Advertising for the complete newbie

[Palaskar]

Ok, I have a great  new RPG system (Signature 6.0.2) and it's reasonably priced ($5 for 84 pages in PDF).

The problem is that I've found out that I'm absolutely clueless as how to SELL it. To quote one helpful reply on rpg.net:

As it stands, I think the most obvious answer as to why you haven't sold any copies is because you didn't do any research prior to putting it up for sale. There's nothing about your site or your sales technique that suggests you're selling anything.

where do I beign and what should I do?

I'm looking into submitting my RPG to Silvan publishing. Also, I'm giving out FREE copies to the first 5 volunteer reviewers, and have contacted previous buyers for reviews.

Anything else?

[neoknocker]

Hi Palaskar,
                  Maybe I can be of some help. First of, it all depends on what kind of people are interested in your game. To do so, you could rely on your game genre (fantasy, horor, etc.)

                  If your game is horor oriented, you know that your players will be horor fans. You can therefore find out their interest (what kind of magazine they read)  and maybe place some advertisement, which can be a little costly.

                  If your looking for free advertisement, which is usually the best, be on the lookout for college game convention and simply contact the organizers and ask if you could play your game with the interested parties. You could do the same at a game retailer. You dont have anything to lose.

                  You can also submit your game to reviews, on about.com,in the rpg section, or at rpg.net

                   The thing with selling is that you need to understand your market's buying habits. How do they buy a game and why do they buy it. Usually, I came up whith the follwing: the best way to sell your game is...word of mouth. Players will hear about a game and because they find the concept cool or hear that it is fun, innovative or whatever they manifest an interest and after laying their hands on it decide if it's worth the buck. The thing is, and my teacher told this frequently: "Selling is easy. I could sell you a Mercedes as easily as anything else. How? I could sell you a brand new Mercedes at 2000$ and surely anybody would buy it. But selling at a profit, that's the hard part." Thats why you got to see how much someone would pay for a game like yours and see how much a game similar to your is. But we are not talking about pricing we are talking about selling, surely that's what your thinking. Everything is interalted: product, price, pipeline and promotion.

               And to sell your book all these elements must find it's place. Is your game attractive and pleasing to your market's eye? Is the price okay to their budget and buying habits or is it to high or to low? Will you sell direct or through a distributor? How are they motivated to buy your game (word of mouth? reviews? advertisement?)

                Heck, if you have to go back to square one, at least you know something. You know how not to do the same mistake again. Like Edison and is 1000 ways of not doing a light bulb, before finding the right way to do it.

[MatrixGamer]

It's not advertising so much as marketing that your looking at. Think about it as a business for a moment (not that most of game design is - we are largely hobbyists).

You have a product - you want it sold as a PDF and as a POD. That means you've farmed out production.

I assume you have a web page that lists your product and tells people how to contact you to buy it. That's minimal sales. This gives you an overhead cost because in a years time you need to sell enough to pay for the web page or you lose money (which is fine for hobbyists - we almost all have day jobs and this game making is fun.)

You now want to get people to buy your game. That's marketing. One part of marketing is advertising but this costs money and can be a great waste of cash for little return. Marketing can mean so much more. You can get games reviewed, you can talk them up on web forums like the Forge, you can run your games at Conventions and local stores, you can build up an on-line community of people who play your game, you can write articles for magazines on your game, etc. This about it like this. You have an idea, you "sell" it to the market place of ideas by getting people talking about it. Any communication can do that. The key is persistence, patience, and a willingness to improve your work as you go along.

Then there is finance and accounting. These are important if you want to know if your making money. Less important for hobbyists.

I think it is important to have an unrealistic outlook on your game. Many people will tell you "It'll never fly!" Don't listen to them!!! Don't mortgage the house or quit your job in anticipation of making it big in gaming, but move forward with your project. The way I look at it - what else would I be doing with my time? I might as well waste it this way.

Drop by my booth at Gen Con and I'd be glad to talk with you more about this.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

Oh! and to plug my game (shameless marketing) I make Engle Matrix Games http://www.io.com/~hamster

[Michael S. Miller]

This kind of thing has been discussed in these threads:

Getting material reviewed/ PR/ Advert
and
Selling "Simple" Games?

[Palaskar]

Thanks for the help. Sorry for the big delay in replying, I've been busy writing and collaborating on my RPG's web page.

Michael

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