RPGmall print run Size

[Michael Hopcroft]

Many of you must have gotten a letter from RPGNow saying they need print books from their vendors for their Origins and GenCon booths.  It just so happens that although I haven't done a print run of HeartQuest Diceless yet,. I can;t get one done in time for Origins, but I can make GenCon's deadline.

The operative question is how many copies to print. RPGNow doesn't think they'll sell many.  I wonder if I can sell more than I think,  and I'm torn between an initial print run of 15 copies and 21 copies (including one copy for myself). Which would make more sense for a convention the size of GenCon? I;d done up spreadhseets for both on the cost end but have not set a retail price.. It's 84 pages long and I was planning to use 60-lb. stock.

Michael Hopcoft

[jdagna]

My philosophy is to print a little more than you think you'll need.  If you don't sell them now, you'll sell them later, but GenCon only happens once a year, so if you run out, you can't just do the con again.

I sold a little more than 20 copies of a pre-release edition of Pax Draconis (at $29.95) at GenCon last year if that helps you at all.

[rpghost]

Something that might help the decision... Others are saying you can sell up to 100 copies of a game at Gencon, but that's if you have your own booth and work it good. Some are saying they sell 30-50 at cons, but again I suspect this is with the owner themsevles running demos and pushing the product.

With RPGMall, you're sharing booth/table space with 30 other products. We're not heavly pushing any one product. You're not at the booth pushing it and demos are not run. So, 10-20 copies is all I expect to sell of niche items.

That is unless you want to work your product and do demos... I'm toying with a demo schedule that we'll allow people to signup at. We'd need confirmation from the vendors as to when they'll run a demo and it can't be run AT our booth (sorry). But at least we can have a signup sheet.

I'm open to thoughts/suggestions. But unless you're there working your own product, 10-20 copies is fine. If you have the money to print a few extra it would be a good idea as was said, it's easy to make a sale at GENCON for most anything - but it's hard once it's over. Don't want to run out there. Any left overs will just go to our store room after the con.

James
http://www.rpgmall.com
P.S. I need final POD orders by this weekend if you expect to be represented at Origins!

[Michael Hopcroft]

Without going into details or probing into confidences, how many different publishers took James up on hiis offer and had some books printed for Origins/GenCon?

[jgbrowning]

Without going into details or probing into confidences, how many different publishers took James up on hiis offer and had some books printed for Origins/GenCon?

I sent him an extra box of books. :)  Hopefully he's getting swamped with people wanting to buy A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe right now.

Karma's kicked in and I can't get a hold of him to tell (since he's not taking e-mails, being at the convention and all) him MMS:WE's just gotten Monte Cook's first 10 review so he can plug that at his table. I have a suspicion that word of mouth with get around, but oh well... :)

joe b.

[rpghost]

Well we got your second box just in time for restocks on our RPGMall shelves. The Monte plug is really helping your sales.

James