Some retail planning and Gencon

[Eero Tuovinen]

Now, if you've followed the Convention forum, you already know that I've been doing some small-scale retail of indie games here in Finland. Ropecon went well in that regard, and we've decided to get us some more games, if the publishers still want to continue with this.

Last time we got the books by gathering them in one place (M.J. Young's publishing house did the hard part) and sending them here by land mail. That worked well, but depends entirely on someone taking it upon himself to collect the books, box them and send them here. Pure voluntary work, something that cannot be expected, especially as we cannot pay for it. This time there is even no time limit, so this is a desirable solution if someone takes the job.

Nevertheless, I got to thinking that with Gencon coming up, would it be feasible to take care of preliminary collection of books by somebody collecting them in Gencon from the publishers? All the people I'm likely to order books from will be there as far as I know, so that'd save some expenses. There'd be good time after Gencon to package the games and send them away. I have no idea at all about how busy you all will be there, so this is just a thought unless somebody volunteers for the job.

Anyway, the above is one thing I'm looking for feedback and ideas on. Is there a simpler and cheaper way to get the books to Finland? The second part of the post is to ask for ideas about what to order. You can check out our web page at http://www.arkkikivi.net for a list of games we currently have on our list (left side nav bar has game names, the pages are in Finnish). The obvious choices are largely there, but it's quite possible that I've missed something on the first go-around! If you have a game that should be on the list or know of some such that I've missed, go ahead and tell me. I'm especially interested of games that will be published for Gencon, as I obviously have quite a good chance of having missed them thus far alltogether.

Here's a list of the games I'm currently thinking of getting. Some of these were in the last order, but are already sold out. Some are only half-formed notions that may drop out for some reason or another.

kpfs (if Vincent wants to sell us more of it)
Dogs in the Vineyard (I cannot seriously consider that this'd be a bad game)
The Questing Beast (which I forgot last time solely because I didn't realise that it's a book)
Burning Wheel (no idea when Luke is doing a reprint, but if it's for Gencon...)
Dust Devils (is there going to be a reprint? I'll have to find out these things...)
Fastlane (because it's coming out in Gencon AFAIK)
OctaNe
InSpectres (people have been asking for these two)
Starchildren (which I'm a little unsure of; the setting seems good, but I've understood that the system is too typical)
[/list:u]And before you ask, games like HeroQuest or TRoS are simply too big for us. They are already sold quite comfortably in the FLGS, so there's no point in me bothering. The point here is to bring new and unknown games to Finland, not to compete with established channels.

As to numbers, if someone cares, I'm probably getting either half a dozen or a full dozen of each title, depending on how well I think it'd sell in Finland. If you are in the above list and I've not yet contacted you: I'd suggest giving your normal distributor discount, whatever it is, as Finland is most likely a dead market zone for you anyway, and I'll have to pay the postage out of the discount.

Any ideas are welcomed at this stage. I'm just pondering on the options and luxuriating on the fact that there is no particular hurry; there is no convention I have to make with these, so I can take my time. Unless somebody volunteers to do the actual gathering in Gencon, in which case I'll have to start arranging payments for the books...

[Christopher Weeks]

Is there a simpler and cheaper way to get the books to Finland?

If you were bringing an indie guest of honor from the US for one of your cons, you could get them to fill the space in their luggage that they'd be leaving open for purchases with books for you to sell.

Chris

[Michael S. Miller]

I hereby volunteer to help Eero out. I'll collect all the books at GenCon, haul them back to Pennsylvania and ship them from here. Eero will make all the payment and quantity arrangements and will provide me a checklist, so I can hunt down everyone's games.

[Eero Tuovinen]

I hereby volunteer to help Eero out. I'll collect all the books at GenCon, haul them back to Pennsylvania and ship them from here. Eero will make all the payment and quantity arrangements and will provide me a checklist, so I can hunt down everyone's games.

Great! I also got a couple of additions for my list. Right now it looks like this, let's see if I think of anything else. I'll send you a final list after dealing with the individual publishers for the books...

With Great Power (I got reminded that it exists, you see...)
kpfs (if Vincent wants to sell us more of it)
Dogs in the Vineyard (I cannot seriously consider that this'd be a bad game)
The Questing Beast (which I forgot last time solely because I didn't realise that it's a book)
Burning Wheel (no idea when Luke is doing a reprint, but if it's for Gencon...)
Monster Burner (which I got reminded on)
Dust Devils (is there going to be a reprint? I'll have to find out these things...)
Fastlane (because it's coming out in Gencon AFAIK)
OctaNe
InSpectres (people have been asking for these two)[/list:u]

[Merten]

Great! I also got a couple of additions for my list. Right now it looks like this, let's see if I think of anything else. I'll send you a final list after dealing with the individual publishers for the books...

Burning Wheel (no idea when Luke is doing a reprint, but if it's for Gencon...)

I'd think that some people who bought Burning Wheel might wish to buy the forthcoming Monster Burner as well. As far as I know, it should be ready for GenCon.

I have already ordered my copy, though.