Book Industry Study Group

[Valamir]

http://www.bisg.org/publications/radar.html

Just came across this particular organization...they asked me to take a survey on my experience as a book publisher believe it or not...of course their survey didn't have any categories remotely close to the sort of publishing we do...they are clearly targeting traditional book categories.

But in perusing their site I came across this report called Under the Radar (linked above) which perports to be a study about the tens of thousands of independent book publishers who aren't counted in any of the typical publishing industry numbers and are using a variety of "unorthodox" techniques and channels.  The study costs like $300 so I doubt i'll be picking it up, but the table of contents is interesting, and I found it particularly telling that exactly the same kind of revolution we represent in the game publishing industry is apparently well underway in traditional publishing as well (they defined "under the radar" companies as including those with revenue under $50 million...heh)

[Calithena]

(they defined "under the radar" companies as including those with revenue under $50 million...heh)

So that's pretty much everyone here except Luke, right?

I think that the big bookstore chains are probably a plausible future direction for smaller RPG sales. With traditional game stores on the decline and lots of gamers working at bookstores - and also noting that Borders and B&N carry an awful lot of very niche-y social science, philosophy, and art-house literature titles already - it seems to me that this is a direction worth exploring. So even at $300 a report like this might be of use to indie or non-indie game publishers with big ambitions. Thanks for the heads-up!

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Sean, man, no way. Some very big things would have to change. Read some recent posts on the subject.