Possible Promotion Model (yea, yea sounds real fancy)

[Nathan]

Howdy,

Like many of you, I write a lot, and I have a ton of ideas for games. Many of these ideas get a bit of work before they are forgotten or passed by the wayside. Some of the ideas are better that way (hah). I am working on redesigning my "model" of what I do with this content. My thing is -- if I have half a dozen fantasy settings laying on my computer, why not get them into some form and get something out of them?

First, I don't want to sell some of my content because it just is not that good. Second, I am always wondering about ways to get people to my site so they can see the content that is "for sale". How do I bridge these two ideas?

Jared really sets the pace for this. I don't think there is anything that Jared has written that he has not put on his website in some form or another (although I could be wrong... very wrong). How do many of us find some cool game of his? We surf over to check out his newest release, catch a link back to his main site, see something else that interests us, and say "rock on". We buy/download/whatever, and the process repeats. I check out Jared's site at least once every two-three weeks.

Anyway, so here is the model - set your site up as a sort of portal with links to the various projects you work on, especially focusing on your products for sale. Offer all of your half-crazed, half-baked ideas in some downloadable format. Include links to your "for sale" work in those free downloads, require emails for some items for download, and put up banners and links to the rest of your site from these subsections. I know this isn't "new", but it does seem to solve the dilemma I mention above.

Instead of having a thousand word piece languish on my computer with no profibility to me at all, I can use it to invite folks to check out my main projects.

So, are there any drawbacks to this "model"? Is there a risk in putting up incomplete or unfinished work? Will it reflect badly on your "for sale" work? Is anyone else using a model like this and how has it fared?

Thanks all....

Nathan

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Jared really sets the pace for this. I don't think there is anything that Jared has written that he has not put on his website in some form or another (although I could be wrong... very wrong). How do many of us find some cool game of his? We surf over to check out his newest release, catch a link back to his main site, see something else that interests us, and say "rock on". We buy/download/whatever, and the process repeats. I check out Jared's site at least once every two-three weeks.

Hah...I appreciate it. Although MOST of my stuff stays in my head...and MOST of the stuff that gets written stays on my harddrive. And the stuff that's released...MOST is free and (probably) incomplete. Ah, I've been slacking off lately...

[Paul Czege]

Hey Nathan,

...set your site up as a sort of portal with links to the various projects you work on...require emails for some items for download....Instead of having a thousand word piece languish on my computer with no profibility to me at all, I can use it to invite folks to check out my main projects.

You have no idea how much I appreciate the kick-in-the-pants that this is. Collect emails. You're exactly right. Jared is fantastic at community building. Collect emails. You sold me. I don't have anything for sale yet, but I think I could be doing a lot better at community building.

Thanks,

Paul

[philreed]

I've been using my website to ramble, complain, post about new things I've done and (this is what gets the traffic) post free articles for lots of different games. I'm approaching 100 free articles on the site.

What tends to happen is people hit the site after searching for Star Wars Epic Duels, MechWarrior, or any number of other things I support on my site. Once they get there they start looking around and quickly discover that there's lot to see on the site.

Eventually, they stumble across something I'm selling. I get about 2 PDF sales a day using this method.

I also have Amazon links on my site that help generate revenue. Money made with these links goes to pay for the site (and more bandwidth as I need it) or into my warchest (which is where I dump the money from all PDF sales). I've now managed to stabilize the warchest at the $1,000 mark and use the money to pay people for services, buy things (like the Star Ace line I purchased), pay for web expenses, and anything else I find I need. I do not dip into my own funds . . . I only use what's been made from PDF sales. To get the ball rolling I spent about $100 for my website and domain name and that's all that I've drawn from my personal bank account.

So what I'm saying (as I ramble) is post lots of free stuff to your site. And not just short games and commentary on games. Write short adventures. Make monsters. Do things for other games that you enjoy. You'll find your traffic increasing and, if you're lucky, your PDF sales increasing.

[clehrich]

I'd like to emphasize Phil's point about Amazon links.  I don't love Amazon as such, but it can get you revenue.  For Shadows in the Fog, when it really goes live, I'm going to set up the bibliography so that you can click to buy things through Amazon, and I get a kickback.  The game will have very extensive bibliographies, so this might actually generate a noticeable revenue.

On a related note, Ron has strongly encouraged games to refer to each other, building historical awareness and also moving things away from, "Hey, here's this brand-new thing and there's never ever been anything like it before," a part of the Heartbreaker phenomenon.  It seems to me that if you refer to an Indie game, you could certainly put in a link to the website, as in, "We got this idea from this game here <link>, which you should check out."

[philreed]

Now don't expect that you'll bring in lots of money with Amazon. It's very random and completely unpredicatable. But it should bring in enough to cover your hosting fees.