This Little Program Went to Market

This Little Program Went to Market: Create, Deploy, Distribute, Market, and Sell Software and More on the Internet at Little or No Cost to You

Interested in selling your own products on the Internet? This book may be just what you need. Do you have a computer program that others might want to buy? This book explains how you can transform your personal program into a market-ready software package. Have you ever dreamed of owning a Web site, complete with a shopping cart and a safe method of receiving payments? This book can help you set those up for yourself. The freeware and open source tools and services demonstrated in this book make it easy for one person to handle the entire creation-to-sales process in a professional manner: * create a Web site that meets XHTML and CSS compliance standards * optimize your Web site for search engines and control their access * create download links, buy now buttons, and a shopping cart * accept credit card payments through PayPal * monitor visitor activity * increase downloads and sales per visitor using various marketing strategies. To make a computer program market-ready: * define an easily repeatable, one-step build process with automatic backup * provide integrated, searchable help documentation * draw your own icons or create them from a photo * create a trial version of your program and market it as shareware * learn strategies to help protect your program from piracy * create an install wizard that requires acceptance of your license agreement, creates file associations, avoids Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows 7 access control errors, and verifies minimum system requirements. Step-by-step instructions are provided for each of these activities and many more. Detailed HTML, CSS, and JavaScript listings are provided to help you with the Web page programming.

Table of Contents

Part I – Create a Program
Part II – Deploy a Program
Part III – Create a Web Site, Distribute a Program
Part IV – Sell a Product
Part IV covers selling anything on the Internet.
Part V – Market a Product