Yesterday I promised [1] to tell HN about the sales of my app on the Mac App Store. This blog post exclusively opens the business secret kimono to reveal the riches I shall make from selling $1 image generator apps. (Spoiler: not likely.)
Units sold for us, all of these are $2.99:
452 Blush
128 Off-Road Velociraptor Safari
101 Crane Wars
13 Time Donkey
694 total units, $1,452 revenue after Apple's take.
He doesn't seem to draw any solid conclusions but instead has started a blog to keep the community updated with actual numbers. The title is "Day 1" even - unlike some articles which are trying to draw out grand conclusions on the App Store.
It is interesting to see the type of numbers the developers are seeing. They tend to be promising and I look forward to analysis as more and more users update and Lion is released.
And, are we informed now? Can we make more intelligent decisions based on these data? It doesn't have to be a peer reviewed article but ~100 sales for one dev in one day doesn't tell me anything.
I don't have access to anyone else's data. Apple only publishes relative sales rankings, as in: "sixth highest-selling app in category XYZ". (Apple has also told us that there were a million downloads during the first day, but that's even less useful than my number...)
That's why I felt that there is some general interest in publishing these numbers, as it gives other developers an idea of what level of sales is actually taking place on the Mac App Store. At least I find it interesting to know that ~100 units / day is enough for a solid position on the Top Paid list in the Graphics & Design category.
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2076077