I have two questions regarding the pitching of a game to indie publishers, if I may:

1) After sending out a pitch, how long should one wait before considering querying?

I've thus far been applying my experiences with online fiction magazines, and thus taking a guess at thirty days. But that does somewhat presume similarity between the two fields, which of course may not be accurate.

2) Should one pitch to multiple publishers simultaneously, or one at a time in sequence?

Again, I've thus far been drawing on my experiences with online fiction magazines, many of whom, it seems, reject simultaneous submissions. However, drawing on that experience is again based on a presumption, one that may be incorrect. And furthermore, pitching could take absolute ages if approached one publisher at a time!

So, in both of these uncertainties I'm now asking rather than presuming: What is the accepted practice when so pitching?

(Presume for the sake of discussion that the pitch itself is fine, ready to be emailed out. The game being pitched is well into development, and has a demo (which is linked in the pitch).)

as far as i know, it's a game of pitch and wait in most cases, and yes you're right, most publishers don't want you to pitch to various places simultaneously (just in case u r successful and so they wouldn't have to deal with others you pitched to);

read the Publisher's small prints , see what they say about it, then pray, hope and wait ?

if there's another better way then go for it;

All the best ?

Thank you for the response. ^_^

I haven't seen much small print provided on this matter by such publishers, I'm afraid--but perhaps I haven't been looking in the right place!

Perhaps I should look again--if so, in the hopes that they allow simultaneous submissions!

An update to this:

I've subsequently had further input, in particular from employees of an indie publisher.

And what they advised was to pitch simultaneously. Indeed, to pitch to many publishers, I believe.

They pretty much argued, as I recall, that the more potential offers one has, the better one's position is to negotiate a good contract, and furthermore the more choice one may have in selecting a publisher that makes for a good match.

I guess the short answer is: pitching will either take a lot longer than you think, or a lot less time, but most likely the former.

Some publishers have windows, others are always looking, some won't really make a decisions until some face time has been established (making it hard in 2020-2021!). Every publisher has a very different way of operating, so there's no better thing than to ask about next steps, and when you might hear back, and followup accordingly. Publisher X might tell you you'll hear back within 2 weeks whether its a yes, no or even a maybe, whereas others might ghost until you call back (not a good sign, but sometimes still works).

More often than not, you'll know when you've got a ‘live one’ because some Q&A is being exchanged over time, even if it takes long. Getting decision makers to look at what scouts have been filtering through can take a lot of time, and then, depending on size and lineup, finding a slot / ensuring funding can be invested at a given time, can be a headache if the publisher is smaller (can only support so many projects at once until others start generating some ROI).

There's no tried and true phase per se, but 30 days of silence would likely feel like a hard pass, I'd probably ping them back long before that unless I had some information to go on (such as: we won't be giving you an answer on this until Month X because this is a busy time of year, etc.)

I see--a complex answer, and a useful one, I do believe. Thank you for it!