Getting PDF's reviewed

[Mystique]

Hi all,

Just released first PDF, and I was curious how one goes about getting the product reviewed (i.e. EN World, etc??? Do you normally wait for buyers to submit reviews on the popular sites, send comp copies to the major sites for their review, etc???
Looking for a little direction on this one. Would seem to me that if you can get some positive reviews, marketing the product gets a BIT easier...and if the reviews point out "oppurtunities" instead, then the next project can be even better...
Thanks for any help out there...

Mike Clifford
Mystique Enterprisese
www.Mystiqueenterprises.com

 

[Morrus]

Send emails to all the reviewers you can think of to see if they will review it for you. Most will give you a yes or no and a timescale.

Crothian, here at EN World, reviews PDF products specifically, so that's a good start.

 

[Crothian]

Hi, I'm the pdf reviewer. You can e-mail me at cgath@insight.rr.com

Thanks.

 

[maransreth]

Mystique,
Your best bet is to email the visit the major review sites on the net, and then either email the site owner or email the person they designate as who to get in contact for with reviews and send comp copies to these people.

Major review sites include - ENWorld, d20zines, Mortality.net, GameReport. Other sites include - Emerald Night (they are offering a pdf review service with a 2 week turn around), Silven Crossroads, RPG.net and GameWyrd.

(Sorry, just remembered Gamewyrd for reviews)

maransreth

 

[Mystique]

Thanks!

Thanks for the responses. I will do just that (the emails). Appreciate the help!

Mike

 

[rpghost]

RPGNow does support a mailing list where reviewers can signup and Gold Vendors can email to. Helps get communications going for reviews...

http://www.rpgnow.com/mailing_list.php

James

 

[Crothian]

Wow, I had no idea. Thanks James.

 

[Jraynack]

Mystique,

One of the things we can share with you is to be patient and to send out as many complimentry copies to as many reputable reviewers as possible.

However, patience is key. We have sent out over 32 complimentry copies of a variety of our products since the launching of our first .pdf (August 2003) and we have recieved only one review (Gamewyrd).

While many other prominent publishers are able to get a review within a week of their product release date (sooner in some cases) it is hard to get a review as a new publisher.

You must also realize that most of these reviewers are doing this during their free time and are being bombarded by many other publishers for a review.

So just try to patient, but persistant and do not be discouraged by the whole process.

Joshua Raynack
Alea Publishing Group

Makers of the popular A Question of Honor: A Guidebook to Knights and A Question of Loyalty: A Guidebook to Military Orders.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I can't speak for anyone else but sometimes life gets in the way. Visit the old doctor, the bad cholestoral is up. Start going to the gym. Hate it. (Used to go 2 hours a day, 5 days a week and just stopped.) Now I know I have to go so I buy an I-Pod with my income tax return. Love that damn thing but it takes time to copy the old music to the machine and then to the I-Pod which then gets my lazy butt into the gym which eats into my free time.

A big part of my problem is that I just have too much stuff to review and when I don't use the material or I'm not familiar with it (got Gamma World and one of the sourcebooks), I hate reviewing it until I'm well into it and have playtested a few characters/ideas.

My biggest failure is that PDF's often fall way behind in my list. One, I can't read them on screen. Most aren't designed for it, so I have to print them out. I don't always have the ink for that as I do a lot of stuff for my personal campaign that eats up ink. Second, if I have paper products, and this may damn me in the eyes of the community, I try to give those preferential treatment. If I'm sent a $34.95 hardcover and a $13.00 PDF,and am behind, the hardcover will almost always get my attention first. It may not be right and I'm not trying to discount the hard work that goes into PDF's, but the fact that both have writing, but only one is a physical product (until I spend my own funds to print/bind, etc...) the other, the physical product comes first.

Well, that's my lame excuse for why more PDF's arent' reviewed on my side. My apologies.

 

[trancejeremy]

The best way to get a review of a PDF, I think, is to post a message asking for a review of one (in exchange for a comp copy) in an open forum, like the general section here or over on RPG.net. You probably won't get a reply from a frequent reviewer, since usually they are busy with print products, but you'll almost certainly get a response.

Just don't send out comp. copies willy nilly without asking. Many people you send it to can't (like in my case, as I can't read PDFs on my computer without it crashing) or are too busy (as Joe said, they take longer to review than print products, since they take longer and are harder to read).