Hi Mike,

Have you thought of having a free 30-day trial version available for download on your site or making the plug-in free for non-commercial use? It would help you build a user base, plus have people try it out (who otherwise wouldn't have) and give you feedback. People are more inclined to blog about and share stuff on social media that's free, so it would help you get the word out with other people doing the marketing for you.

If you got students using your plug-in they go on to become professionals, and most people don't mind paying a bit for something useful. Also this would open up for using it in tutorials and by schools. We only use free plugins or plugins with a trial version, because while it's fine for us to pay $30 for a plugin you can't sell someone a tutorial for that price and then tell them they have to buy a plug-in on top of that to be able to follow along.

I also think that if you want feedback it's a good idea to make it really easy for people to tell you what they think with something like a dedicated Facebook page. A lot of people won't go through the bother of e-mailing you.

Cheers,
Nilla