On Marketing
visioNationstudios:
Last night I came here intending to ask a few questions about marketing. But I decided to do some searching through the archives here to see what had already been discussed on the subject. I came across a number of decent threads on the topic, but noticed an interesting trend- the majority of the good advice was from at least 3 years ago, and sometimes even older than that. The discussion of "marketing" (specifically the search string I used) has not necessarily been as big of a discussion in recent years. And, when it's been brought up, the replies really have not changed from those given 3+ years ago.
This got me thinking on two separate subjects. Rather than discuss both, I'll split my own thought process and start a new thread on the "new idea". However, here, I'd like to find out what the deal is with the current marketing schemes for indie products/publishers. Is it simply the fact that the methodology is the same because it works well? Or does it more have to do with publishers getting set in their ways and not looking for better ways to go about it?
I'm looking for discussion from any/all sides here. Just curious about an area that my own company is struggling through, and one that looks to have (at least somewhat) been pushed aside recently, but seems to be one of the most vital aspects to surviving and thriving as an indie publisher.
iago:
Honestly, most independent publishers are too small for there to be a lot of drive or budget to do "big" marketing. So I think the reason you see a lot of the advice fundamentally unchanged over time is that when you apply the limits that are in effect for the micro-press publisher, your options get reduced to the same fairly reliable (and fairly low-cost) set.
visioNationstudios:
Yeah, that I can certainly appreciate. I guess I was just wondering if anyone had come up with some more innovative ways to go about things, or even perfected some of the other suggestions. And if not, why?
Low-to-no budget is always a concern, agreed.
Ron Edwards:
Hiya,
I think there are two real changes to consider over the life of the Forge, which is to say, the economic blossoming of the independent scene. What matters most for your question is that the advice we typically gave, based on experiences (sometimes simultaneous with the advice), became more relevant and effective without much change in the advised practice. Sort of a shift from "I'm trying it this way" to "Gee it looks like it's working this way" to "Holy crap now it's really taking off," as the 'it' stayed the same.
Although these past two years may have brought yet another shift, but I'll talk about that in a minute. I'll try to present the first two changes I mentioned.
The first concerns the basic failure of the three-tier, store-centric practices of the previous twenty years, on its own lack of merits. It was in decline by the mid-90s, literally failing when the Forge got going, and sometime in 2004, underwent a nasty wet "snapping" that meant the stores and distributors simply no longer called the shots for publishers. There are plenty of really good stores around who've adjusted their practices to serve their immediate gamer community, and also started to maintain an indie-shelf alternative type presence, but even those can't collectively provide the profit margin to publishers to keep our small businesses going.
The second is simply the rise of the internet and its associated, direct-to-consumer commerce, with the literal shift coming in the form of standardized, widely-practiced mechanisms rather than site-specific devices. I don't think this caused the stores' decline, by the way; it's more like a fortunate reality-based opportunity for that creative ferment already present in gaming actually to express itself in real product and real dollars, right when the illusions of an "industry" had finally proved unsustainable.
The initial advice you've seen represents the experiences of those of us who were pretty much the earliest to recognize the situation and in fact, we were ahead of the technological and cultural curve (before Paypal, before Google, et cetera). Those changes did occur, and they were significant, but as it happens, the early-adopter advice turned out to be prescient regarding how things were going to be. So the advice hasn't changed.
Now for this past year or so - when things have changed again, and not in the larger context but right here in gamer-land. Bluntly, we in this very forum got lazy, after IPR got going. "What you do is, you sign up with Brennan," and "Here's what we've been saying about marketing, read it too." In retrospect, I think this hasn't served individual publishers well on the average. Not because IPR or Brennan in particular was doing anything wrong or awful on its own hook (unlike some other fulfillment houses), but because new publishers simply didn't understand what the hell was happening, and didn't make individual decisions that broke into new ground. I am pretty convinced that the majority of new publishers in the last three years mistakenly believe that "get with IPR" is by definitionhow you publish and market independently ... and that's fucked. That's just what people used to say about Alliance.*
I add, yet again, that this isn't slamming IPR, it's slamming myself and other people who broke the new ground over the past ten years for forgetting who we are. Importantly, it wasn't a team or movement in the organized sense, it was the concordance of a few people who independently (no pun intended) realized what would simply make most sense. John Wick did it with Orkworld, brilliantly. Dav Harnish and Micah Skaritka did it with Obsidian. Jeff Diamond did it with Orbit. And lots of others. A lot of us stepped up to serve as information sources and a discourse center to promote and, if you'll excuse the old-school expression, "raise consciousness" about the relevant issues. That's what the Forge is. Brennan started IPR as one service which, as he accurately saw it, would be on-board with what we (including him) were talking about.
And in 2007-2008, the Forge and this forum dropped the ball. You are absolutely right. In 2005, I could have listed every single organized method of getting your game (a) into published form (i.e. available), (b) into an appropriate economic model of your choosing, (c) into the promotional 'matrix' of gamer-dom, and (d) into stores if you'd like. I could have told you which involved trading off ownership, which ones were rip-offs, and which ones seemed to be working out well at the time. Now, I can't tell you that, and I'm pretty sure that no one else is acting as a meaningful information center about it either. "What you do is, you sign up with IPR." That's been the message, perhaps not explicitly, but as the passive assumption that led to lack of critique, lack of experiment, lack of perceived options, and lack of personal mastery over one's own business practices as a publisher.
I'm treating your post as a wake-up call. It's time to recognize that we are always confronted with a changing marketing landscape, based on those first two ongoing changes, of which IPR is one option with its own specific parameters which may or may not serve a given publisher how he or she wants. And if not, for instance, then what will?
Just because I or anyone can't list "what will" in a hard format right this minute doesn't mean it's not there. Ten years ago, people told John Wick, me, Dav Harnish, et cetera, that we were not only crazy and foolish, but outright traitors to the "industry" for self-publishing and marketing directly to fellow gamers. Who are their equivalents today? And what are they doing? And how can we promote that here?
Best, Ron
* Looking over the post, I should also mention RPGnow and other such things which played pretty much the same role for self-publishers who mostly weren't tuned into the Forge discussions. My point there is exactly the same - as soon as the subculture convinced itself that "what you do is, you hit the buttons at RPGnow," then publishers who entered after that point were basically flies trapped in amber.
Pelgrane:
Quote from: visioNationstudios on October 31, 2008, 06:36:17 AM
This got me thinking on two separate subjects. Rather than discuss both, I'll split my own thought process and start a new thread on the "new idea". However, here, I'd like to find out what the deal is with the current marketing schemes for indie products/publishers. Is it simply the fact that the methodology is the same because it works well? Or does it more have to do with publishers getting set in their ways and not looking for better ways to go about it?
I'm looking for discussion from any/all sides here. Just curious about an area that my own company is struggling through, and one that looks to have (at least somewhat) been pushed aside recently, but seems to be one of the most vital aspects to surviving and thriving as an indie publisher.
Are you most interested in the mechanics of getting your games in the hands of your customers, or methods of promoting your books? They are related, but not the same thing.
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