What are my options for selling at GenCon 2010?

[hoefer]

If you already read my "Connections" post, you know that I'm a desperate man seeking a cheap way to have a few copies of my products available at GenCon Indy.  I've read Ron's post on ashcan space, but even $75 is a potential loss for me (I would have to sell more than 5 copies to just break even and I'm not sure that will happen with the economy the way it is).  The GPA has upped their shelf buy-in as well, making it dicey for me.  Anyone have any suggestions?  Are there consolidators who will sell products just for a convention?  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!


Louis Hoefer
Whole Sum Entertainment
www.wholesumentertainment.com

[Eero Tuovinen]

The first thing that comes to mind is that I'm pretty sceptical about you not being able to sell five copies at Gencon. This isn't intended to be offensive, but is there something wrong with your product? You're saying that your plan is to spend the whole Gencon essentially marketing your product, but you still say that you're expecting to sell only one copy per day. This seems a pretty low bar to set to me. For comparison, five sold copies is what I'd expect to get from a 100-person convention in inland Finland, one where I'd mostly play games instead of trying to sell anything. I realize that I probably have a somewhat different situation in terms of product, contacts and marketing, but the Forge booth you mention usually manages to sell the five copies of everything there through Gencon. If the designer is there himself, I have difficulty seeing how he could not sell five copies per day, minimum.

That out of the way, have you tried Indie Press Revolution? They take a cut of the sales instead of a set fee, and while they won't market your game in any active manner, they'll sell it to anybody who'll come by for it after your demo session. IPR reserves the option to not stock just anything, but in my experience they're pretty good about accepting reasonably well-made indie stuff into their line-up.

I have to say that from everything I've seen about your operation the Forge booth seems just right for you: it's one of the more affordable solutions around, has an effective sales organization, a good image with cachet as a customer destination and plenty of other people who are in the same exact position as you are. From what I see of your product at your website I'd be reasonably confident about covering the booth fee at the very least, bad economy or not.

(By the way: proofread your website, there are quite a number of spelling mistakes there. It leaves a suspect taste in the mouth for a random visitor for no good reason.)

[Nathan P.]

First, five copies is totally achievable, assuming you put effort towards some kind of presence-building. That can be drumming up interest online before the convention, being at a booth with it and talking to punters, getting someone with a lot of friends excited about the game and having them spread the word, etc.

Another option is to come as an attendee, meet people, play your game with them and then sell it to them afterwards out of your backpack. I'm pretty sure you can't do this in the exhibitor hall proper due to Gen Con rules, but after-hours gaming at a hotel (Embassy Suites, or arranging your games beforehand, or whatever) is just people hanging out. And/or you could set up shop at the Games On Demand room for a day, run demos of your game and take orders there, (again, might have to actually physically go elsewhere for transactions, but whatever).

Or, turn it into a promotion. Run a "send me to gen con " presale - if you need to sell 5 copies to cover your cost, make a goal of selling 10 copies at a reduced price point to people who buy it ahead of time, and either have it there for them to pick up, or send them a PDF immediately and they can get their print copy in person, whatever.

Don't get me wrong, it is possible to sell only 1 or 2 copies of a game at a booth at Gen Con. But, in my experience (two years of Forge Booth/IPR, two years of Design Matters), that only happens for games more than 2 years old, without the designer present. If it's new hotness (which is what Gen Con is all about), and you're enthusiastic about it, you will be able to move more than 5 copies.

Hope that helps!

[Nathan P.]

Read your other post, figured I'd make an amendment or two:

- if your stuff is (for example) at the Forge booth, it will be easier for people to find than it was/would be at the GPA. I know whenever I've gone by the GPA booth it's like OMGTOOMANYBOOKS.

- coupons. If you're already demoing your games (which is great), set up a "special" webpage with a 10% (or whatever) discounted price and give everyone who plays a coupon with that URL on it. You want to make the path from their interest to them getting your game the shortest it can be, and that path can be a takeaway coupon card that they find in their pocket later and go "hey, i did like that game, and here's a coupon!"

- additonally/alternately, at the end of a demo explain "I wasn't able to get into the exhibitors hall this year, but I would love to sell you my game. If you want to order it now, I will send you the PDF tonight and mail it out after Gen Con." Couldn't hurt. In this case, I would offer free shipping for the inconvenience. This is assuming you're not interested in selling out of your backpack.

Again, hope something in there helps!

[hoefer]

The first thing that comes to mind is that I'm pretty sceptical about you not being able to sell five copies at Gencon. This isn't intended to be offensive, but is there something wrong with your product? You're saying that your plan is to spend the whole Gencon essentially marketing your product, but you still say that you're expecting to sell only one copy per day. This seems a pretty low bar to set to me. For comparison, five sold copies is what I'd expect to get from a 100-person convention in inland Finland, one where I'd mostly play games instead of trying to sell anything. I realize that I probably have a somewhat different situation in terms of product, contacts and marketing, but the Forge booth you mention usually manages to sell the five copies of everything there through Gencon. If the designer is there himself, I have difficulty seeing how he could not sell five copies per day, minimum.

I don't know...  There are two things I can swear by without seconded guessing myself, 1) Demo's of Century's Edge always go well.  I have yet to get any negative feedback after a game, and average 1-3 out of 6-8 players that want to stick around and complement me on the game and ask additional information.  2) The material in the book is exceptionally complete, there are so many little "extras" I've tried to add so that when reading through the book a player would be just flooded with campaign ideas, references, and possibilities.

As far as something wrong with the book, there are a few things I have tried to improve for the second print-run and a few things that many people in the industry told me was not in the best interest of publishing.  1) the book (like my site) has some typos -I've corrected a lot of these for the second run, and the first run's not terrible, but unfortunately I couldn't afford an editor and I am damn pitiful at catching my own mistakes.  I don't think this is to the point that it detracts too much from the value of the book and as I've said the second print run will eliminate many of these.  2) The printer for the first print run really wasn't set up to handle the file size of the book (it is a 436 page 8.5 x 11 book with lots of gray scale art and many fancy fonts that gave his copier/printer a rough time) as a result some of the books just don't seem as professional as I would like (I've pulled most of these for personal use and as swag for local demos etc.).  3) Most industry-types told me (during the development phase) that the book was too big and should be broken down into multiple books/supplements.  They pointed out that my ~35 dollar book could be made into 2 $20 books or 3 $15 books and the price point would drive more sales and the over all take would be higher.  At the time I was like, "No, as a player of RPGs I want the necessary information all in one book -supplements should be for optional stuff or material that changes part of the game.  My favorite RPG books are ones that are solid like this and that's the type of book I want to make..."  -Arrogant and probably bad business to be sure, but I really do like the book I've made and most people are blow away by its content.  Conversely, it is possible the "bulk" of it might scare away some players, but I don't think there are a lot of Victorian enthusiasts that would be scared away by 436 pages -and those are my target audience.

That out of the way, have you tried Indie Press Revolution? They take a cut of the sales instead of a set fee, and while they won't market your game in any active manner, they'll sell it to anybody who'll come by for it after your demo session. IPR reserves the option to not stock just anything, but in my experience they're pretty good about accepting reasonably well-made indie stuff into their line-up.

I have not tried them yet.  I will have to look into this option -thanks!

I have to say that from everything I've seen about your operation the Forge booth seems just right for you: it's one of the more affordable solutions around, has an effective sales organization, a good image with cachet as a customer destination and plenty of other people who are in the same exact position as you are. From what I see of your product at your website I'd be reasonably confident about covering the booth fee at the very least, bad economy or not.

Thanks for the encouragement.  Perhaps I need to rationalize-away more of my fears/lack of confidence.  I am a really weak sales person, but very creative and pretty good at GMing that's one reason I want to stay out from behind a counter and at the gaming tables...

(By the way: proofread your website, there are quite a number of spelling mistakes there. It leaves a suspect taste in the mouth for a random visitor for no good reason.)

Yes, I just looked through (dumping the stuff into MS Word) and there's a lot there that needs fixed...  Oh, to have another set of eyes working for me...  Well, I'll be updating the site with new material soon, so I'll have to take care of that.


Louis Hoefer
Whole Sum Entertainment
www.wholesumentertainment.com 

[Gregor Hutton]

Perhaps I need to rationalize-away more of my fears/lack of confidence.  I am a really weak sales person, but very creative and pretty good at GMing that's one reason I want to stay out from behind a counter and at the gaming tables...

Hey Louis,
I just wanted to highlight this very reflective and insightful point from your post.

I think that rather than trying to be all things to all people we should be realistic about our strengths and weaknesses, and play to our strengths. I have seen many sales at GenCon happen in different ways -- different things work for different people.

For you, I would stick with the plan of running games and letting people enjoy the experience. That is the sales tool for you. Then have something that they can easily take away with them with your contact/game details. If you can have a booth number on then good, if not point them to where they can buy it online or through mail order. Tell them what you just said in that post. Everything they need is in the book because that's what you like. Have a copy of the game that they can broswe through at the gaming table. Encourage them to use it as a resource in game.

In my opinion a simple leaflet or card with details works far better when given at the end of a game session than when left on a table or handed out to anyone and everyone. (And by the way, blanket flyering is not allowed by GenCon, so that's another reason not to do it -- but as I don't think it works very well anyway, it's not a great loss of marketing in my opinion).

[hoefer]

Thanks for the advice/affirmation.  I usually print the character sheets for the cons on nice cardstock and fill-in the picture area with the information for my website, etc.  (then point it out after the game for those wanting to download the adventure or wanting more information on the system).  I think this year I will make it some kind of coupon for booth sales or maybe make a special code for discounted internet purchases.  Has the "forge booth" ever dealt with coupons distributed at the cons before? (obviously this question goes out to Ron and the other trailblazers, if they happen to be reading this thread).  I'm starting to reassess the $75 shelf fee too, even if I were to take a loss, that sort of money is only pizza and beer for month or so, not enough to get uppity about. 

Louis Hoefer
Whole Sum Entertainment
www.wholesumentertainment.com

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Louis,

You can work out whatever price schedule you want for selling at the Forge booth. There is absolutely no umbrella policy; the booth exists as a venue for however you want to sell it. If you want to do the demo/coupon thing, then you certainly can, and I stress that this is not a matter of "permission."

I do want to make sure you know that the Forge booth is now reduced in scope, as I described in [GenCon 2010] Forge booth, first thread. If your game is in what you consider "fully published" form, then the booth is no longer available for it. This is a big change from the past - I consider the booth's original mission to have been accomplish, and in my judgment, it no longer serves people very well in launching their new game. IPR or other spin-off booths are better venues.

However, if your game is still in development, and you'd like to use the booth as a means for generating customer attention and participation in the final playtesting stages, then by all means, please do consider it. I think Vincent and I have some effective plans for helping people with this specific stage.

I do think you should consider dividing your time between demonstration games and the booth. It's very, very hard to represent the book in your absence without some modeling on your part to observe, and people really do come to the booth to see the designer in person, either for games they know about or those they find there. The single overriding factor in lower or no success at the Forge booth is that the designer thinks I'm there to sell their game for them.

Finally, if in some way you were to have the game for sale at more than one booth at the con, you should also know that I don't care about that. I do not insist on exclusivity. Others might, but I do not.

Best, Ron

[hoefer]

Well, I would imagine the "Forge Booth" is out for me then, because my book is already published and has been selling for over a year.  I need to get my but in gear and find out more about IPR -I remember getting info on them at the beginning of my journey into game publishing but I remember very little.  Just as a curious side note, would the Forge Booth house a game that's still in the "pre-published state" that is by a publisher who already has a different game in the published state?  I could see that as being a nice venue down the road to generate some preliminary buzz/external playtesting for a product.  Thanks for setting me straight on the booth's mission/function I somehow didn't pick up on that point when I first read the post.


Louis Hoefer
Whole Sum Entertainment
www.wholesumentertainment.com

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Louis,

I'm glad I clarified that. It's likely to be confusing because until this exact year the policies were totally different.

Also, the answer to your question is "yes." If you have a game-in-development that you'd like to promote at the Forge booth, and you'd like to sign on for that, then you can - it doesn't matter what else you've published or where it's being sold.

Best, Ron

[Darrenwatts]

Hoefer- Hero Games is once again managing the GPA Showcase booth at Gencon (as well as at Origins.) If you have any questions about that option, you can contact me directly: darren "at" herogames dot com. dw