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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 3073606" data-attributes="member: 9254">I don't think Sammael was being negative; I think he was just calling a spade a spade.  Neither "hype" nor "marketing" are words Eric's Grandma can't hear.  Yes, hype is generally an irritant to those of us who get blasted with it (e.g. those who go to multiple Cons each year, those on ENWorld and other RPG industry sites, etc) but the bulk of visitors to those sites do so sporadically and don't get inundated with the info.  His marketing plan was a long term process (lots of info online, pre-release promos & vignettes, demos, design notes, etc) that targeted distributors, retailers, and end customers.  He made sure to release items with enough meat that EN & other sites were justified it posting it as more than another press release.  His visibility was very high.  He then followed through with product delivery.  Malhavoc avoided the shotgun approach and went to release each product as a top-shelf endeavor.  Compare that to Mongoose's Quintessential line with gold text on a pattern cover.  AU/AE and IH are in a different category just in visual appeal. Mongoose minimized their risk by making each unsold copy hurt the bottom line as little as possible with "good enough" production standards.Monte maximized his return by making production quality incredibly high.  Mongoose's approach is safer, Monte's does great if you can deliver consistently.  The fact that he sold 1,000 preorders of Ptolus up to a year in advance speaks to how well he had delivered in the past.  And I'm confident that having ~$120,000 in revenue while the book was in development cut the stress down, allowed him to guarantee payment to artists & staff, and focus on just putting the thing together.  By hyping Malhavoc, Monte made a giant target of the company, and himself in particular.  Had he not delivered good products near their predicted delivery date his rep would have tanked.  Hard.  Companies can easily get a bad rap from the Internet and Monte's products were, if not to everyone's taste, at least well put together, internally consistent, and generally easy to read.  Plus he'd dribbled out enough info that you knew before you bought a Malhavoc if you wanted it so he didn't get the anti-press that some books (Tome of Battle *cough*) get.</blockquote>

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