Fine (or better rough) tuning of the launch

This post to wrap up some highlights I got after nearly one week from the go-live of my books on DritveThru. Here below the main outcomes of what I experienced in such a short timeframe.


Pricing of the books: I got nearly all the purchases done for the books with a PWYW price and all of these had a price at zero; since all the digital books but the core rules have this option, this means that many customers are somehow ‘pushed’ to grab whatever they find for free on DriveThru regardless of the effective use; if someone downloads four supplements of a game for free without the main book, I wonder what would be the use of these books…

Marketing: the most common point raised by the members of those communities where I posted about the launch of the game is the complete lack of a communication plan. This seems more important than everything else: under this aspect I completely failed. I should have prepared a communication plan in order to make any reader a potential buyer… Well, I thought I did something with this blog but apparently that it is not sufficient. There is always the chance to fill this gap, unfortunately this activity is something unscheduled and moreover I need to cope with a topic where I feel uncomfortable… to be very honest, I am not that great in marketing!

Playtest: if there is not interest in the game, there is not a potential group of players to run a playtest… in my most optimistic dream I was thinking to a number of approx one hundred of players… this means more or less 20 groups of 4/5/6 players per group… This won’t likely happen if I don’t take remedy to the first two points!

After a weekend spent at home, where I had enough time to read and reply to some of the comments on the boards about the launch of the game, I came to a conclusion. Beforehand, I have to thank all the people who helped me with very useful hints and suggestions. I need to take a change at the whole picture: I need to make the resources free of charge (currently the pricing has been perceived too high) and try to deploy an effective communication plan.


The first action is easy to undertake: I will make PWYW also the digital version of the core rules and set (nearly) at cost the printed versions (I added the ‘nearly’ since I will round up the cost to the single unit).

The second action is a bit difficult as I have to refocus and try to streamline what I wrote so far in too many posts… I need to find a way to communicate a ‘reason why’ for anyone approaching my game… this is something I wanted to avoid as I am not that kind of persons who is able to sell… slogans and ‘wow’ points are not my cup of tea and I also tend to avoid them as a customer but if the world is behaving this way, I am in the position to do as well.


In the next days (ideally before Xmas) I will work on these topics and try to ask for a ‘2nd chance’ to the market! I hope the market will be indulgent with me!

Once the ‘corrections’ will be in place I need some more time to work on the playtest proposition… even if for this case I made my mind up and I have a simple and good idea..

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