You have a game, don't ya?
You think it's pretty good, don't ya?
You want to find a publisher, don't ya?
If you answered 'yes' or 'aye' on all questions, you need a sales sheet. Much like many other industries, the board game industry is flooded by people with products they want produced (i.e. games) while the number of products current companies can make is much smaller. This is why many small companies pop up all the time mostly with the help of Kickstarter. Some succeed, some exist and some fail. This post is not for you, self publishers (unless you want to publish my games!), it is for people like me, with a day job that get a kick from making games. We need to get companies interested in our games. So we bring our best and finest creations to meet, face to face or online, with publishers and then realize - they are busy people. What for us is fun and games (pun intended) for them is the thing that puts bread on the table (unless they are cutting carbs). Treat their time as precious and summarize your game in a way that will include the game's gist and will make them want to spend their precious time looking more into it.
Make sure that when you are giving out or sending your sales sheets you have everything else you need behind it. This will include a decent rule book, all printable components and anything else your game needs. Because if the sales sheet is good, those companies will want to see more and you want to be able to send it to them without much delay.
I will start by showing you one of mine as an example:
Let's break it down:
Clear title. Clarity always beats fanciness anywhere other than graffiti.
Your name(s). Even if they don't take this game, make them know who you are and not forget.
Some fancy image that shows the game board / game in action / or another eye candy. Use this to get the attention you think your game needs.
Short description, the hook. I for one hate calling it "the hook" because it's like telling the fish where to bite. There isn't a lot of text in a good sales sheet, so you don't need to tell anyone that 6 lines out of 20 include the "good stuff", they are short in time, but they will read 20 lines.
What makes you game special? In this game for example I took a mechanism similar to Twilight Struggle when it comes to card activation, but extended it to 4 players with the addition of drafting where you can move cards to future rounds. Sounds special to you?
The dry facts about the game, or game stats. Maybe this company is not even looking for something longer than 60 min, or maybe they don't want to publish anymore Euro style games. OR MAYBE, you did your research and this is exactly the right cup of tea.
What categories your game can fit into? Here you should mention generally but accurately the mechanisms you use. Look into BGG's list of mechanisms to get the right words for this.
Game components. Companies usually know if they want to make a large or a small game, let them know where your game stands on this.
Component examples are very important. Choose 1 or 2 things that play a main role in your game and place them here. This game is card driven, so what will this sheet be without an example of at least 1 card?
The last but-in-no-way-least thing - your contact email / details should be written in a large clear font.
General points:
I love dividing the page into 2/3 and 1/3 horizontally. It makes lines shorter and focuses attention.
Use a good clean font, don't get fancy. Fancy usually is unreadable. The only place to use anything fancy is the title and even there, please make sure it is easily readable. Don't mix more than 2 fonts in anything. Here I used 1 font for titles and 1 font for text.
Give the page some texture, don't send a white background document that looks like a handout. You are in a creative business, make sure you are showing your creativity. Make sure doesn't make the text disappear though. Again, the main thing you want out of a sales sheet is them to read about your game and be interested in hearing more.
I hope this helps :)
Go out there my lasses and laddies and sell your games!