September Recap

September was a good month. Most of it was just like the summer months, but a few really nice things happened to give me a boost going into October.

First, as I mentioned before, Google added a few new categories to the market, including Health. This allowed my infusion calculator to get a little more exposure. I sold 31 copies of InfusionCalc in September, compared to just 11 in August. Not mindshattering, but a nice little boost. That app is now #5 in paid apps in Health.

Many users were complaining about the lack of high score functionality in Golf Solitaire, so I added a leaderboard. That seems to have helped quite a bit, upping the overall rating of both the free and paid versions, and boosting sales a bit. Here are my all-time sales by month for the paid version of Golf Solitaire:


Again, not money to retire on (GS sells for $1.99), but the trend is nice. While the free version has remained fixed at #20 in its category, the paid version has climbed up the 6th highest paid game in Cards & Casino.

The most significant development is that I was accepted to participate in the Google AdSense for Mobile Apps Beta program, so I replaced my AdMob ads with AdSense in Spades Free and Golf Solitaire Free. I also put AdSense ads in PetBook and released it as a free app. I'm not going to give out specific numbers right now, but I will say that I am very happy so far with the results. I may be getting a boost just from the novelty of new ads and new placement. I hope ad revenues don't dwindle down to the $1-2 range like the did with AdMob. It would be nice if they plateaued off to a respectable level.

The news is that Donut (the latest Android build) started rolling out to users' phones last night. It's got some nice improvements to the market (screenshots!), which can only help downloads and sales.

Also, the new phones are coming out. The Motorola Cliq goes on pre-order October 19th and on sale the first week of November. The rumorly-named Motorola Tao is supposed to be announced any day now, and should be available (on Verizon, so the rumors go) by the holidays. I think the HTC Hero, available on Sprint, is also supposed to be available within the next two months. Of course I hope these things sell like hotcakes and lead to a corresponding boost in downloads and sales. We'll see.