[Spiel Essen] Preparing sales material

[Eero Tuovinen]

OK, here's what I got: Essen Forge Directory. It still lacks a front page, I'll figure out something appropriate later.

It's one sheet per game, with a picture, short description, price and some other data. I'm going to bring three stylish blue folders with these to the convention for easy perusal. I figure that with the limited space we're working with it's a very good idea to have pictures and descriptions of product in one place for those who want to see what we have. I don't even know how we're going to shelve the books in our small booth, so this should help more people peruse the stuff, and the monkeys can show games to the interested from the folder, which is a natural way to segue into a demo of anything that looks interesting.

What I need from the game designers:
- Better quality pictures. Something around 8 cm wide and 150 dpi should look good enough. What I have is just what you've put on your websites.
- Price information. If Frank already has this, kick me with it.
- Retailer pricing instructions. By which I mean, if a retailer comes along and wants to buy three, or five, or ten copies, what do we tell them? Giving them an IPR business card is a fine answer, but so is just setting a retailer discount and minimum purchase. (Or the latter might not be OK; for all I know Frank is arranging for us not to fiddle with random discounts.)
- Check your game's entry. Some texts I've just copy-pasted from your web pages, some I've written myself. Some has been left unwritten simply because I don't have the game in my paws yet (I'm looking at you, Brennan...).
- Send forth any additional info/material you want in the folder.

Fulfill the above to taste, it's your game we're representing. Anybody is free to proofread and suggest improvements in layout, or other things that could be done better about it.

IPR business cards above reminds me: we probably should have some crowd-control techniques in place, including something for audience to read (the folders), something to handle (the books), something to take with them... the latter being some kind of leaflets. Do we have any plans for those I've not heard about? Because if we do, and have budget, too, I can whip something up after I get my demo ducks in a row. My favourite would be to have a couple of dozen stylish cards with ordering information for retailer-types and some kind of bw A5 advert sheets that can be given to demo participants. Which brings me to demos...

Demos: We've got plenty of good material from most all of you. Some have sent complete demos of your own (thanks; they're excellent, and save us trouble), others have sent game texts for preparation and so on. My personal project (I lie; I'm going to put my brother to task) is to get me some tidy little cardboard boxes and compile all the equipment each game's demo requires into that box. I think I'll make the box big enough to fit a copy of the game itself, too. This way my orderliness becomes a force of good, when I have good demos in good boxes, easily available to utilize as needed by all the monkeys... (Yes, I had some organization trouble at Ropecon this year; yes, I'm doing something to make sure I don't have to spend five minutes searching for demo materials when I start a demo.)

Anyway, I'll be writing demos for those games that don't already have them. I'll try to get most of them done this weekend and playtested next week. I'll put them up for the other monkeys, too. And of course here, so you people can give pointers on how to improve. Back to that when I have something concrete.

A random idea I got when writing this post: I wonder if it would be doable to print character sheets for all games with a booth advertisement and designer contact information in the back. That way the sheets can be given out to players at the end of the demo as flyers. I'm sure somebody has thought of this one at some point, so if there's some obvious flaw, tell me so I don't waste my time with figuring it out. The main drawback seems to be that many of these demos can be structured to use laminated equipment that isn't used up. That's a sexy approach, too.

So that's what I've got at this point. Because I'm not in Germany and don't speak German I have plenty of time for doing this kind of random marketing preparation for the convention, so if anybody has any pointers about what else I should be doing, I'm all ears.

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Hi, Eero. Not sure if you wanted to handle this in the thread or by PM/e-mail. Since the former may be helpful to other participants, I'll post here.

My entry looks fine. I think the image is fine, but if you feel like you need a higher-res one let me know. As for price, can I assume you're looking for a price in euros? If so, can I just say price it at a nice round number that converts to somewhere between $30 and $33 US? For the retailers "XXX", I assume that's where you want us to indicate the retailer discount you mentioned in your post (or is it where you want us to list the distributors/fulfillment houses that retailers can obtain the book). If the former, I'm having something of a brainlock this morning, but I believe the standard retailer discount is 40%. (IPR does 42% to cover for their lack of shipping bennies, IIRC.) I'm fine with a 40% discount to retailers.

[Eero Tuovinen]

25 € would be $31,65 by today's exhange, seems like.

For retailers, either the discount or ordering information is fine, or both. If you're with IPR I'll just put "40%, also available from Indie Press Revolution", as every retailer (most?) probably isn't ready and willing to make purchases on the spot.

[Justin D. Jacobson]

That's fine. Plus 40% through Key20 as well.

[Frank T]

Just a quick one: I want to set up a website for the booth, where I gather links and info about the games. Eero, your directory looks great, I would link it there (or, better yet, translate it). The idea is to have an easy-to-memorize URL to set up at the booth, and maybe put on little cards. That's my idea, anyway.

- Frank

[Matt Machell]

I came to this quite late, having wanted to see how GenCon went before commiting to Spiel too. I'm now signed up to sell though (thanks Frank!), so I've put together some Covenant materials in Eero's styles: pitch and cover image. Demo materials from GenCon are available on my downloads page and I'll be using a similar scenario at Spiel.

Is there anything else you'd need from me?

-Matt

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Eero,

Adept Press has a complicated situation ... if the books were acquired through either Key 20 or IPR, then you should use the company's standards for retailer discount. But if you got them through me specifically, then a blanket 50% discount should be used for anyone who's not an end-use customer (store, distributor, whoever).

Best, Ron

[Eero Tuovinen]

Thanks for the material, all. I'll update the directory after figuring out the most pressing demo-related issues. Speaking of which, in this other thread I discuss demoing Dawning Star at Essen, so anybody interested in helping out with that particular task is welcome to take a look. I'll start similar threads for other games that don't have a demo yet when I get something coherent together for them.

Frank: a common website would be excellent for the purposes of directing people to after the convention, if for no other reason. I would have the skills to make one, but I fear it'd have to wait until I get the more pressing demo business done. I also have another convention here in Finland just after Essen, and have to prepare for that too, so I can't guarantee that I'd have time for the website. Better if somebody else does it. For hosting the indie-rpgs.com domain (something like "www.indie-rpgs.com/Essen" would look pretty good in a flyer) would be the most logical, but that's up to Ron & Clinton. I can host if we don't care for a tidy url.

(Just a side thought: as far as I'm concerned it'd be a good idea to make this kind of site a permanent feature used for all Forge-related convention events; the work is largely synergical between different conventions, the conventions repeat year after year, and you can't tell if people will be following up on the convention a week or three months after the convention, so it has to be kept up pretty long anyway.)

Matt: glad to have you on board. You say you'll be "using a similar scenario at Spiel". Do I understand correctly that you'll be coming personally? If so, most excellent, and I'll promptly ignore your game in favor of others with less focused representation as far as worrying about demos is concerned ;) However, if you want me to work with your game in some manner (as you might, I don't know), I fear you'll have to provide me with the text, as I'm not familiar with it yet. I'd prefer to have passing familiarity just so I can speak confidently about all the product, but if you're coming yourself it's not strictly necessary.

[Frank T]

Eero, don't worry about the website. Someone will probably contact you soon to get the text and pictures from your PDF for the website, but we are taking care of everything else.

- Frank

[Matt Machell]

You say you'll be "using a similar scenario at Spiel". Do I understand correctly that you'll be coming personally? If so, most excellent, and I'll promptly ignore your game in favor of others with less focused representation as far as worrying about demos is concerned ;)

Yes, that probably needs clarifying. :) Since it's a hop skip and jump to Germany from the UK, I'll be there in person. I'd originally planned to booth monkey for other folks, but since Covenant is out, I decided to go all in. So yes, focus on other people's demos, as I can demo it myself in English.

PM me and I can see about sorting you with a copy of the text.

-Matt

[Martin Higham]

If you're desperate for Mortal Coil info then its probably worth listening to Brennan's GenCon demo at the Sons of Kryos website (http://www.sonsofkryos.com/). There's a good Deaths Door demo there too.

Since I have a set of Mortal Coil rules I've jotted down a few words to help you fill out the directory

Play Equipment - Poker Chips, lots of them. Pens/Pencils etc.

At the start of a game of Mortal Coil the GM and players create a Theme document that defines the play setting and world. It's a magical world. How much magic is determined by by you the players.  However, the effects of the supernatural are not specifically defined by the rules. They are defined by the GM and players during theme and character creation and during play. Who your characters are will become apparent during  theme creation. All characters have one thing in common, they are driven by the Passions of duty, fear, hate and love.
Mortal Coil features a diceless system that uses tokens for conflict resolution. No more bad luck or critical rolls. When faced with a situation you need to overcome you decide how hard your character will try to overcome it. Your Passions reinforce your actions. Tension is maintained during conflict as you don't know how much you opponent is willing to risk to win.

Martin

[Steve Segedy]

Frank,

This may not be the right thread for this question- and in fact, you may have answered this elsewhere- but I'm wondering what the plan is for handling unsold stock and profits from book sales.  I'm assuming that funds can be transferred back through Paypal, but you might have something else in mind.  Likewise, I'm assuming that shipping books back to the states will be expensive, and so we might want to handle it differently. 

Of course, hopefully there won't be any unsold stock, but still, better to have a plan...

Thanks
Steve

[Frank T]

Hi Steve,

I already emailed Jason about this, but since it's interesting to everyone:

I will do the accounting and hope to have everything straight a week or so after Spiel, so I can see who has made profit, how much of the funding was used up, how many books are left, and so forth. After that, you'll get a detailed breakdown, and I will transfer the money I owe you via PayPal.

Regarding left-over stock, we'll see how much that winds up being and if Eero can take all of it with him to Finland to sell it there. Because of shipping costs and import sales tax, I do not recommend shipping the books back to the States. I think Dani and Yvonne can take some books with them to Stuttgart where there is another con a week after Spiel. Whatever can't be handled that way, I will take to Hamburg and contact you to figure something out, which might include selling it to local retailers, or using it to carry out orders from Europe that go to IPR or your websites.

Best, Frank

[Steve Segedy]

Thanks for the information, Frank.  I hope all goes well with the convention!  If Bully Pulpit can do anything else to help, just let us know.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Thanks for the MC details, Martin. I got the rules from Brennan, so I think I'm good on that account.

I finally managed to take the time to write some components for my Universalis demo. Anybody interested can help hammer it to shape at a new thread.

The rest of the games already have some kind of tried and true demo materials, so with them I'll just do some minor compilation and quality control. I'll post any useful results here.