Creating your game is just the first step. Marketing determines its success. I hope the published authors would share a few tips with us. Mainly,
And anything &everything else…
I also wondered this
I don’t purchase ads or anything, as the conversion rate would have to be stupendous for me to not lose money, considering how cheap these titles are. Instead, I use social media like Facebook and Pinterest. Generally, I’d say it’s good to start way before your title is released so you can build some hype for it; I think I started promoting my work on social media like 5 months before it was released.
Marketing. Exposure in the mass chaos that is the app market. That’s why 75% of your cut goes to Choice Of Games.
Advice for the big picture. Having people interested in your product is good. Having people interested in a series of your products is better (Hunger Games). Having people interested in you as a content creator, is best (Stephen King, Tom Clancy).
How do you use Pintrest for that kind of thing?
I only recently started, but I just post images on there. (So far I’ve just posted TotDH’s illustrations, but eventually I’ll post screen caps.) It’s definitely not as effective as Facebook, but I think it may be useful in the future because it seems to be able to have a somewhat different group of people that I may not be able to reach just using Facebook.
@Samuel_H_Young with Pinterest you might want to start using Infographics, they tend to 1. Get a good bit of shares 2. Allow you to get a message in an image (very useful for a site complete comprised of image posts, makes you stand out a bit) Also, a BIG tip for anyone who wants to syndicate content (get quality likes, shares and possibly comments) on social media: get an acct. on EmpireAvenue and rack up some points, once you have enough, put out some “missions” for people to syndicate your content, chances are, some of them will get interested in what you do and might even buy and sign up to your contact list.
well im not sure how helpful facebook is since im not sure how to use it to reach people past your own friends?
The best way is to leave a link inside your published work. Before then, the most you can do is invite friends to your page and share it on your personal profile. It’s helpful because it helps you stay engaged with fans.
My Facebook has 204 people, but yes, I think that it has only limited effectiveness. My biggest posts can spread to around 500 people (friends of friends, virally), but that’s still low, in the grand scheme of things. Like @Redditz said, that’s why we give twice our own share to CoG. Their mailer and being a game “also made by” is probably the best marketing we get.
While we’re talking pages: www.facebook.com/LucidsGames come Like it! 
Oh, and the Hosted Authors have begun to band together. Life of a Wizard and Paradox Factor were written when there were only a few of us. But I put links and blurbs about some of the other Hosted Authors in Life of a Mobster and intend to for The Lost Heir too. The sales for all those games got a small bump, which was nice to see.
Other authors are more diligent with their marketing. @WayWalkerLeigh and @JimD both have very successful Facebook followings, so perhaps Facebook is still a good marketing tool, since it grows over time.
Facebook and other social media tools are great for re-connecting with readers. When someone buys your game or learns about your game, they may follow you on FB (for example). If you keep them following, it is easier to reach them later and motivate them to buy the next game. If you don’t stay connected with them, they will be thrown back into the massive pool of potential buyers who may never learn of your next game.
FB, Twitter, etc are not always best for attracting new readers but great for keeping readers. Of course, if you build a community on your page and get people talking about the game, you may attract others.
Exactly! That’s what I meant about staying engaged with fans.
I like @JimD’s marketing for his website. If I google “interactive zombie story,” I get a link to the forums (1st result) and his website (4th result). The results are 1st and 3rd if I google “zombie interactive story.” Weird google algorithms. To me, that is strong marketing because you’re searchable by people who know nothing of the CoG/HG brand.
I’m starting to work on my website for Community College Hero and plan to use similar searchable language, although not being able to use “superhero” sure does suck and would certainly decrease page views. I’ve searched the trademark issues with that term, and technically I think you can get away with using the term inside a body of work as long as you don’t use it in the title, but I’m not 100% certain." Maybe I could avoid the term in my work but use the phrase in the SEO language for my site.
@HornHeadFan I agree. Understanding key words is a must. Authors need to ask, “if I was searching for a game, what would I type into google?” For me “zombie choose your own adventure” seems reasonable. I’m #4 on that search (CoZ is #1).
You can use super hero on your Web site or in a description of a game. I wouldn’t call your game Super Hero College but in your iTunes blurb, I think you’re fine. There are many games that use superhero and super hero (those are two separate searchable terms). I’d absolutely use it every chance possible.
Oh, search engines and SEO, how I love and hate thee… lol
I love search engine traffic because it is free, I HATE doing SEO because it’s a bit of a pain in the nether regions if you don’t want to go semi-blackhat and use link building softwares + youtube linkwheel building + social signal building (which is basically getting likes, shares, and comments on 1. social media posts that contain a link to your site or 2. getting likes, shares, and comments on your website)+ indexing your content to the search engines + having that content “pinged” to notify the search engines that it actually EXISTS (all of which are very important to SEO and search engine ranking, and all of which are a bit of a pain in the nether regions to do, and for all of which there are several different softwares and services for). On the subject of SEO and keywords, I’d go and search for keywords using google’s own Google Keyword Planner (yes that is what its called) where you can see how many times a month a keyword is searched. Another BIG TIP to Dominate search engine traffic is getting “Google Authorship” (which has your Google+ profile pic pop up next to search engine listings you put a certain line of code into, ergo increasing clicks to that search result when it pops up by 11%-20%).
Superhero is a diligently defended trademark. It cannot be used except under license from DC and Marvel.
Yeah I did more reading tonight on the topic and see that it’s unusable. I see why Zachary went with Powered Hero for HR. The Incredibles movie went with Supers. And then you have Capes. I’ll just go with Hero I guess. Maybe costumed hero.
Being associated with the brand of Hosted Games (or even better with Choice of Games) is probably the most effective marketing tool you can have for free.