Make Money Outside the Mac App Store book cover

It sucks to throw 30% of your hard-earned income out of the window

But you do when you use the Mac App Store. You can join the league of pro Mac devs and stay in control of app distribution, offer upgrade pricing, take care of your customers, and build a thriving business. Best of all: You can have all that in a day.

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  • 100% Money Back Guarantee: Because I know you’ll love the book!

Sell outside the Mac App Store to increase revenue per sale and get to know your customers. This book shows you how. Fully functional, super-clean coded sample apps, everything ready to be copied right into your project, backed by tons of unit tests!

I believe that the Mac App Store just isn’t the best way to reach your customers. If you have to build an audience for your products anyway, why drive them to Apple’s store? There, the custom is to leave 1-star reviews to ask questions and leave feedback. With your own store you will earn more per sale and provide better support, thus increasing customer satisfaction.

To sell outside the Mac App Store doesn’t have to take more than a couple hours. Save days of research and start selling your app before an Apple review person would even notice your upload to the App Store.

I fell in love with FastSpring: The platform is easy to use and offers a ton of cool features, including bundle sales, discounts, and a custom store API. Their support team replies super fast. You will like what they offer. And if you don’t, I’ll give you a 100% refund. Period.

The Mac App Store Leaves You Alone

It won’t help you start a business. When you sell on the Mac App Store …

If you want to create a business, all of these are vital factors. Are you ready to ditch all this for the convenience of publishing on Apple’s store?

Philip Goward, founder of Smile, calls the Mac App Store a “warehouse.” Don’t make your application a cheap commodity. The benefit of discoverability on the Mac App Store is miniscule. Having full control over sales and customer service becomes more important when you’re serious about your business.

Join the Ranks of Famous Indie Developers

FastSpring is a very well established e-commerce platform where a lot of big indie developer studios sell their applications for years.

It’s easy to get all the flexibility of selling outside the MAS with next to no effort. You’re in good company – and I’ve collected quite a few case studies of renowned indie teams, like:

Pieter Omvlee revealed that Bohemian Coding, creators of the infamous Sketch design tool, initially sold via PayPal around 8 years ago. Bohemian Coding moved to FastSpring because of the better features, namely handling VAT automatically. Even though Sketch was sold exclusively on the Mac App Store when Apple opened its doors, after re-introducing FastSpring for volume licenses it turns out their own FastSpring-based store performs better than the Mac App Store.

You can make more money per sale, stay in touch with customers, and integrate a time-based trial and license code verification into your app within the hour!

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What You Will Learn

This book includes every step to get your app out there.

You’ll learn how to perform the following tasks:

As a bonus, you’ll learn a few things about Mac software architecture through well-written, fully functional sample applications which are thoroughly tested. There are more than 200 test cases included in the code repository!

Here’s what FastSpring’s CTO Mike Smith has to say about the book:

We appreciate Christian’s efforts in creating a guide that enables Mac developers to sell applications through FastSpring’s award-winning e-commerce platform. He has provided detailed instructions to help developers configure key elements of their online sales process. The spirit of community captured in his book reflects FastSpring’s mission to connect people globally in the digital economy.

Why FastSpring and not the Mac App Store?

FastSpring repeatedly won awards. They were finalists in the community-based 2015 SIIA Software CODiE Awards, for Best Subscription Management Solution and Best eCommerce & Billing Platform.

I’ve written about the topic a lot on my blog. In case you aren’t sure what FastSpring is good for, what your options are, and similar, you can find more to read on my website!

Further reading on the topic:

Tyler Hall started his business by selling VirtualHostX via PayPal from 2007–2009, too. But he switched once a friend of his was locked out of PayPal due to “suspicious” activity. – Imagine your sales going strong, then suddenly your payment processor blocks your account because they don’t treat you like a customer. That equals sudden death (or at least prolonged coma) for your business. Stuff like that still happens; it’s a numbers game of large platforms where you are just yet another factor. To an e-commerce provider like FastSpring, you are their primary contact, not your end users. FastSpring will talk to you and treat you well. That’s a huge difference.

Technical Details

Become independent and take matters into your hand. Set up a footing outside the Mac App Store and join the ranks of successful indie developers who make money without giving away control.

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FAQ

Q: It’s written in Swift! What about the frequent Swift language updates?

I’ll keep the book and the code up to date so you are always equipped with the latest technology. Apart from updates depending on Swift, I’ll update contents based on reader feedback and my own experience.

I intend this book to be an investment in your indie career. It will accompany your journey until the world’s end – or until Macs stop to work the way they do and everything we know becomes obsolete.

Q: How can I get the updated version?

If you bought from me directly, just use the download link you received after your order! It’ll work for every future update and is bound to your order number. Just shoot me an e-mail if you lost it and I’ll give you a new one.

For Leanpub and iBooks, you can get the updated version from their platforms. Leanpub also sends email notifications when a new major version is released.

Q: Do you offer a money-back guarantee?

Totally. Either you’re 100% happy or you get your money back, guaranteed for a lifetime. – Mine, first and foremost, because nobody checks my mail once I’m deceased :)

Changelog

Changes in the 2nd edition (2019-10-07)