State of the Industry for Indie Games?

[Cynthia Celeste Miller]

As many of you may know, we're gearing up for the Cartoon Action Hour hardcopy edition.  We're going through a publisher for this, given our lack of funds.

That said, what (generally speaking) can we expect in terms of sales?  The CAH PDF has sold far more than I could've imagined, so is this indicative of how it will do on the game store shelves?

Also, how well do small press games tend to sell at conventions?

We plan on utilizing an aggressive marketing plan so perhaps this will come into play?  I'm not out to make it rich, but a little profit would be nice.

Thanks in advance.  =0)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Cynthia,

If I'm not mistaken, the climate has never been better for self-published and/or small press games.

1) Many retailers are willing to spend a bit of money on a niche game; they're looking for "something different." Industry hype to the contrary, most of the ones I know are cranky about D20 and want at least something else to have around. Most importantly, they are focusing on titles and concepts, not on company affiliation (unlike ~5 years ago).

2) Production costs are reasonably low, if you learn to bid for printers and if you avoid gimmicks. Also, review the concept of print runs and breakpoints - printing too little is unlikely and at worst inconvenient; printing too much is a significant danger.

3) Avenues for distribution exist - but you must, must have an experienced person dedicated to getting your game into distribution.

4) Internet promotion at the company website and hobbyists forums, most especially RPG.net, is tremendously effective and can provide a "low hum" of internet sales that tides you through the peaks and valleys of the distribution orders.

Best,
Ron

[Jeffrey Miller]

3) Avenues for distribution exist - but you must, must have an experienced person dedicated to getting your game into distribution.

Ok, who's gonna post the link to a thread here about distribution? ;)

[Pramas]

As many of you may know, we're gearing up for the Cartoon Action Hour hardcopy edition.  We're going through a publisher for this, given our lack of funds.

That said, what (generally speaking) can we expect in terms of sales?  The CAH PDF has sold far more than I could've imagined, so is this indicative of how it will do on the game store shelves?

Your average small press game sells in the neighborhood of 1,000 copies. If you sell 2K, that's very good. If you sell 3K, it's a hit. If you sell 5K, it's a break-out hit.

Con sales very widely, depending the type and size of the con and the number of products you have to offer. GenCon and some other shows offer discount booths for "one product" companies. That can be an affordable way to do your first GenCon.

Whether or not a con is profitable largely depends on what you spend on the booth, plus travel and hotel. It's entirely likely you'll lose money on cons for quite some time, but they are worth doing from a marketing POV. The chance to direclty interact with the fanbase is usually worthwhile.

It's also well worth your time to attend the GAMA Trade Show in Las Vegas. This is your chance to talk to the most pro-active retailers around, and meet with distributor reps. And hey, it's Vegas!

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Chris,

Welcome to the Forge! Great to see you here. I have a couple minor clarifications of your point for people who may not be familiar with the biz and its reference terms.

The first is the meaning of "copies sold." Chris is referring to copies transferred to a distributor's warehouse, regardless of customers' transactions at stores. One cannot expect to move many copies to the distributors, over time, without store sales, but the two things (publishers selling to distributors vs. stores selling to customers) should never be confused.

The second is the issue of time and debt, for which I'll use my game as an example. It so happens that Sorcerer was not printed on margin - I paid up-front for the printing with ready funds, so I didn't have to rush to pay the printer from the game's own profits. The nice thing about that is that any copy sold, ever, is therefore profitable to me. It means that if my first printing took years and years to sell, no problem (just not much profit).

It so happens that the 1200-copy first print run of Sorcerer sold out (i.e. copies moved to distributors) just over a year past its release, and now the second printing is under way with plenty of indication that it'll sell over the next year in the same way. Works great for me.

However, if there's a time limit on the "profit point" of selling, then the need for a "hit" in the store sense becomes great. If that had been the case, and if Sorcerer had had to recoup its print costs in real money by (say) three months after release, then I'd have been in deep shit.

So bear in mind the debt of printing and the time-scale of profit/return when thinking about those numbers that Chris listed.

Best,
Ron

[Pramas]

Hi Chris,
The first is the meaning of "copies sold." Chris is referring to copies transferred to a distributor's warehouse, regardless of customers' transactions at stores. One cannot expect to move many copies to the distributors, over time, without store sales, but the two things (publishers selling to distributors vs. stores selling to customers) should never be confused.

Well, there is no way to track sales on the retail store level, nor is there likely to be one anytime soon. The majority of the gaming retailers would need to invest in POS systems and then be willing to share that information for us to be able to figure out what amount of product that's sold in to distributors is actually sold through in retail stores. Unless that happens (and I'm not holding my breath), manufacturers can only really talk about sales to distributors.

Now one can guess how things are selling through by looking at the pattern of reorders, but unfortunately that's the best we can do right now. So yes, when I say "sold", I mean sold to distributors. I do find your description of this a bit odd though, as the phrase "transferred to a distributor's warehouse" makes it sounds like they aren't real sales. Was that your inference or am I reading too much into your phraseology?

The second is the issue of time and debt, for which I'll use my game as an example. It so happens that Sorcerer was not printed on margin - I paid up-front for the printing with ready funds, so I didn't have to rush to pay the printer from the game's own profits. The nice thing about that is that any copy sold, ever, is therefore profitable to me. It means that if my first printing took years and years to sell, no problem (just not much profit).

I know you were trying to explain things to readers who maybe aren't familiar with the ins and outs of publishing, but don't you think you are going to confuse them further with this definition of profitable? Traditionally, a product isn't profitable until all the costs of its creation and production have been recouped. The fact that you paid up front for the print job doesn't make the game profitable in the general sense of the word.

[Paganini]

Woah! Chris! Totally OT, but man it's great to see you here. How are things going in the Dragon Fist community? It's definately an indie-rpg; maybe you could make a thread for it in one of the forums. Did you ever have any luck with that suppliment for 10th+ level play?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Chris,

I have no argument with anything you've said, it's all good.

1) I agree with you that sales to the distributor are the only things we (publishers) can track directly, at least not without some espionage and/or open communication with retailers (and yeah, I'm not holding my breath either). My goal is to clarify to would-be publishers that these are not sales to end-customers, which I've found is the usual assumption people bring to the Forge. The three-tier is a totally foreign concept to most role-players.

As long as our diction clarifies which sort of "sales" we mean, and I suppose that distributor-to-retailer should be added as a third candidate, and publisher-direct-to-consumer as a fourth, then I think it helps keep the dialogue clear for everyone.

I don't see much purpose in defining any one of them as "real" sales, so yeah, you read a bit too much radicalism into my phrase. I wasn't being very clear anyway. By "transferred to distributor warehouse," I'm describing the physical movement of the books; I agree with you, they are indeed sold.

2) "Profits ..." yeah, another tricky set of phrases. Per-unit profit is what I was concerned with in that paragraph. The whole damn game, though, yes, isn't profitable until costs are recouped. I agree. (The good news is that Sorcerer hit that mark quite early on.)

Paying up front for the print cost, though, is a big part of making this possible - it seems like a no-brainer, but when I found out how many RPG publishers print on margin, it made my hair stand on end.

Best,
Ron

[Pramas]

Woah! Chris! Totally OT, but man it's great to see you here. How are things going in the Dragon Fist community? It's definately an indie-rpg; maybe you could make a thread for it in one of the forums. Did you ever have any luck with that suppliment for 10th+ level play?

Dragon Fist is still basically a stealth game. You see it pop up in discussions fairly regularly, but there's not currently a real active community. Once Green Ronin got going, I never really had time to go back and do the Grandmaster rules. I do have a couple of tricks up my sleeve though, so don't give up hope.

[Pramas]

Hi Chris,
Paying up front for the print cost, though, is a big part of making this possible - it seems like a no-brainer, but when I found out how many RPG publishers print on margin, it made my hair stand on end.

You really do need a war chest before you get into publishing. I learned that the hard way when I started my first company. We just never had enough money to make the company work. When I started Green Ronin, I had enough money to pay for my first two products in their entirety.

[Gold Rush Games]

I learned that the hard way when I started my first company. We just never had enough money to make the company work. When I started Green Ronin, I had enough money to pay for my first two products in their entirety.

 Ohmigosh, I wholeheartedly concur! GRG has spent most of its existence playing "catch up" in terms of finances. If not for a second job and/or the wife working, we'd likely have thrown in the towel long ago. It's especially hard when those initial orders are nowhere near what you expect. Blech.