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[pixelate]

Newsletters can be pretty effective. We have a monthly newsletter for our game (http://www.spacesofplay.com/newsletter) that both fans and some journalists subscribe to. Open rates are between 40-60%, click rates between 10-25%. (The most popular links in our newsletters are when we talk about other games that we like.) At the very least you should let people signup for an email reminder for when the game releases.

[pbrand]

Newsletters can be pretty effective. We have a monthly newsletter for our game (http://www.spacesofplay.com/newsletter) that both fans and some journalists subscribe to. Open rates are between 40-60%, click rates between 10-25%. (The most popular links in our newsletters are when we talk about other games that we like.) At the very least you should let people signup for an email reminder for when the game releases.

Do you use any third party tech to organize and send out mass newsletters? I've had MailChimp bookmarked for a while but I haven't really reached the subscriber scale where I need that sort of power. But, at the same time, getting surprised with a large burst of subscribers would be an unpleasant surprise to someone like me doing everything near-manually through Gmail Groups.

[JonboyGames]

Hi! I have a thread about my channel right there: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=55882.msg1247083#msg1247083
My channel is dedicated to exactly what you all are looking for. Since it's only 2 months old, you may not get as broad exposure as with larger channels, so I suggest you still try to get in touch with them. However, I explicitly work with new and still developing games. If you would like more details check my thread and my channel. I look forward to connecting with you.

[alexp]

Great list and I think you covered the main points. HOWEVER doing this as an indie developer can just feel like banging your head against a brick wall! *just saying*

Anyway just to be constructive and in the theme of community spirit - I found Product Hunt post on launch day to be pretty useful too.

Regarding reddit, you can post to r/gamedev as a self-promo once as long as you have been active on that sub.

Also if you are publishing to a store like Apple App Store (as I do) then spend time to analyse keywords etc. Most apps are discovered on the store and some estimates suggest this can be around 65% of downloads. So spending time on traditional PR methods covered only hits the other 35%... You can use tools like Sensor Tower or App Annie for this to understand keywords other apps are using, difficulty, rankings etc.

That's my contribution! Best of luck to every indie trying to promote their games, there is no magic bullet here and requires some grinding!