Launching Font Picker for mac

Demo of choosing fonts

Font Picker for Mac was waiting for approval in the Mac App Store when I agreed to talk at LSxCafe. Luckily it was approved the morning of the LSxCafe on Tuesday 6 March 2012, so it became my 'high profile' launch.

Font picker is my first mac app and I'm really excited that it's now available for sale. I made the original version of Font Picker in 2008. It's popularity gradually grew and I started to get really nice feedback emails and ideas for new features. I really wanted to improve it and add those extra features, but I couldn't afford the time. The new Mac App Store (hopefully to be followed by other app stores) gave me hope that it will be possible to make a business out of producing apps and the revenue will pay for developing those apps further.

In my talk I talked about how developers can invest their free time best, why I'd decided to make Font Picker and how I'd found switching from .NET development to Cocoa development. When I announced that Font Picker was available in the Mac App Store I got a little cheer, which was cool.

It's been over a week now since the launch and I'm not yet bored of checking my sales figures as soon as they come out at 1am. How well sales go will affect how much time I can afford to put into further development. I had no idea if I would sell a few copies a month, or hundreds a day. The reality so far has been pretty good. I've already earned enough to pay back the money I spent on joining the developer network. Sales have averaged out at 10 a day so far. If this rate continues I will have earned back the time I spent on the project in about 3 months. The hope is that sales might increase as people start telling their friends how amazing Font Picker is. I'm currently on the first page of mac design apps and I think sales will probably drop when I fall off that page. So, I'll probably need to put some more effort into marketing then. Software development is only one part of running a successful software business and I can't forget that.

Font Picker is a simple app that helps you choose a font for your design project. You can find out more at the Font Picker site.

Photo credit: Imran.