I spend very little time advertising them. Maybe 3 times a week I get an email with a relevant keyword mentioned on HN or Reddit, and in 2 of those cases I spend a few minutes writing a concise comment.
About 3 times a year I do promos on Twitter to get more followers and spread the word a bit more through retweets.
And then I have the blog posts I write, which do take a lot of time, but they are mostly for sharing knowledge, not for advertising. Although they do help get some eyes on the apps as well.
> If conventional wisdom is to be believed, it seems like the difference between building an okay app and a great app doesn't matter that much
I'd say the difference matters a lot. Since being in these circles, I notice how low quality apps (or just apps where the author didn't give them much thought after launch) don't get recommended as much if at all, and bad rep is spread on them which deters people from even trying them.
I'm more inclined towards the "a good product sells itself" line. It definitely doesn't sell itself if people don't know about it, but you have a much higher chance to get picked up by vocal people and groups and recommended around if your app is high quality and makes a good impression. Even more so if you hear what people have to say after trying your app and try to improve the app for a few months after the launch.
About 3 times a year I do promos on Twitter to get more followers and spread the word a bit more through retweets.
And then I have the blog posts I write, which do take a lot of time, but they are mostly for sharing knowledge, not for advertising. Although they do help get some eyes on the apps as well.
I'd say the difference matters a lot. Since being in these circles, I notice how low quality apps (or just apps where the author didn't give them much thought after launch) don't get recommended as much if at all, and bad rep is spread on them which deters people from even trying them.I'm more inclined towards the "a good product sells itself" line. It definitely doesn't sell itself if people don't know about it, but you have a much higher chance to get picked up by vocal people and groups and recommended around if your app is high quality and makes a good impression. Even more so if you hear what people have to say after trying your app and try to improve the app for a few months after the launch.