I work for a company that has produced a new software designed to create books from digital photos.

We have a custom application designed to facilitate design/ layout of the books and calendars...

any ideas on places to promote the application?
cnet, tucows, etc?

Our software requires a login before download. It is 100% free software... just looking for some promotional guidance

I didn't post the link, so as not to be accused of spamming

our application is similar to blurb or other self publishing software.

any guidance is appreciated

turn it into a module or component that will integrate into wordpress, joomla, drupal or other CMS's and then make it available for download from the corresponding communities sites. You can still charge for your application and your exposure will be extremely targeted to web developers.

Make another version that you can post to download, hotscripts, tucows, ectera, but my experience is the conversions are poor on those sites.

Then charge the heck for support time
That seems to be the model

it is not something that can become a joomla module or wordpress component- -- that seems way off base for our product as well... I'm looking for the best places to promote the product, drive traffic, etc... Google is covered as is yahoo / msn --- we run some high pr publishing sites that will create the backlinks as well as filter traffic through to the site.

I had thought about tucows / download. We make our money off of the books that we print using the software. Not via support.

Thanks for the attempt at an answer though

I'd have thought that your taget audience would be publishers (or those thinking about it), rather than the conventional software route.

Trouble is, if you are not thinking of charging for it, then you'd need a 'free' method. Which is not easy.

A 'one off' cost of buying a domain, 'one off' costs of setting it up, then very small hosting charges would enable you to submit the site (and therefore the software) to many high quality publishing sites and directories.

That site could perfectly reasonably link to your other related site, and thus may bring you some customers.

But if you are delivering it free, without support, and no expectation of income, then you might just as well place it on a page on your publishing site, and leave promotion to Google!

when i made my suggestion i had little information

read through all the computer related magazines you can find. After many of the reviews and articles is the email contact information of the writer. Write a very short and Succinct email to each one requesting a review. do not hype your product or kiss their a$^*#%^*'s, just let them know about it.

example
I read your review of xyz's software and I would like to make you aware of abcd software. Link to an info page on your website, offer a free demo, include your contact info, and if you have a 3 minute or less video, include that.


They are actually looking for items to review and write about. In the past I've had some success with this, but a mention in pcworld, pcmag, cnet, or even playboy, etc can be very powerful.

It takes time, but if you do just two a day for a week you will have some responses soon.


[ Message was edited by: mj1256 05/09/2008 08:16 am ]

Thanks, mj1256 --- that seems to help much more ---

it is a software designed to allow mom's and others to create books and calendars --- the text is currently being rewritten to promote more se friendly text - site was designed before I started here. The text is also being rewritten to emphasise the quality of the printing -- much higher quality than blurb / asuka. .. the software / site was designed to moms and crafters -(I'm working on changing the look quite a bit)-- we are doing another rollout that I'm designing more towards artists, photographers, weddings, and such. (multiple sites, same core application, different skin / paint job on the app and site)

The url is [link]

I've optimized for the regular se's, created backlinks, etc -- site went live to the public this week ----

I used the software myself as a test to design a calendar and the printing qulity is great. This comes from my perspective as a photographer / designer.

Now, I've taken care of SE's, backlinks, and clean code -- where do I go from here? (Never marketed a software app, but have done well with tons of content based sites)

"much higher quality than blurb / asuka"

Be very carefull when comparing to actual competitors in your promotion. Depending on what you claim to be, and which laws are in place in the involved countries, you might get into expensive trouble for doing so.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and the above is no legal advice. If you haven't already, I suggest consulting a lawyer.

It is great to see you post again windharp.


>>I've optimized for the regular se's, created backlinks, etc -- site went live to the public this week ----

While at it you would do well to remove so many meta names from your page header.

You can also post a link to some of the prominent script repositories. They add to the invaluable inbound links and can generate reasonably good interest about the product.

hiiii