Shareware download site submitions

[Nikster]

Does anyone have any recomendations for submiting to download site, as in, any decent software that automates the process or any reputable/decent 3rd parties who deal with it for you ? I'd do it myself, but submiting to over 200 sites could be a bit of a chore ;)

TIA

Nik

[Tom Gilleland]

http://submit-everywhere.com/

They advertise $70 for 800+ sites. I haven't used them yet, but I think I will soon.

Tom

[Nikster]

Looks cool, thanks for the link Tom :)

[Nexic]

We guarantee that you'll get at least 180 listings

I'm guessing these guys don't actually bother to submit to all 800 sites, or just don't bother with the ones that require you to create accounts, login etc. 800 submissions completely manually would take about 50 man hours, which would mean they are paying themselves less than $2 an hour for very hard and repetitive work... They must be automated in some way.

With Promosoft (one time fee of $40) I can be guarantee to get listed on about 250 sites (with only an hour or so of work, which is mainly making a PAD). And you can use that for multiple games.

[Sybixsus]

I hate shameless self promotion, but we offer a submission service. Less than 30 bucks for 400+ sites. We even make the PAD file for you if you don't already have one. If you do have one, we'll verify it and see if there are any changes which might help your submission.

http://www.glimmergames.com/submissionservice.html

EDIT: and since Nexic and I cross-posted, we do submit all software to all sites ( apart from incompatible sites : ie: we don't submit shareware to freeware-only sites ) and we do submit to sites which require you to log in. You'll know this because you'll get emails with your login and passwords from a few sites which require verification first ;)

And yes, of course it's not entirely manual for $30, but it's not entirely automated either.

[Nexic]

Yeh I bet you're using promosoft too :P

[Nikster]

I just paid for 'shareware tracker', I've decided I'm in the wrong buisness :), They've obviously shifted a few units, probably to idiots like me. <Midnight madness rant removed>

I'll be in touch Syb. Heeeeeeeeeeeeellllppp ;)

Cheers,

Nik

[Sybixsus]

Heh, yeah I own Shareware Tracker too. I don't like it as much as I expected to. It does save a bit of time, but it's still a very lengthy process.

Nexic: Heh, that wouldn't really be fair to the Promosoft guys, would it? Though without reading the license I guess it might be permitted. I do own it, and have used it in the past for my own submissions. They've written a nice piece of software there, and they deserve all the customers they get.

When you can get services like ours ( but there are others out there too, I'm sure ) who can submit for you for such a low fee, I think it's the best way ( but I'm biased obviously. ) However, I do think Promosoft is a good tool if you really want to do it yourself.

[berserker]

http://submit-everywhere.com/

They advertise $70 for 800+ sites. I haven't used them yet, but I think I will soon.

Tom

Yeah, I used them several times and gonna use em again. They are great.
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[Chris Evans]

Yeah, I used them several times and gonna use em again. They are great.

What kind of results did you get with them?

[Rubs]

May I ask a newbie question, please?

Game portals and download sites. What are similarities/differences? Is submitting to game portals the same as submitting to shareware download sites, or it is completely a different story? Can you point me to some source of information on these subjects?

[Nexic]

Submitting to a portal is much different. You will need to email them directly and write a friendly note telling them about your game and asking if they want to distribute it. Download sites in most cases have you fill out a generic form (product title, description etc). Another big difference is that pretty much all download sites will accept almost anything, but portals won't.

[berserker]

What kind of results did you get with them?

I've got various results. I've got some download spike, while I don't have powerful statistics to determine how much sales it caused I am pretty sure it was more than 3-4 needed to recoup the cost. Additionally it improved my search engines ranking. They send you reports before and after submission with complete list of all processed sites and current status of your software at each one - i.e. listed, sumbited, rejected, etc. I think with such a low price you can't go wrong by using their services.
________
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[Sybixsus]

May I ask a newbie question, please?

Game portals and download sites. What are similarities/differences? Is submitting to game portals the same as submitting to shareware download sites, or it is completely a different story? Can you point me to some source of information on these subjects?

It's completely different. Portals, generally speaking, are sites where you can sell your games. They sell the games, and give you a cut, but the customers rarely even know you exist, because the portals are trying to build a brand. You need a contract with them, and your game will have to be accepted. Casual games are the most desirable but some portals ( eg: Reflexive ) will take less casual games too. Portals generally have huge traffic.

Download sites are places to bring traffic back to *your* site. They may allow buy links, but often only have download links, screenshot and description. ( Which is fine because your buy button is in the downloaded game, right? ) Download sites can have a lot of traffic but most will not be able to give you a huge number of downloads because they have so many programs listed. They accept most submissions, providing you follow the rules, and don't charge you any percentage. Submission to download sites, in my opinion, should be looked upon as a necessary chore. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not sufficient to submit to download sites and call that marketing, but at the same time, it's not something you should miss out on. It can increase your search engine ranking and it sends you free traffic, which is never bad. Don't spend too much time on it, and don't spend too much money on it.

Self promotion aside, either pay someone to do it for you or buy a program to take the hassle out of it. It's too bloody boring and not rewarding enough to do it all completely manually. On the other hand, you can't afford not to do it at all. So find a happy compromise that gets it done with the minimum of fuss, minimum of cost and maximum of quality.