Greatest Payoff For Time Spent When Self Promoting on DriveThru RPG

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Wicked Cool Games

Wicked Cool Games

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Last year I got into part time self publishing pdfs on DriveThru RPG. I've been playing RPGs for 40+ years and will work my full time job for another 5 years. I love writing and laying out adventures even though it's a lot of work. I write 4-5 days a week, but its 30 minutes here, 90 minutes there. I market my own stuff too and can't really invest money in that yet. It took me 6 months of sales to recoup the cost of hiring an artist for my first adventure - and I believe she was very reasonably priced. I've found a good, cheaper alternative now.

I play test my stuff at two Cons each year and with my friend group and I use that feedback to make my stuff better. I've got two more adventure coming out this Spring (Tiny Dungeon for kids and a mystery/horror - maybe CoC or BRP)

I don't want to get rich, but it'd great to reach Silver Best Selling Tier with my stuff. One adventure hit copper ($4.99) after 7 months and another ($3.99) after three and half months is two downloads away as of this writing. I feel they are fairly priced - maybe even a bit low, but I'm an unknown. As Mike Shea says - I want to make enough to pay the electric bill - that's a reach goal at least.

Professor DM has promoted my stuff on Patreon - NOT with a video - and I'm grateful and that has helped. I advertise, when allowed, in several Facebook groups and I try not to overdo it. I connected with another publisher at a similar level and we promote each other's stuff.

From those that have been doing this for a while, what advice can you give for a one man show part time guy to get the most bang for his buck time wise? Many thanks.
 
spittingimage said:
The best piece of advice anyone can give you is to buy a banner advert on the Pub. :wink:
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I would be definetely interested. The click/buy ratio on the Big Purple is 0,3% (at least was for me), which order of magnitude can I expect here?
 
Wicked Cool Games said:
From those that have been doing this for a while, what advice can you give for a one man show part time guy to get the most bang for his buck time wise? Many thanks.
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I haven't been doing this for a while, but I know if you can get your adventures added to bundle sales that really helps. My adventure hit Silver and I think bundle sales really helped.
 
Wicked Cool Games said:
From those that have been doing this for a while, what advice can you give for a one man show part time guy to get the most bang for his buck time wise? Many thanks.
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Build up an audience through Patreon, blogging, or streaming. It will take time and require you to be able to engage with people. At our level of publishing, folks prize authenticity and generosity. Once you have a list of contacts in the low hundreds, you can rely on that more.

Also, cultivate relationships and collaborations with other authors and try to help them with their projects when feasible. Aside from being fun in itself, it extends folk's awareness of your stuff to their audience.
 
Use those Publisher Promotion Points! They do slightly boost sales when used. But there's no magic wand I'm afraid.

Building a community is a must, you can do it via social media (Discord or whatever, I don't because I'd rather write rpgs than waste too much time on social media). Considering my french accent I can't do a Youtube channel (unless I name it "Oui oui, let's play D&D!") and quite frankly that's a job into itself.

I made a successful kickstarter on my own and another one with a publisher, which means I can contact these people whenever I release a new product.

In short find your way to contact people who love your work. Sending a message to buyers of your previous product via DTRPG can be a good strategy as well (just don't overdo it).
 
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Charlie D said:
I haven't been doing this for a while, but I know if you can get your adventures added to bundle sales that really helps. My adventure hit Silver and I think bundle sales really helped.
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I'll look into a bundle, thanks.

Do bundles show up on somehow on their title page? I know when I release a new title, it is on "newest since last visit" graphic.

I imagine contacting people on the discord channel may be the way to go. I couldn't do it myself yet as I have one adventure, one book of side quests, and two GM advice items (one of which is PWYW).
 
robertsconley said:
Build up an audience through Patreon, blogging, or streaming. It will take time and require you to be able to engage with people. At our level of publishing, folks prize authenticity and generosity. Once you have a list of contacts in the low hundreds, you can rely on that more.

Also, cultivate relationships and collaborations with other authors and try to help them with their projects when feasible. Aside from being fun in itself, it extends folk's awareness of your stuff to their audience.
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Thanks robertsconely.

I've started to do this. I'm on RPG FB pages and here, trying to contribute. Collaborated with the guy that just kickstarted Land of Mists for OSE. I wrote a small piece for it and he agreed to promote me to his audience. Got a couple of sales from that. Here's Joseph's item on DriveThru:

https://www.rpgpub.com/threads/grea...t-when-self-promoting-on-drivethru-rpg.10634/
 
Charlie D said:
I haven't been doing this for a while, but I know if you can get your adventures added to bundle sales that really helps. My adventure hit Silver and I think bundle sales really helped.
Click to expand...
This is very true. Bundles definitely help. You may also try to create a multi-publisher bundle, so the involved parties can tap into the others' customer bases.
 
Kobayashi said:
Use those Publisher Promotion Points! They do slightly boost sales when used. But there's no magic wand I'm afraid.

Building a community is a must, you can do it via social media (Discord or whatever, I don't because I'd rather write rpgs than waste too much time on social media). Considering my french accent I can't do a Youtube channel (unless I name it "Oui oui, let's play D&D!") and quite frankly that's a job into itself.

I made a successful kickstarter on my own and another one with a publisher, which means I can contact these people whenever I release a new product.

In short find your way to contact people who love your work. Sending a message to buyers of your previous product via DTRPG can be a good strategy as well (just don't overdo it).
Click to expand...

I think a French accent, as long as it's not too thick, would be a plus not a con.
 
I haven't done promotional work for rpgs but digital advertising on FB/Instagram is relatively cheap but effective. Much more effective that just posting on FB since they choke the traffic severely unless you pay to boost the posts but even in that case the money is more effective via the digital adverting.

The only negative is that Meta are as evil as fuck.
 
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