How To Advertise A Sourcebook (But Not Here)

[The Oni]

I published a 3rd-Party Pathfinder sourcebook, which for reasons of not circumventing the rules will be unnamed and unlinked here. I've only sold ten copies so far, and I'm looking for some way of promoting it (that doesn't require tons of money on my part).

I figure I'd ask the players directly: where do you hear about new RPG content? What makes you want to play something?

[Tyndmyr]

Well, without linking, where is it sold? That's going to be your #1 issue. If it's a print and play venue only, then you're mostly going to get word of mouth and random browsers online, and that's just gonna be small.

Talk to your local game stores. They may be interested in carrying it...though you will need to sell to them significantly below retail price, and they may only carry it on a consignment basis. Still, having your book on shelves where gamers see it is one way.

Cons are another way. People seriously hit up cons looking for new gaming gear to buy. Check into local cons, find out how much dealer tables cost, and find out who the other interested dealers are. A single table for one sourcebook is likely overkill, but if you can find other people with similar needs, ya'll can split the cost, have more stuff to attract people over, and split the time manning the booth so ya'll can explore the con and have fun. Smaller, local cons are typically much less costly. I'll be hitting GadCon in this fashion in march(local maryland con), and a table through them costs only $60. Split that a few ways, and you're doing quite well.

And of course, a website and/or a facebook page is helpful. Facebook pages are effectively free, but they do take some time to maintain. If you want to publish more than just this single book, now would be a good time to start a company facebook page or the like. Make sure it's active, and has occasional tidbits that people enjoy reading, straight advertising mostly just annoys folks. Fun gaming related news or amusing gaming jokes or what not are much more popular.

As for how I usually hear about new games, well, I run a game store. I get daily updates from all the major distributors, and frequently survey literally everything they sell in a given category. So, if it's a new game, odds that I hear about it within a month or so are *very* good if it hits distribution. As for what I play, that's mostly determined by what's popular in the area. Here, that's biased heavily towards Pathfinder now. I play all manner of other stuff too, but that's the biggie.