Solo Developers: How to promote your VN?

[inky-brigitte]

Hi everyone.

I've been developing my VN for a long time. Now that I've reached the 50% progress benchmark, I have a few questions:

• How do I promote my VN?

• Does being a solo developer affects the price of my VN?

• Should I make a VN group at some point? Would that make any difference in the eyes of the audience?

Any advices is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[VillainousClown]

I don't have much experience with promoting a VN (I'm still working on my first project) but here are a few things of what I have seen for other projects:
- Making a social media page for the project. For example on Instagram and post a few sneak peeks/teasers or other stuff which get the potential buyer interested
- If you are ready maybe you can invest in a little ad on instagram? This isn't very expensiv but the results will vary
- Maybe you can make a free demo or even give acces to a few VN focused content creators.
- You can try to promote it on VN/indiegames subforums on reddit

I'm not sure about the price part. I saw VN with big teams which have the same price tags as indie VN made by one person. In the end it's still your game and you have the autonomy to decide the price.
Good luck with your game! I hope everything will work out for you

[inky-brigitte]

I don't have much experience with promoting a VN (I'm still working on my first project) but here are a few things of what I have seen for other projects:
- Making a social media page for the project. For example on Instagram and post a few sneak peeks/teasers or other stuff which get the potential buyer interested
- If you are ready maybe you can invest in a little ad on instagram? This isn't very expensiv but the results will vary
- Maybe you can make a free demo or even give acces to a few VN focused content creators.
- You can try to promote it on VN/indiegames subforums on reddit

I'm not sure about the price part. I saw VN with big teams which have the same price tags as indie VN made by one person. In the end it's still your game and you have the autonomy to decide the price.
Good luck with your game! I hope everything will work out for you

Thank you for your advices. I think setting up a social page for the project will work. I'll give it a try.
Good luck with your project as well!

[Elfie]

It is always hard to make a name for yourself when you have no previous track record in the industry at all. I'm also a solo developer, slowly working on my first commercial project ,so this topic is relevant for me as well.

I second the propositions of @VillainousClown above - but If you ask me, I think it is better to have a website as main platform than social media page. Because on website you can showcase characters, their bios and overall style it to match your game's atmosphere. And only then link it on social media/reddit/everywhere. Not to mention social media can ban/delete your page for whatever reasons or for no reasons at all - while with website, it is almost not an issue at all , if your VN is not something horribly criminal.

And also I'm not sure about instagram - does it really have an audience for VN's? Someone tried marketing there for real? Because I have an impression that your typical Instagram audience won't be interested in most fantasy/anime/etc VN's. Maybe only in romcom, and even then.... But I might be wrong - after all it is a big platform with all kinds of audiencies, and if you have a lot of visual stuff to showcase, it could be great. What do you guys think?

[inky-brigitte]

I second the propositions of @VillainousClown above - but If you ask me, I think it is better to have a website as main platform than social media page. Because on website you can showcase characters, their bios and overall style it to match your game's atmosphere. And only then link it on social media/reddit/everywhere.

Good idea. Thanks!
What website would you recommend? Wix comes to my mind. It's easier to design a page following my VN's aesthetic. I could update anytime without spamming the community.

And also I'm not sure about instagram - does it really have an audience for VN's? Someone tried marketing there for real? Because I have an impression that your typical Instagram audience won't be interested in most fantasy/anime/etc VN's. Maybe only in romcom, and even then.... But I might be wrong - after all it is a big platform with all kinds of audiencies, and if you have a lot of visual stuff to showcase, it could be great. What do you guys think?

Back in 2016-2019, I've seen some ads on Instagram which were well-received. There really is an audience, but they're after Westernized VN aka multiple stories input in a single app (e.g. Choices: Stories You Play). These stories usually short (< 10k words?) but they take a long time to complete due to pay-to-advance elements. And just like you said, most of them are romcom, followed by a few fantasy/horror stories. I think Instagram ads work for specific genres, but not likely for a >20k words slice-of-life VN which I'm making.

[Elfie]

Good idea. Thanks!
What website would you recommend? Wix comes to my mind. It's easier to design a page following my VN's aesthetic. I could update anytime without spamming the community.

Well I'm building mine on uKit. It is the most simple one. But Wix, Squarespace, Wordpress etc are good options too. You're looking for the ones where they provide you with a ready-made template from the start - so all you need is to replace some placeholder pictures with your character pictures, replace the text, and you're done. If you already have most of your character and BG art ready - it literally takes only a few hours to launch a website.

Back in 2016-2019, I've seen some ads on Instagram which were well-received. There really is an audience, but they're after Westernized VN aka multiple stories input in a single app (e.g. Choices: Stories You Play). These stories usually short (< 10k words?) but they take a long time to complete due to pay-to-advance elements. And just like you said, most of them are romcom, followed by a few fantasy/horror stories. I think Instagram ads work for specific genres, but not likely for a >20k words slice-of-life VN which I'm making.

I posted my scepticism about Instagram here, and it actually inspired me to do some research...actually, Instagram may be a goldmine for VN developers of most genres. The fact that most of instagram audience is fashion--beauty-trends-obsessed narcisses, who look like they won't ever be interested in playing any game harder than "match3" or "windows solitaire", doesn't mean it is actually true. After all, Insta-looks are just pretending, while romacing waifus (or husbandos) in a VN is a real deal x;D ))

For example, Genshin Impact ran (and still running) ads on instagram targeting audience largely foreign to gaming/anime subcultures, and it actually brought them a lot of new users. And Genshin is much more complicated and focus-required product than a VN.

[rikiya]

I know I late to post but I still want to offer my own view on this. As far as promoting your visual novel, I'd say word of mouth, social media, and even ads. If you're up to it send out your game to be reviewed, create a page on Facebook to create a place where potential fans can gather. I don't think being a solo artist would affect the cost/price of your game. If you have really top-notch writing, art and story people will pay to play your game, which kind of ties in with the advertising. The more people you get invested in your game, the more news of it spreads, the more people will be willing to (hopefully) buy your game in spite of the price. I do think collaborating with other creators is key here, as you tap into their audience and more people learn about you, your work and other projects you're involved in. In short, it helps to build your fandom. Looking at it from a consumer perspective, if I have a favorite artist/writer/developer and I see they've collaborated with someone else, I'm more likely inclined to check out the other person's work just to see what they've done and if it's something I'm interested in.

[droo_radley]

I recently made a video to outline the different phases of a marketing campaign and the content should be designed to reflect the expectations of a customer during each step. Hope you find this useful! There's a weird echo on my recording, so please try to ignore that.