Introducing Tabletop Publishers - the complete story behind the Dossier and 4 new features
Start tracking your shortlisted publishers, your pitches, and more.
See if this sounds like you:
You want to pitch your game, but you have no idea who to pitch it to
You’ve heard that you should ‘research publishers’, but don’t know how to do that
You want to meet with publishers at conventions, but don’t know who’s going
You have just enough time to create your game and playtest it, but no time to research
You’ve been looking for a way to track your pitches and shortlisted publishers without creating all sorts of tools from scratch
Presenting Tabletop Publishers, a many-tools-in-one offering
There are two major components to Tabletop Publishers:
The Dossier: a database of over 500 board game publishers that are either looking for submissions or have worked with outside designers in the past. (If they’re not looking for submissions or just in business to make their own games, they’re not included.)
The CRM: a collection of four inter-connected tools for tracking everything:
My Games: track your games and their status on a single dashboard you can see and update from anywhere
My Leads: a shortlist of publishers you want to pitch - take private notes and refer to them anytime, anywhere
My Pitches: track who you pitched, what games you pitched them
My Follow-ups: visible on your Dashboard and color-coded to make it easier to follow-up.
Let’s dive in.
Save tons of time researching publishers with the Dossier
Once you’re in and looking at the Dossier, two of the easiest ways to begin looking through publishers are deceptively simple:
Search the dossier lets you search virtually every text field across the entire database instantly
Filter publishers in a few different ways - click the Filter button to see the many ways:
One important note about the Dossier: I’m working behind the scenes to keep the data up-to-date (no more than 6 months old). On my admin view, I’m easily able to see which listings need updating, and then update them as needed.
What does the Dossier include?
Their name, website, and contact info
Direct links to their submission page (if they have one)
Direct links to their social media (Facebook, X, Youtube, Instagram, etc.)
Convention presence at the five biggest conventions (do they attend Essen, GenCon, Origins, PAX Unplugged, and/or the UK Games Expo?)
What sort of games they want (kids games, casual / party games, family / gateway games, medium-weight games, heavy-weight games, and/or RPG's?)
Other notes and insights (anything else to help you identify whether it's a fit)
Keep everything organized in one place with the CRM
We’ve created a bespoke Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for you to track all the important elements of your games, your shortlisted publishers, your pitches, and your follow-ups.
My Games
There’s plenty to explore here, but the goal here is to make it simple to track and manage the details of your games.
My Leads
Each Lead (or shortlisted publisher) gets its own ‘card’ - click on it to see the Dossier’s information on the left and your pitches and notes on the right. Search and Filter your way through them if you choose to add a lot of them.
My Pitches
The basic formula: one Lead + one game = one pitch. Note you can group these by Lead (seeing all the games you’ve pitched to this Publisher in one place) or by games (seeing all the publishers you’ve pitched this game to in one place) - toggle back and forth at will!
Here’s where you can track your pitches - open up any of the accordions to see the rest of the story:
Click the yellow card to see further details, if you like. As it is, you can track the Pitch’s current status, along with the most recent notes or follow-ups.
Speaking of follow-ups…
My Follow-ups
Your Follow-ups live on your Dashboard. They’re automatically created when you create a pitch. Click on one to see more details, edit it, change the follow-up date, etc.:
There are two types of notes here: the ones in blue are the ones you’ve entered yourself, and the gray logs that automatically track any status changes you make.
At the end of the day…
My goal with Tabletop Publishers is a bespoke, best-in-class tool to save you time, energy, and effort. This is the same tool I’ll be using to track my own pitches, but more importantly, everything was built with game designers in mind. The logic, the flow, the organization… it’s built for us, not some generic audience of people.
It’s also worth noting that this is NOT a 'vibe-coded' project that's magically come together in a few prompts. It's been close to a year of working with a trio of flesh-and-blood humans, the lead of which used to work at Apple. It's well-tested, secure, and lightning fast.
How much does it cost?
$9.99 per month or $99 a year — but use the following coupon code to save 30% on either subscription: GRANDOPENING30 .
Is it worth it?
At less than $10 a month, if it saves you even a couple of hours of your time each month, yes I think you’ll be coming out ahead.
Add in the CRM tools to keep everything organized, and you’re well on your way.
Got an idea for a future feature?
While the main features have all been built out and ready for the world, we’ll be listening to feedback and considering new features as they’re suggested. Use the little feedback button on the right edge of the screen (the one with the 📣 megaphone) to offer opinions and feedback.