[PlayByWiki] Marketing a wiki-based RPG

[playbywiki]

Simply put, "How?"

I'm looking for any and all thoughts, ideas, directions, viral marketing suggestions, tips, tricks, inclinations, things to avoid, things to definitely do, etc.

I've been in marketing my whole career, but it's been retail and b2b marketing where I've had other people's money to spend and day-gig, 9-to-5 (more like 8-to-8) time to do it. I know how to sell stuff in stores, by phone, on TV, in newspapers, on the radio and, given a couple million bucks, on the Internet. I have some ideas about this... but it's the first time; A) I've ever created an RPG, and B) tried to market anything I've ever done myself, and C) tried to market anything with little-or-no budget.

Why no budget? Because I'm already spending too much time and money on this as a hobby, and until/unless it can make a tiny bit ot scratch with just some more time/sweat equity, my wife will keeeel me if I actuall drop dollars into the hole.

What have we got on the stick thusfar in terms of marketing? Well... we're going to go to the Origins Gaming Expo here in Columbus in July and hand out cards, flyers and by generally obnoxious in a charming and delightful way. Perhaps I'll dress as a wiki... Other than that? Nada at this point.

My only other thought was to start a related blog on text-based RPGs, or RPG topics in general... but that's time consuming as heck. And I'm still pouring hours into the wiki itself, in terms of shoring up the game system and GMing a game there to stress-test the wiki and the Ninth Sigil RPG.

So... any thoughts from the crew? Mucho thanks for any pointers.

[Graham W]

Andy,

On a general level, there's some very good pointers on promoting websites in these old threads:

Web promotion
Promoting Your Web Sales

Graham