I am doing what I suggested last week as a viable method to gain exposure.
I did casually say, “stockpile adventures” and “releases every week to two weeks”.
I am using one page adventures as my example products here. I am doing this for a couple of reasons. To make a success of one page adventures, you need A LOT of them. Success on DTRPG comes from having more expensive products. Their ranking algorithms are driven by gross sales value, so a $30 hardback that makes you virtually no money, will outrank 15 $1.99 supplements because $30 is greater than $29.85, despite having a far smaller audience. This would suggest that spending longer making fewer $30 books would be more efficient in the long run.
You are right.
But, I want to build my mailing lists. Selling 15 copies in the first week and maybe gathering 5 new mailing list contacts is worth more to me than 1 customer who may not sign up at all.
Once you have a big contact list, then you can make bigger books, and know that you have more chance of selling more than just one copy.
So my goal is to sell volume.
I said you need to have a lot of one page adventures. The reason you need a lot of them is that individually they do not earn you much money, but customers are as likely to pick up several if the titles appeal to them. If you only have one that is all you can possibly sell. I have 18 Zweihander one page adventures and it is a rare week when I don’t get someone by ten or more in a single order.
The second reason for using one page adventures is speed of production. I am throwing these titles out there to build my customer base in this specific niche. Bigger things can come later, but right now I just need things to release. Those things have to provide value, and be fun. If they are crap, I am going to lose customers, not gain them. A one page adventure is typically 900-1600 words. I have an established document template, so that takes no time to set up. I can write the adventure in under two hours and have it laid out. For ideas I have a period book of horror stories. I read each short story and think “If I were GMing this, how would I set it up?” That gives me everything I need, the NPC names, descriptions, professions, the locations, and of course the threat/challenge.
I have also talking in the past about footers for your products, how they promote cross sales. To make a footer you need more than one thing to show in the footer. One pagers are fast enough to get multiple items up, and create the footer.
Last week I also mentioned short life bundles. To make a bundle you also need more than one item.
So, right now, I have one live, two in the queue. In the first three and a bit days I have sold 12 copies. This time next week I will give you another update.