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- @5 Why you should Choose F1?
- @3
- Since I joined the Internet I have come under some abuse from programmers
- that think F1 does not offer a good deal to programmers. These people had
- never even read the conditions under which F1 operates. If you think F1
- are exploiting programmers or are not giving good value then please read
- the following facts first, then decide.
-
- A typical £3.99, 1 disk sale and SOME of the costs incurred:
-
- Basic, obvious costs:@4
- ---------------------@3
- £1.00 royalty
- 27p disk (we only use top quality branded disks)
- 20P jiffy
- 26p stamp
- 2p label
- 2p Printed orderform as above
- 2p Wear and tear
- 5p wages (approx)
- 72p per cheque banked (bank charges)
- 30p Income tax (approx)
- #2£2.86 TOTAL
- @1
-
- Not so obvious costs:
- ---------------------@4
-
- All the money invested in equipment, two A1200's with hard drives, A500 and
- A600 for testing purposes, Injet printers, TV's/Moniters, Action replay
- cart for ripping screenshots for the mags and the cat disk And lots of
- other odds and sods that should be obvious.
-
- Wages for two adults that run F1 10-14 hours a day, 6 days a week.
-
- Extra phone line + many phone calls to programmers, magazines, distributers
- etc. In business you need many good contacts to get anywhere and this
- means many hours on the phone.
-
- Income tax also means we need to employ an accountant, our books are kept
- in professionl condition in case anybody should accuse us of dishonesty
- with the royalties.
-
- A Modem and internet account were specifically bought so I can upload F1
- demo versions to Aminet and keep in touch with programmers and make more
- new contacts, not cheap.
-
-
-
- Spares and repairs to machines, not cheap when you blow your CIA's or that
- powerpack blows up again.
-
- Advertising, last year we spent over £4000 on magazine adverts.
-
- Don't forget we send EVERY program for review to every relevent UK mag and
- some foreign one's too. There is many, many more little things like that,
- but I am sure you must be getting the gist of things.
-
- @3
- Also don't forget some of the benefits afforded to F1 programmers:
- @5
- * Due to the good repuation of F1 titles being of generally high quality
- your program will usually get noticed, a nice head start.
-
- * Due to many contacts made in the trade and with the UK mags a very high
- percentage of our titles get reveiwed in the mags, this is another bonus.
- Our top titles get reviewed in ALL the mags, since we started we have had
- hundreds of reviews (listed in our cat disk, also available from Aminet
- in docs/lists). We hope to set up a web site sooner or later too.
-
-
-
- * Once your title is in F1 you are free of the constraints of having
- to market your product, buy disks, stamps, jiffies, you don't have to copy
- disks and post jiffs and deal with customers, we do all that for you.
- Which means you are free to start your next project and keep the ball
- rolling.
-
- * A perfect example of the benefit of being in F1 is with the game 'Teeny
- Weenys' by Mal Lavery, he released it as Shareware, sent it to all the
- mags and lots of PD libraries. He got 1 (one) sale and one review in Amiga
- Computing. We took it on and immedately Amiga Format reviewed it and I
- quote
-
- 'This game has been around for sometime, but it hadn't really caught
- our attention until now'
-
- Mal had previously sent a review coy to AF. F1 later sent a review copy in,
- because it was an F1 title it got noticed, reviewed and was awarded
- 'Selection of The Month' At the time of writing that AF is not on
- sale yet I have a preview copy (May 96)
-
- * Another good example is our best ever selling title, GRAC. The author has
- recieved well over £2000 in royalty payments SO FAR. If he had sold GRAC
- to a commercial software house he would of got around £500 as a lump sum
- and would of lost his copyright, he would now have nothin.
-
- With F1 he still retains the copyright to Grac, is allowed to do as he
- pleases with it AND IS STILL MAKING MONEY FROM IT through F1.
-
- So in some cases F1 offer a better deal than a commercial release.
- Obviously GRAC is an exceptional case but we have other titles that are
- looking like they may do the same, Magic Paint Box is doing well and in
- its first quarter netted over £250 and don't forget MPB will be selling for
- years. The Relics Of Deldroney Adventure games are always a steady seller
- and have made a fair whack for its author.
-
- * One last thing, all F1 programmers are entitled to a 20% discount on any
- F1 titles they purchase direct from F1.
-
- #8
- Now ask yourself these questions:
- @4
- * Are F1 exploiting programmers?@5
- * Are F1 offering a bad deal to programmers?@6
- * When are you going to send in your program for FREE evaluation? :-)
- @3
-
- *3Phil.
-