Indiecon 08 - 7th-9th November - UK

[leonidas300]

Dear members and guests,

Indiecon has now been announced and its website is up and running: www.indiecon.net

When? 7th-9th November
Where? Naish Holiday Park, Dorset, UK
Why? Play tomorrow's games today and old favourites
Who? We have accomodation for around 500 people

This is your event, whether you are a game publisher/designer or just love playing games.

Trade: a combined Indie Trade Stand will be made available to all indie-publishers. Please check out our contact details on the site if you wish to have some representation. Small Press Publishers can also request their own dedicated demo table and stand.

Demos and Events: you can run pretty much whatever you want. The main hall will give priority to Indie Games, whereas all other areas will accomodate mainstream games if requested.

Publishers/future publishers get a chance to playtest their creations over 3 days.

Get in touch for more info.

Chris

[Paul Czege]

Hey Chris,

It sounds great. I'm in the States. Can anyone in your sphere provide information on taxes/fees/VAT/etc. and forms/declarations/responsibilites/hurdles an American indie publisher would need to deal with to bring game books into the country for sale at Indiecon? Specifically, I'm looking for a walk-through for bringing books into the country for sale that lays out the options and makes recommendations.

Thanks,

Paul

[Eero Tuovinen]

Hey, UK is in EU, more or less? Then the import duties should be the same for them as they are for us. Here are some insights from Finland:

• The main issues in importing would be import duties and the Value Added Tax, which are paid at the customs if pertinent. Then there's also the matter of possible taxes and such while engaged in business inside the country.
• When your produce has been brought into a country inside EU it's considered "native", and may be transferred freely between countries here. The same holds true if your product has been produced here, which might be pertinent if any of you find it useful to just print and stock the stuff in Europe. (Especially those who use Lulu might find this important.) you'll still have to deal with VAT at that point, though.
• My current impression is that there is no duties set for import of books in EU. Our last shipment didn't have duties, anyway. However, you still need to pay the VAT for them when bringing them. In Finland that is 8% of the value of the shipment. A business can deduct the VAT payment from its own VAT dispatch, though, at least here in Finland. I have no idea how that works when the business is from outside the union. Also remember to only pay the VAT for the value of your books, which is the price at which you yourself got them; the rest of the cover price is value you add with your own marketing work, which in theory shouldn't be paid for at the border.
• The trickiest part of this stuff is taxation for work done in EU, really. I'm not an expert by any means, so this might go either way: you are supposed to pay VAT for the sales you do in Finland to Finland, but taxes are rubbish as far as rules design is concerned, so I can find material indications for going the other way as well when the seller doesn't have a permanent base of operations here. Either way, UK is a different kettle of fish when it comes to taxation of business activities in the country, and I wouldn't be terribly shocked if a small-time enterpreneur decided to ignore the heartfelt request of the taxman to register yourself for taxation.

Looking at the above, one procedural recommendation that would make things simple would be this:

• Ship your stock to an UK-based fellow who already does business there. Have him take care of the customs and VAT expenses. Ideally their business allows them to deduct some unrelated expenses of their own from the VAT, anyway.
• Come yourself, make sales and so on. Have your UK-based ally take care of the accounts; they already operate a business there, so they know which taxes they're supposed to pay and so on.
• Have the natives pay you for any of the sold stock, but do let them keep any money they spent on VAT and such for you. You can both mark this down in the books as a retail relationship, even if your UK ally isn't making any profit, really. That latter part might be a problem if they suffer extra taxes for the extra revenue caused by this, but that depends on the country's revenue taxation system, on which the local ally is the perfect person to illuminate you.
• Take any unsold stock back with you. Fight with your own tax officers about paying VAT for the stuff that only "visited" another country. The procedures involved go over my head, wouldn't want to try that.

If you want to handle the whole business yourself, the procedure would be this:

• Register as a VAT payer for the country where you're going to sell stuff. This step is, as I explain above, highly questionable; lots of people in the world sell all kinds of still every day without paying VAT in the country they're supposed to. The theoretical basis is that you should be paying VAT for the transaction in some country, but if you're not paying VAT in your own country for some reason anyway, you might not feel that bad for skipping this step here, either. If you decide to do it, it's a matter of filling some paperwork, at least here in Finland.
• Come to Europe with your stock. Try and see if you can pass off the 50 copies of your game as "gifts" to dodge VAT. Alternatively, pay it like a man, especially if you decided to do that first step; you're going to deduct this tax from the rest anyway, so you might as well pay it.
• Sell your stock in Europe. Keep accounts, as you're going to need them for taxation.
• Assuming you decided to do that first step, fill a form that tells the tax man of the country in question how much you sold and how much should be paying in VAT. Remember to add any VAT you have already paid either directly (as in, going through the customs two steps back) or when buying services in the country (anything having to do with your business, really; even buying dice counts), as that is all deducted from the VAT you need to pay at this step. If you've ended up already paying more VAT than the 8% of the cover price of your games, then good for you.
• Go back home and fight with your friendly local customs official to figure out whether you need to pay more at the border for bringing back your left-over stock. I really have no idea how that part works.
• Don't forget to tell the tax man of your target country that you're probably not going to have any operations there for a while afterwards. At least here in Finland the VAT forms are sent monthly, so the tax official might get suspicious if you manage to start paying but stop after the first month without explaining at all.

That's all a bit vague, mostly because it wouldn't be that useful for me to give details on the Finnish system. But the gist of it is clearly that as far as I know, VAT is the only tax that you should be paying into the country where you make the sale; any other taxes are between you and your own government. Meanwhile, at the border they're only interested in import limitations and quarantines (not an issue with books), duties (not and issue) and VAT, which is paid for anything that crosses the border for commercial purposes. While the border controls are strict enough to get a guy into trouble, everybody is best off deciding for themselves whether their business is big enough to make it worthwhile to start hunting for exact advice on how to go about that VAT thing; the best advice on that can be had from your own country's tax officials, or perhaps that of the target country where you're going to conduct your business.

[leonidas300]

I think that Eero's post is very comprehensive and clearly identifies some of the considerations to be taken into account. The key is to determine how you wish to be represented, i.e. if you intend to come in person or have us stock you game(s) and represent you. The aim is to offer exposure on our joint stock stand/booth as well as potentially run demos. I guess one of the key questions is identifying if you have players in the UK who could do your game justice and give it the exposure it deserves.

Thoughts/comments welcome

Chris

[Eero Tuovinen]

Looking at what I wrote, I'm probably coming off as more authoritative than I intended. I don't have any personal experience with travelling to another country to sell my games, so what I know is mostly based on theoretical understanding of EU free trade laws and the procedures for doing in-country trading here in Finland. If I were going to UK myself to do sales, I'd certainly have to double-check a thing or two to make sure I understand what I'm doing.

Speaking of which: it's far from impossible for me to come to that convention. When will it be pertinent for us to start preparing for it? What are the mandatory expenses (tickets, sales space) like for an indie publisher? Who lives near the convention area, speaking of forgies? Anybody want a nice house-guest? Is the convention interested in lectures and/or workshops? Will the Collective Endeavour be participating? Does it look like it would be valuable for somebody with my skill-set to participate, or will there be more than enough forgite expertise around anyway?

A more specific question that directly impacts at least one possible model under which I could justify attending: would it be considered "indie" if I just saddled myself with a selection of the finest American indie games and came to the convention to sell and demo them? Does the commercial relationship between me and the original designer affect the judgement? As in, does it matter whether I've bought the stock from the designer or am selling on consignment? Or would inclusion in the indie pricing scheme and sales area require selling your own games, solely?

At first glance an UK convention around November would fit my schedules pretty well, so even if I don't usually travel a lot, I'm tempted to participate. If there's wider interest from American and/or European hobbyists, especially of the kind that would make participation more feasible financially, I'll certainly consider this seriously. Something like the Essen Spiel presence in '06 could work, for instance. Especially so if I solve the production challenges for my zombie game before then and can sell that as well as games from other people.

[leonidas300]

Looking at what I wrote, I'm probably coming off as more authoritative than I intended. I don't have any personal experience with travelling to another country to sell my games, so what I know is mostly based on theoretical understanding of EU free trade laws and the procedures for doing in-country trading here in Finland. If I were going to UK myself to do sales, I'd certainly have to double-check a thing or two to make sure I understand what I'm doing.

Speaking of which: it's far from impossible for me to come to that convention. When will it be pertinent for us to start preparing for it? What are the mandatory expenses (tickets, sales space) like for an indie publisher? Who lives near the convention area, speaking of forgies? Anybody want a nice house-guest? Is the convention interested in lectures and/or workshops? Will the Collective Endeavour be participating? Does it look like it would be valuable for somebody with my skill-set to participate, or will there be more than enough forgite expertise around anyway?

A more specific question that directly impacts at least one possible model under which I could justify attending: would it be considered "indie" if I just saddled myself with a selection of the finest American indie games and came to the convention to sell and demo them? Does the commercial relationship between me and the original designer affect the judgement? As in, does it matter whether I've bought the stock from the designer or am selling on consignment? Or would inclusion in the indie pricing scheme and sales area require selling your own games, solely?

At first glance an UK convention around November would fit my schedules pretty well, so even if I don't usually travel a lot, I'm tempted to participate. If there's wider interest from American and/or European hobbyists, especially of the kind that would make participation more feasible financially, I'll certainly consider this seriously. Something like the Essen Spiel presence in '06 could work, for instance. Especially so if I solve the production challenges for my zombie game before then and can sell that as well as games from other people.

I appreciate your efforts to shed light on the representation situation and I think that you have given readers some useful food for thought.

We would love to welcome you to our event and we plan to make this as accessible financially for any indie-publisher/small press publisher who wishes to join in. The idea is that you cover your accomodation costs (which will remain reasonable I can assure you). If you run enough events to warrant you getting your own table then that is part of the package at no cost. If you have enough stock and titles of your own to warrant your own trade table then you will get one (provided that you get in fast with an accomodation booking - due to go up within a few weeks). If however you do not have a series of titles out, then you can get your stock on the joint indie trade stand where many others will have their items for sale.

I am keen if you wish to approach other members to get stock to the con, then we can discuss how we go about this.

The key idea is to have as many people as possible come to the event and certainly foreign guests would really add to it. Indiecon is trying to make the whole thing affordable for both players and small-press guys.

Chris

[leonidas300]

Dear all,

bookings are starting to come in and we are keen to know if any Forge members wish to have a demo table and/or stock representation at Indiecon.

Chris

[Eero Tuovinen]

Still far from impossible, but I think I'll worry my head with this after Gencon.

I also encourage interested Americans to say their piece here - if I'm going, I'd be happy to take on some extra product to demonstrate and sell. I'm not likely to move without 2-3 accomplices here in Europe, so we'll have plenty of reliable and knowledgeable workforce for this.

[Graham W]

The Collective Endeavour will be at Indiecon. At the moment, that means Andrew Kenrick, Rich Stokes and myself, but possibly others, too.

We'll have a stall, run games and so on.

Graham

[mick red]

Greetings all
My club are attending Indiecon and from a customers perspective it would be great to see some US/Euro publishers there, the costing is cheap enough with a room for four nights and a con pass at around £50 total!!!!

Any companies wishing to have thier games represented that cannot actually make it i will make the following offer.
My club the Portsmouth Guild of Roleplayers http://www.ukroleplayers.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=23
will run a four hour demo of any game for any company that contacts us, so even if unable to attend you can have a presence

[leonidas300]

Greetings all
My club are attending Indiecon and from a customers perspective it would be great to see some US/Euro publishers there, the costing is cheap enough with a room for four nights and a con pass at around £50 total!!!!

Any companies wishing to have thier games represented that cannot actually make it i will make the following offer.
My club the Portsmouth Guild of Roleplayers http://www.ukroleplayers.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=23
will run a four hour demo of any game for any company that contacts us, so even if unable to attend you can have a presence

Well that is an excellent offer if ever I have seen one. Just to add to this, these guys are excellent gamers with a broad taste for games and dynamic GM's who really put the hard work in and I have seen them in action in a few conventions.

Chris

[leonidas300]

Dear members, we have one 12 ft or two 6ft trade stalls left for indiecon and one of these has already been reserved but not booked.

We are also looking for gamers who wish to play the following games:

Here is the current list of all those who have confirmed their attendance:

Sceaptune Games: Runequest Modules and the Hyperlite-SF game debut
Collective Endeavour: Steampower Publishing, Umlaut, Contested Ground, Box Ninja, Giant Brain...
Twisted Chronicles: excellent vampire-based game - this is definately not a case of "more of the same" - try this one out.
Greywood Publishing: Adventure Gamebooks, CONDOR, Qerp, Hogshead books...
Cursed Empire: new rules tests, old favourites and a few new scenarios for those who have played damn well everything + Dave Moore's Excellent "Soulgate Saga" series.
Reapers Revenge: yes, Bob the diceman is back!
Pagan Angel: all that glitters is gold!
BITS: running their usual amount of great games
Artemis Blacks: excellent minis range with many indie minis companies represented,
Exile Games Studio: HEX exclusives heavily supported by Mick and the Pompey Crew
Pelgrane Press: John Amos of "Conception and many events" will be running some Dying Earth on their behalf.
Warrior Elite Games: The Edadh Chronicles CG.
Postmortem Studios: Grim will be there to run some great games.
Terror Bull Games: represented by Cursed Empire.
Cubicle Seven: Victoriana, Doctor Who, SLA Industries, Starblazer... - Angus and team will be there to make this a great event.
Leisure Games: Indie Trade stand particularly for those who cannot make it themselves (sample list below for which we should have people to demo games):

Adept Press (Ron Edwards), Trollbabe, Sorcerer.
Black and Green Games (Emily Care Boss), Breaking the Ice, Shooting the Moon.
Dog Eared Design (Matt Wilson), Primetime Adventures.
Evilhat Productions (Quite a few guys), Spirit of the Century, Don't Rest your Head.
Half-Meme Press (Paul Czege), My Life with Master.
Lumpley Games (Vincent Baker), Dogs in the Vineyard, Poison'd.
Muse of Fire Games (Tony Lower-Basch), Capes.
One-Seven Design (John Harper), Agon.
These Are Our Games (Ben Lehman), Polaris

Stealthy Spider: under review

And there are more to be confirmed shortly.

There will also be a lot of DOGs and some CCG: confirmed D&D 4e, CoC and Magic.

Anybody else?

Chris

[Gregor Hutton]

Oh, I'll be there and I'm looking forward to it a lot.

See you at the show!

-Gregor