Advertising? "Free" press?

I don't really have an advertising budget, but I would advise "start small." The money I've invested into advertising seems like it's going into a black hole. I know people see the ads, and I know they generate general interest, but I'm not sure how *much* good they really do.

Mind you, this is the experience from running a couple of text ads on various sites. I can't afford much else. A text-ad on BoardGameGeek seems like it's a pretty good deal:

For $10 you get an ad that is sent to people interested in board and card gaming. It lasts a little less than a week, and you can see how many people follow it to your site. Plus, I think BoardGameGeek is a valuable community (like this one) and I like sending money to "good causes," especially when I benefit, too.

How much good does a $500 ad get you in a gaming magazine? Who knows? However, "poor, tightwad Scotto" doesn't want to invest the money to find out! :)

Games magazine is the only mass-market magazine in the US that covers board games. As good Sir Yekrats above noted, it's most definitely worth sending them a review copy. :) I believe that there's a UK magazine that's similar.

On a smaller scale, Paizo Publishing (the publishers of the aforementioned Dungeon and Dragon) have a new magazine out called Undeafeated that reviews board games some.

On an even smaller scale is Counter magazine (from the UK), which reviews German-style board games pretty much exclusively. I'd call Counter a "zine," though, and not a true magazine, as it's circulation is very small and it's not terribly professionallly printed.

There are also a number of well-known "spielfrieks" somewhat well-known on the net -- Greg Schlosser comes to mind -- whose reviews are often well-considered and from whom a positive review will sell at least a few copies.

When it comes to ads, though, it's almost always a waste of money, at least in magazines. The exceptions I can think of are super-focused magazines where your game directly applies. For example if you created a Civil War game then a small ad in a Civil War re-enactment magazine might pay for itself, and if you created a game about gardening then a small ad in a gardening magazine might pay for itself.

If you created a fantasy-themed game then an ad in Undefeated might pay for itself, but it well might not. If you created a puzzle-like game (for example, Don Bone's Sunda to Sahul) then it's possible that a small ad in Games magazine would make you some money, but I wouldn't invest any money that I wasn't just as willing to put into a slot machine.

Advertising is almost always a crapshoot. If you're going to advertise in a way that costs you money, it's very, very important that you try to track it carefully. You can, for example, make a special offer (like "free shipping for readers who mention code 123"), or you can create a special URL; something to track how many people directly responded to the ad. If nothing else, just advertise in one new place and give the ad time to result in a sales change -- if you advertise in multiple new places and you see a sales spike, you won't know which ad is making the difference (if any). In addition, unfortunately one of the main rules of advertising is repeat, repeat, repeat. One ad will usually result in 0 sales. One ad run every month (or week or day or hour or what have you, depending on the medium) is the only way that you will have any success at all. As such it's both expensive and risky.

Kinda like running your own business. :)