, but was clunky and never got a great number of downloads.

After a while I decided to pull the app and re-release it as a paid app. I recreated much of the interface and re-released the software for $0.60 (or thereabouts - not sure of the exact price I charged).

I sold very few (less than 15) downloads of the app and decided to again make the app free to download, with ads showing to earn revenue.

Since making the app free again, the app received hardly any downloads and earns no revenue whatsoever. Something for me to work on.

I'm reaching the end of where I wanted to go with this post, but before I finish, I'd like to invite you to say 'Hi!' in the comments below, and if anyone is at the same stage as I am with development, I'd love to hear more of your story.

Thanks for reading,
Mike.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Can I Make a Living with Android Apps?

Action is the foundational key to all success.
Pablo Picasso


My plan to make a living from home, with Android app development


Many people dream of making money from home. Some try to do it the easy way - which is seldom successful (check out Son Tran's 'Five Stupid Get-Rich Quick Scams (People Still Fall For)' if you fancy a laugh) - and some people do it from scratch the hard way.

I put a lot of effort into developing Android apps, and I hope that this blog will eventually become an Android developer success story, to inspire others who want to earn money with Android apps.

About me and my business


My name's Mike, and I'm a Technical Support Engineer working for the NHS in Manchester, England. I do like my job, but my dream is to quit working full time for somebody else, and go it alone. My real passion is programming, and so Android development seemed the perfect choice for me to set about making my dream a reality.

I developed and published my first Android app, 'Computer and IT Quiz', in 2010 under the developer name 'Spiderdog Software', and today it's still my most popular app. I spend most of my development time working on both the free and full versions of this app.

How do I make money from my apps?


My apps are offered for download in two ways:
1. Free version with advertising (either third party ads, or ads that point to the paid version of my app).
2. Paid version with no advertising, and some extra features. It's the paid apps that I am expecting to earn the most money with.

How much money do I need to earn from my apps to quit my job and work from home?


Note: I've taken a few things into consideration here such as Google's cut from sales, income tax etc., as well as the expenses I have in my current job (fuel used driving to work and so on). The numbers below are what I would like to earn in app sales before those deductions.

If I can make money from Android - enough money to live off - then I will have achieved my ultimate goal. My target is $1650 per month, which roughly matches my current income.

"Whoa!", you may be thinking. "Mike, $1650 is a lot of money to earn from an app!"

Well... for a month $1650 does sounds like a lot of money for an indie developer like myself, but when you break it down it seems perfectly achievable. $1650 over 30 days is $55, so that's my daily target. If I were to price my apps at $2 and could sell 30 downloads each day, I'd hit my target easily.


My Apps


Computer and IT Quiz - The first app I published and the one that I've spent the most time developing. A multiple choice quiz related to computers, technology and communications. You can see screenshots for this app on the right.

Simple Calorie Tracker/Counter - This is the second app I published. Although the app does have positive reviews, it has enjoyed few downloads and does not make much money on the Google Play Store.

My goals


I've set myself some mini 'stepping stone' goals, which you can see on this page (or you can click 'About me and my goals' in the links section on the right). I'll keep this page up to date with which of the mini goals I've achieved, and the date each was achieved.

Starting point - Downloads and Earnings


I'll be sharing the number of downloads of my apps each month. Here are the starting figures:

Computer and IT Quiz (Lite):
Total installs 16,146
Active installs 1,658

Simple Calorie Tracker/Counter:
Total installs 1354
Active installs 272

My current revenue for all apps is less than $5 per month, and currently I only have third party ads for revenue generation.

Note - these were the only apps I had when I started this blog

I will constantly be improving the apps I have now, and  building new ones to boost revenue.

Thanks for reading, it would be great to hear from some of you who are starting out - even if you just post to say 'Hi!', so please leave a comment, and if you're interested in following my journey, you can subscribe below. Thanks.

All the best.
Mike.