How Indie Author Sold His Book, "The Martian" ...And 3 Lessons Small Indie Game Devs Can Use

I just watched a short lecture from Andy Weir, where he talks about how his book "The Martian" became a huge success. And if you listen to his story, it holds some clues to help you sell your own indie game.

And the reason I say that is because his story is probably similar to your story:

1. He had a good job as an engineer, but his passion was writing
2. He saved up money, quit his job, and took 3 years to write
3. After 3 years, he wrote a book... but it didn't get any traction, got no publisher, and nobody read it
4. After trying and failing he went back to work as an engineer
5. But this time he did something different that helped him write "The Martian" and find a market... and that's what I want to talk about

So let me break down his experience, and give you 3 lessons I took away from his story that can help you with your own journey in making an indie game that is a success.

And of course, I highly recommend you watch the video I'm talking about (link is in the description below).

Lesson 1: Marketing Your Game After You Finish Is A Recipe For Failure

Weir talked about how he spent 3 years writing a book, then he went to publishers and agents. But nobody wanted his book, and he got no traction. Probably because these agents and publishers saw no market for that book.

And this also happens with game devs. They make a game, and then after a few months or years, when they feel they have something good to market, that's when they start ramping up marketing... that's when they start reaching out to potential customers or publishers or investors.

But no amount of marketing, pr, branding, awards, is going to help if you get the market wrong.

So here's the lesson: marketing only works if there is already demand for your idea. Marketing doesn't create demand. And yes, if you're a huge company like Apple, you can pump money into marketing and you might create demand.

But if you're a small indie game studio, where nobody knows you, or likes you yet, spending months or years developing a game, then waiting until you're ready to show off some stuff and hope you attract customers and publishers, isn't going to work.

Let me explain why in...

Lesson 2: Discover Your Market WHILE You're Developing

After spending 3 years writing his book, and failing to sell it, Weir eventually went back to his computer engineering job. But he didn't stop writing.

And this time, instead of finishing a book and THEN looking for an audience or publisher... he setup a website, and started posting short fiction. And one of those short fictions was "The Martian".

What he would do is post a chapter every 2 months or so. And as he posted his content, he started getting a small following. And with that small following, he started getting feedback on each chapter he posted. And he took that feedback and went back and fixed all the mistakes he made.

And slowly, through that feedback and iteration, after 3 years of doing this, he created something that resonated with a market. He wrote something he wanted to write, but also used the market to figure out what THEY wanted, too.

And that's the lesson here: most game devs rarely build something small, and then go out to test it with players. If they do ever test a small prototype, they often ask other devs.

But just like Weir, a better strategy is to spend 2 or 3 months building something that is "good enough". And then go out and find players (and not other game devs) to test that prototype. And listen to their feedback to help you iterate and make something the market wants.

This is how you discover a market WHILE you're developing. Because if you can carve out a new market like this, then your future marketing efforts will work.

Let me explain this in the last lesson...

Lesson 3: Once You Discover Your Small Market, That Is When To Push Your Marketing Efforts

Weir spent 3 years where he would write a chapter every 2 months or so... got feedback... iterate... and do it all over again with the next chapter.

And once he finished "The Martian", people could read it off his website for free. But people emailed him asking him if he could put an e-reader version on Amazon because it's more convenient that way. And even though the book was free on his website, more people paid to get the book through Amazon (because people will always pay for convenience). And as people started buying it, Amazon noticed and started to recommend the book to other people who never followed Weir's website. And the rest is history: from there he got so much demand that eventually a movie was made.

Anyway, the lesson here is, let's say Weir just wrote a book without finding a small audience and getting feedback and iterating. Say he wrote a book he wanted to write, and put on Amazon, and hoped that Amazon would recommend it to people for him. But this strategy where you hope that another platform will help you market your game is a lazy strategy.

But that's the strategy that 98% of dame devs do. They finish a game. Put up on Steam. And hope that Steam will help them recommend their game to players. But this strategy of hoping that a platform will help them market their game rarely works. It doesn't work because there are thousands of other games doing the same thing, and competing in the same way.

A better strategy is to forget about other platforms to help you market your game (i.e. Steam, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Itch.io, etc.).

A better strategy is to focus on building your own audience, slowly, without the aid of other platforms. And then when you start posting content on platforms, and when you put up your Steam page, you'll get far better engagement and traction because you have a small army who are willing to support you by wishlisting your game, or talking about it on Reddit.

Now let me give you a quick step by step...

Your Challenge To Carving Out Your Own Market For Your Indie Game

So I have a challenge for you: what is something you can build in 2 months that you can test with actual players? It could be a small feature, a new mechanic, even a new animation.

Now, don't do what most game devs do. What most game devs do is they'll create a post on Reddit, and wait for feedback there. But these game devs are only entering an echo chamber. The only feedback they'll mostly get is from other game devs.

A better strategy to ACTIVELY find players. Here's a quick step-by-step to actively find players...

1. Spend 2 months working on a small, self-contained prototype that you want to test
2. Put up your prototype up on itch.io or your own website so that players can easily download and try it out
3. Go find a thread on Reddit where they're talking about a game or genre that is similar to the game you're making
4. Find a user in the thread, and send them a Chat or DM... send out at least 10 chat requests
5. Tell them what thread you found them on, and tell them that you're a small indie game dev asking for advice or feedback on the game you're making
6. Give them a link to where they can try out your prototype
7. Find another thread, and do it all over again

Remember: you're responsible for getting your own traction. You're responsible for carving out a market. No platform or festival or store page is going to market your game for you. The only time platforms help you is when you already have a fanbase and you already have traction.

For example, if your small following is buying your game, then Steam is going to notice the sales, and start recommending it to new players (just like Amazon did for Weir).

So if you want to make a game that the market wants, you need to put in the extra effort into reaching out and finding players, getting feedback, iterating, and building a game that you want to make and a game the market wants.

Actively finding your own audience is the first step to developing a game that will be a financial success.

Thanks for reading. I hope you got at least one good idea to help you find players for your indie game.

Dariusz Konrad
My Entrepreneurial Story
Work: Game devs I've helped so far