[amdev]

My pleasure. We initially sold the app for $1.99, subsequently lowered the price to $0.99 and eventually gave it away for free in hopes of building the user base then charging. We also hoped it would grow virally but that didn't really happen. It's still free right now.

[buckwilson]

It seems like marketing is king on the app store. I'd love to see some success stories that aren't taptaptap (and the MacHeist juggernaut and their 600,000 person mailing list) just to see how one can bootstrap themselves up some buzz.

Have you taken a stab at marketing? Do you have any insights in that area (either successes or failures)?

[amdev]

Yea, we definitely have. I think we spent between $800-900 (modest budget, I know) on ads in 2009. That includes advertising on various iPhone blogs as well as taking part in reddit's ad program beta. None of it helped. Sales stayed the same or went down.

Review articles on Macworld and TUAW helped boost sales temporarily (2-3 days) but the only sustained sales were a result of having our best seller, BillMinder, featured by Apple in "What's Hot." It was great (and appreciated!) but definitely not on the level as the awesome taptaptap or tapbots. :)