Make Money Outside the Mac App Store
Make Money Outside the Mac App Store
How to Sell Your Mac App with FastSpring, Secure It With License Codes Against Piracy, and Offer Time-Based Trial Downloads
About the Book
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.
Selling in the Mac App Store is easy. But it also cost you 30% of the revenue. And you can't provide a demo. And you can't provide upgrade pricing. And you don't get to know your customers.
FastSpring is a very well established ecommerce platform where a lot of big indie developer studios sell their applications for years.
It doesn't take much to jump onto the bandwagon and 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 reknown indie teams like Smile and Ironic Software to show you what they do.
You can make more money per sale and integrate a time-based trial and license code verification into your app within the hour!
This book includes every step to get your app out there.
You'll learn how to perform the following tasks:
- Set up a product for sale at FastSpring, including license code generation and professional order confirmation e-mails.
- Guard your precious app against software piracy, requiring license code and name to let users pass.
- Implement a registration handler in your app which verifies the license information. You can copy this well-tested code right into your existing app!
- Add a time-based trial to your application which expires even when the application is running. This, too, can be copied right into your existing app!
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!
License
About the Author
Bundles that include this book
Table of Contents
-
So You Want To Sell Your App Outside the Mac App Store …
- Goal of this Book
- Structure of the Book
-
Copy Protection with License Codes
- Terms Used Throughout This Book
- Licensing Is All About a Big State Change
- Download the Code
-
Set up Your App for Sale on FastSpring
- Setting Up Your App as a Product Listing
- Configure License Code Generation via CocoaFob
- Create and Customize Online Storefronts to Sell Your App In Style
- Test the Checkout Process
- Setup Instructions for the Classic Store
-
Sample App 1: How to Verify License Codes in Your App
- Embedding CocoaFob
- Writing a License Verifier
- Persisting License Information
- Encapsulate Verification and Persistence
- User Interface to Enter License Information
- Check for License During Application Launch
- Unregister Again to Test the App
-
Sample App 2: How to Add a Time-Based Trial
- Store and Read Trial Information
- Obtain and Work with Current Time
- Ending a Trial
- Persist the Trial Information at First Launch
- Wrapping Up the Time-Based Trial Changes
- What Could Come Next
-
Appendix
- Bundle Sales on FastSpring
- Self-Hosted License Generator
- Conceptual Details of In-App Purchases
- Embedded Web Store for Purchases Within the App (Classic Commerce)
- App Activation Links in Your Order Confirmation via E-Mail
- CocoaFob and Objective-C
- FAQ
- Notes
The Leanpub 45-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 45 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
Do Well. Do Good.
Authors have earned$10,906,214writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub, earning 80% royalties while saving up to 25 million pounds of CO2 and up to 46,000 trees.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers), EPUB (for phones and tablets) and MOBI (for Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
- #1
Practical FP in Scala: A hands-on approach
Gabriel VolpeA practical book aimed for those familiar with functional programming in Scala who are yet not confident about architecting an application from scratch.
Together, we will develop a purely functional application using the best libraries in the Cats ecosystem, while learning about design patterns and best practices.
- #2
入門 日本語自然言語処理
Masato Hagiwara and Paul O'Leary McCann日本語テキストを処理したい全てのプログラマ・エンジニアの方へ。分かち書きなどの基本から、自然言語生成などの最新の話題までをカバー。動かして学べるコードや、参照文献も付いています。言語学や機械学習の知識が無くても問題ありません。
- #3
Learning Algorithms Through Programming and Puzzle Solving
Alexander S. Kulikov and Pavel PevznerThis book powers our MicroMasters program on edX and specialization on Coursera, one of the ten most popular computer science courses on Coursera. Over half a million students have tried to solve many programming challenges and algorithmic puzzles described in this book. We invite you to join them! See the webpage of the book for more details.
- #4
Functional Programming Made Easier
Charles ScalfaniA Functional Programming book from beginner to advanced without skipping a single step along the way.
In my 40 years of programming, I've felt that programming books always let me down, especially Functional Programming books. So, I wrote the book I wish I had 5 years ago.
Functional Programming will never be easy, but it can be easier.
- #5
Functional event-driven architecture: Powered by Scala 3
Gabriel VolpeExplore the event-driven architecture (EDA) in a purely functional way, mainly powered by Fs2 streams in Scala 3!
Leverage your functional programming skills by designing and writing stateless microservices that scale, powered by stateful message brokers.
- #6
Ansible for DevOps
Jeff GeerlingAnsible is a simple, but powerful, server and configuration management tool. Learn to use Ansible effectively, whether you manage one server—or thousands.
- #7
OpenIntro Statistics
David Diez, Christopher Barr, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, and OpenIntroA complete foundation for Statistics, also serving as a foundation for Data Science.
Leanpub revenue supports OpenIntro (US-based nonprofit) so we can provide free desk copies to teachers interested in using OpenIntro Statistics in the classroom and expand the project to support free textbooks in other subjects.
More resources: openintro.org.
- #8
Cloud Strategy
Gregor Hohpe“Strategy is the difference between making a wish and making it come true.” A successful migration to the cloud can transform your organization, but it shouldn’t be driven by wishes. This book tells you how to develop a sound strategy guided by frameworks and decision models without being overly abstract nor getting lost in product details.
- #9
Visualise, document and explore your software architecture
Simon BrownA short guide to visualising, documenting and exploring your software architecture.
- #10
Scrum Product Ownership - Navigating the Forest AND the Trees, 3'rd Edition
Robert GalenIn 2009, I published Scrum Product Ownership - Ed. 1. Then the 2'nd Ed. in 2013. This is the 3'rd edition, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the original book. It's evolved from a beginners guide to be a more balanced reference for beginners, practitioner, and expert Product Owners.
Top Bundles
- #1
Software Architecture for Developers: Volumes 1 & 2 - Technical leadership and communication
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #2
The Indie Python Extravaganza
5 Books
The Indie Python Extravaganza! A collection of books that will help you to improve your knowledge of the Python programming language one page at a time. Join four indie authors in a journey from the basics of Python to the structure of production-ready systems, going through the core features of the language, some intermediate projects and a... - #3
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #4
All the Books of The Medical Futurist
6 Books
We put together the most popular books from The Medical Futurist to provide a clear picture about the major trends shaping the future of medicine and healthcare. Digital health technologies, artificial intelligence, the future of 20 medical specialties, big pharma, data privacy, digital health investments and how technology giants such as Amazon... - #7
Abandon Your Job - Leaving the Rat Race with Python
8 Books
Now, get all the great Python and Freelancing books from finxter.com in one single bundle!Coffee Break Python - All Python BasicsCoffee Break Python Workbook - Practice the basics of PythonCoffee Break Python Mastery Workouts - Practice advanced Python conceptsCoffee Break Python Slicing - All about SlicingCoffee Break Python NumPy - Get started... - #8
10 Books Bundle - A New Career in Tech 🚀
10 Books
Do you want to create yourself a new and profitable skillset - in one year or less? Do you want to position yourself on the right side of change finally? Do you want to work from home and set your own work schedule while choosing fun and interesting coding projects? Software developers and freelance developersearn six figuresin the US, according... - #9
The Python Craftsman
3 Books
The Python Craftsman series comprises The Python Apprentice, The Python Journeyman, and The Python Master. The first book is primarily suitable for for programmers with some experience of programming in another language. If you don't have any experience with programming this book may be a bit daunting. You'll be learning not just a programming...
