Marketing -> Can you start too early?
Luke:
I very rarely spend any money in advertising.
I announce on my forums and others that we have a new book coming out. I encourage folks to speculate on what it is.
I announce the nature of the produce 30-45 days later. I put it on the front page of my website. I announce it on other forums.
15-30 days later, I put the product up for presale. Depending on the product, preorders get a PDF when they order and then wait 30-45 days for the actual book. I never put up a preorder until the book is at the printer.
I also make sure I do this around the same time every year, once a year. I release one product a year and my fans know it. They can rely on it.
I attend conventions, demonstrate the product and personally sell it to interested folks. At conventions, if there's a busy dealer's room, I get a table and hang banners and sell from there. But honestly, Gen Con is the only convention I bother with a table. For other conventions, I just get a regular gaming table, adorn it with small table signs (maybe hang a banner) and sell direct from there.
Once the game is out and has buzz (and preorders are fulfilled), I make sure it goes into distribution. My games are available through Alliance, ACD, Esdevium, Lion Rampant, Ulysses Spiel in addition to web vendors.
In less than five years this process has helped me sell more than 6000 of my core books and 3000 of my first supplement. I have produced and sold at least four other books using the same model in the last couple of years.
Seamus:
How many conventions do you go to a year?
Luke:
Last year I went to Dreamation, Origins, Dexcon, Connecticon, Gen Con, PAX and Draconis. It was a light year for me. At the height of my effort, I was doing just under one a month.
Sebastian K. Hickey:
Thanks for the advice Luke.
Quote
I announce on my forums and others that we have a new book coming out. I encourage folks to speculate on what it is.
Assuming I'm at the delivery point of my first game, and I'm happy to get it out to the printers, where should I start promoting the product? You mention that you'd use your own forum, but I don't have enough fans for that. In fact, I don't have any fans yet, except for the people I have played with face to face. Which leads me on to the next question. If I were living in a remote, green little island off the coast of Europe, where every convention offers the same faces, how should I expand my audience? In other words, I'm from Ireland and I can got to every con here, but there won't be any new imaginations to capture unless I head to Europe (a costly and scary business).
What would you suggest? Is there a way to bring my game to a U.S. convention without actually flying around the world? Or should I just move to the States and cash in on the indie RPG gold rush (read irony)? Everyone advises that the best way to create an audience is to go out there and play your game at the conventions, but what if the doing of that is prohibitively expensive?
Sebastian K. Hickey:
Oops. I've gone off topic. I'm going to post the above reply in another thread. Please don't respond to my last post.
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