This is something that iPhone App designers will appreciate…

As I was recording a [REDACTED] about an hour ago UPS dropped off a package that I wasn’t excepting until next week. This product is something that I believe that is being released on Monday and I think that app designers will love this one.

So this product is from the guys who did the iPhone Sketchbook. It is a stencil that will make it even easier to write out your ideas on paper. It is very cool looking. Check out the pic:

You can find out more about the iPhone App Sketchbook here: http://www.mobilesketchbook.com/

PS: if you are reading this on Monday and see this stencil in the wild comment below and let us know!

Everyone loves to see how much money iPhone apps earn so I thought I would share how much money I made with Beer Pad.

A Typical App

I like using Beer Pad as yardstick to try to project how much an average iPhone app can expect to earn. Beer Pad is a simple app that appeals to a very niched-down audience and it simply follows the typical app revenue model; Beer Pad’s cost varied between $1.99 to $3.99 throughout the year.

Another reason I like Beer Pad is because it represents a sort of coup for me personally: the idea for the app came right from the market itself, the code was repurposed from Wine Pad and the app has been well received in reviews. To keep things in perspective, the initial time it took to develop Beer Pad was about two weeks most of which was spent on doing research into the niche itself.

No Dreamy-Eyed Earnings Report Here

Finally, as you will see in a bit the earnings from Beer Pad are modest. If you are expecting to see the dreamy eyed “I made $100,000 in only five seconds on the App Store” you will be disappointed. However, I do believe that Beer Pad probably fits the profile of a relatively successful app. This hunch has been backed up at a recent conference I went to were the developer suggested that most successful apps will bring in about $10,000 and mostly in the first month or two.

So – How Much Already?

So, without further ado to date Beer Pad has made $8680 in total revenue. Most of that was earned in the first three months. The average revenue over the past year is $18. These numbers are after Apple’s cut.

Here you can see the break-down of Beer Pad’s earnings in three month increments:

Finally, here is the graph from App Viz detailing the sales over the past year:

Some Thoughts-Analysis-Lessons

The Long Tail

The first thing that is striking from the graph above is the head of the tail seems to be were most of the money was made. In the long tail, sales dropped down to only $7 per day. Every app that I have worked with involved a similar pattern and as the App Store gets older the head of the tail gets shorter.

Update Effects

It is not all that clear from the chart here, but updating Beer Pad would result in a sales boast for a few days. This is usually a significant but minor increase.

Will This Keep Your Kid In Diapers?

The other striking part of these numbers is the overall revenue. You will need to ask yourself: will one app like this be worth your while in time. For me, the answer is yes because I simply leveraged code that I already had in place. However, if you are looking at two to three months of development time then the question is a bit more difficult especially if you have more than one partner involved in the project.

Can You Afford to Maintain, Upgrade and Support Your App

So this is the unpopular discussion about whether you can afford to keep adding features to your app to keep it fresh. At some point I will need to take a look at that $7 per day figure and decide whether I can really afford to spend a week or two adding new content to the app. Many developers simply believe that you should keep on loving your app regardless of its performance no matter what and at any cost.

But, when you look at numbers like this and realize that most of your money will be made in the first month then assuming you have bills to pay you made need to consider releasing a new app instead of sticking it out.

Take-Away Message

I consider Beer Pad to be a successful app for a few reasons, but financially Beer Pad would not work on its own. The reason that it is a viable product for me is that it is part of a suite of apps (I had 9 apps out at one time last year). Simply releasing an app on its own and doing nothing else probably will not cut it for most developers.

Something I would recommend that you consider is to think a little outside the box when planning your app business. Think of supplementing your app sales with consulting, a desktop app, speaking or even ad supported apps. The app store is competitive: 85,000 apps and prices are falling to 99 cents. This is the time to be a bit more proactive in our business models so we can find a way to make this work. The app business can work, but we can’t just expect to build something, use Apple’s business model and assume we will make millions.

Any Ideas to Make It Work?

Given these numbers I’m curious about your thoughts. Can you make the mobile app business work for you? What new and crazy ideas do you have to make it work? Comment below!!

I’m psyched to be going to Denver next week for the 360iDev conference.

I am toying with the idea of interviewing the developers I met there (anyone who will talk to me!). If you are a developer, marketer or innocent bystander and what to appear on this site in either audio or visual format let me know in the comments below, Twitter or email at mattcampbell [at] howtomakeiphoneapps.com

Of course, even if I have no takers I may corner the random app developer while they are drunk and helpless at the bar so fear not!

How Can We Make Our App Business Successful?

So this is the question I will be trying to answer and frankly the reason I am attending. My own apps have been relatively successful and support my modest lifestyle, but there will be people at the conference who have knocked the ball out of the park! And I want to talk to all of them or really anyone who was something to add to the conversation about being successful app developers at any level.

Stop me and let’s talk at the conference if you have something to say. If you are being interviewed and would like a plug to your app and/or website I would love to pass you on some link juice. But, make sure to email me the information first so I can be sure that my readers can find you.

Specific Questions I Have:

How are you personally involved in app development and/or business?

What does it mean to have a successful app?

What are the biggest challenges facing developers and app business today?

What advice can you give to people who are thinking about jumping in to iPhone development?

Outside of having a solid app, what is the most important thing you can do to promote your app?

If an independent developer had $1,000 to spend that could ONLY go towards promoting their app, how should they spend the thousand bucks?

What are you most excited right now in terms of the platform?

Do you think that a particular business model is going to win out in the app world?

What do you think the future holds for the mobile app space?

I want to know what your questions are!!!

Use the comments below to submit questions. I will try to get as many as I can answered next week. Also, if you have any insight or answers to the questions above write them in below as well!