Why the Sponsorship Program is failing

[Michael Hopcroft]

As I get ready to tske down the sponsorhip link for HeartQuest Diceless (due to the book's imprending release, after about Wednesday I would not be able to put sponsor's names into the book), I find myself pondering why it didn;t work.

I do have a loyal fanbase, but like most loyal fanbases these days they;'re pretty much broke. I got one sponsor for HQ Diceless. that's it. I also got one sponsor for Ghost Tamer Miyaki (a different person).  But nobody else has sponsored any of my books. I've had a couple of people promise to sponsor books who never did -- it;'s their right to change their minds, after all, either that or they simply haven;t had the time or money to spare. I'm not going to judge anybody, not even myself, over this.

I suspect it may simply not have been a good investment for the sponsors, or something like that. I suspect everyone feels it is a sign my company is failing (which it is most definietly not) or a sign of desperation.

But the program is not over -- there are still two books that will still have sponsorship links on my website. Should I take those down as well? Or should I keep plugging away at it and hope I get some more nibbles? I just want to make sure that next time I try something like this it actually has a chance of working.

Problem 1: Only visitors to my website know about it. I ppost messages about it on BBSs, but those messages never get read (they keep track).

Problem 2: It may simply not be a very appealing idea from the consumer;s perspective.

Problem 3: My reputation is not as well established as that of other companies for which sponsorhip or pre-purchase plans have worked swimmingly. Maybe people are afraid I'll take their money and not publish the book. (I won;t do that, but I can understand why people might be afraid of that.)

These problems should be fixable, but right now I'm stumped for ideas. And I want to warn other publishers who want to try something like this as a way of raising money without losing control to tread very carefully.

[ethan_greer]

Leave the links up for the other two books.  It can't hurt, can it?

Furthermore, if you got sponsorships from two different people for two different products, I don't know that I would necessarily call the sponsorship idea a failure.  If what you say is true, and you weren't able to get the word out effectively, and you still got some sponsorships, I don't think that's two bad.  Sure, you're not raking in the dough, but for a new idea like that, from a small company, I think any participation however minor should be encouraging.

[Clay]

Michael,

My experience has been that it takes personal contact to get people to part with money, especially for intangibles like sponsorship. It's somewhat easier to get them to part with money for tangible goods, like a book or beer. Selling websites is somewhat similar to sponsorships, because it's really hard to get your hands on either one.

So far it seems that I tend to get contracts where I can meet with the clients face to face throughout the decision making process (this high success rate also suggests that I need to raise my rates). If there is a physical separation that prevents frequent meetings, I tend not to get the contract, just a lot of polite noises.

My suggestion for trying something like this is to press the flesh at trade shows, and to bring the topic up there. Then you're not just an anonymous face who's gonna take the money and run to Mexico. You're a real person and they can make up their mind about whether or not they want to invest in you and your product.

[Valamir]

Since you seem admirably willing to experiment with new ideas, perhaps you could next try expanding the definition of sponsorship.  After all the term is most commonly used to refer to advertising ("and now a word from our sponsors").  Advertisers pay based on the number of eyeballs who are likely to see the ad...which, lets face it, ain't that many for an indie RPG effort.

So while the idea of getting some additional cash to help offset expenses is an attractive one, perhaps you'd have more luck trading in kind.  Its somewhat common practice around here (or at least encouraged practice) to provide a few ads and such to other indie games and publishers.  Perhaps you could try a more formal approach.  Get ads for your stuff in the back of their books, ads for their stuff in yours...

[wyrdlyng]

Problem 1: Only visitors to my website know about it. I ppost messages about it on BBSs, but those messages never get read (they keep track).

Problem 2: It may simply not be a very appealing idea from the consumer;s perspective.

Problem 3: My reputation is not as well established as that of other companies for which sponsorhip or pre-purchase plans have worked swimmingly. Maybe people are afraid I'll take their money and not publish the book. (I won;t do that, but I can understand why people might be afraid of that.)

Here's my brutally honest 2 cents.

I like Heartquest in its original Fudge form. I liked Musical Mistresses. Heartquest is a niche game. It doesn't matter what rules system you convert it to or how much you spread word of it. It's a niche game. Accept that one factor before going any further.

I have no intention of picking up the Heartquest 2nd Edition. Why? I have no problems with the first and I don't want a D20 version of it. As has been stated before, most D20 players are not your target audience. They never will be.

And now on to the rest. Anyone who has been following your progress over the past months can see the following patterns in your company:

1. Making a lot of new announcements regarding new books[/list:u]

2. Looking for

reliable people to work on these books seems to be a problem.[/list:u]

3. The company is still very small and new and still primarily a niche game company.[/list:u]

4. The company is not making great truckloads of money. Which it won't because it's an indie, niche game company.[/list:u]
Now add all of the above together and you have the impression of a company which is doing too much too soon and not really able to handle it.

My advice would be to not worry about sponsorship, leave the links up in case anyone wants to do so in the future,

focus on getting the books done and published, and establish a reputation and track record for getting good products out. Fame, fortune and whatnot will come on its own, if it comes at all.

If you want an example of a niche-game company which expanded well over the years then take a look at Guardians of Order. 1st Edition BESM was small and amateurish but not bad. They continued to build on it slowly before getting enough of a rep and history to get a strong enough following to make all glossy, full color books and hardbacks.

So again, I say work on establishing a history and catalog of strong books and then potential sponsors will take more interest.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I didn;t want to respond to Alex's post because anything I said would be construed as arguing with him, and I'm definitely not. I appreciate that he is a satisfied customer of the HeartQuest 1st Edition and respect his decision to want nothing to do with the second. Consumers will do whatever they want.

I just wanted to address the question of why I'm even doing a HeartQuest 2nd Edition, as it sounds like a legitimate question.

First of all, while the first edition was an excellent game (and still is), it had problems. Ann Dupuis of Grey Ghost games points them out to me all the time with wild abandon. It had all the marks of a first effort. The editing was uneven in sports. The art varied wildly in quailty. And some people felt the FUDGE system was inaccessible to them, although why I have no idea.

It became obvious after about eight months that a revision was in order. At the same time, the opportuntiy arose to do a D20 ruleset. The original plan was to do a D20 ruleset as a separate book, but it was eventually deicided to fix the FUDGE edition as well and combine them into one book. Thus HeartQuest 2nd Edition instead of the original plan for HeartQuest D20. commercially, my hope is that the D20 fans who are into anime (and they are out there and right now their only option is guardians of Order) will look at my game and decide to pick it up for curiosity's sake and get hooked on the genre and settings.

HeartQuest Diceless was a sudden inspiration that I pretty much wrote myself 9adapting the HeartQuest 1st Edition rules) and is primarily intended for online and convention play, as well as for people who are not in places where it is convenient to carry bags of dice. HGow commercially successful it will be the market will decide, but it is my first new completed book of 2003 sp that can;t be bad.

It would be nice to say that Seraphim guard was a perfectky-run, perfectly-planned company, but it's not. In fact, much of the way the company is run is chaos personified. But I'm hoping that eventually things will work out, whcih si really all I can do.

[ace pilot]

Michael,

Hmmm.... I don't think that your sponsorship program is "failing" as much as I think that your expectations for it are rather high.  For the various reasons discussed in this thread, I'd think that it is extremely difficult to get people to "sponsor" indie RPGs.  The fact that you got two sponsors is pretty impressive.

To address some of your more general concerns, in my humble opinion, it takes money to start a company- the higher the expectations, the more $$ is needed.  You can try new tactics, but generally "sweat equity" is really not that interchangable with the kind that you fold and put into your wallet.

I think you'd cause yourself less consternation if you've more clearly defined what your company's goals are, and what your expectations are for your company.  I don't mean to step on your dreams, just offering my $0.02.

Cheers.